• Catalog Artists Videotapes from Electronic Arts Intermix 1975
• Statement by Howard Wise in Electronic Arts Intermix Videotapes 1982
• To visit the Electronic Arts Intermix website

Catalog Artists Videotapes from Electronic Arts Intermix 1975
A WORD ABOUT ELECTRONIC ARTS INTERMIX, INC.
Electronic Arts Intermix, Inc. was organized as a not-for-profit corporation under the laws of New York State to assist artists seeking to explore the potentials of the electronic media, particularly television, as a means of expression and communication. It has sponsored a number of projects in this field, including the Annual Avant Garde Festivals of New York and The Kitchen.

It is now concentrating on the establishment of the Artists Videotape Resource, which distributes artists videotape programs and operates the editing/post production facility where qualified artists may creatively edit their tapes.

One of the objectives of Electronic Arts Intermix is to help make it possible for educational institutions to expose students to creative personalities and their work through the wonderfully intimate medium of video, which permits a one-to-one relationship between the viewer and the subject which no other means of communication can achieve.

Another objective is to retrieve some of the excellent experimental programs which have been aired once or maybe a few times, and which otherwise would lie dormant, and to make these available to educational institutions in videocassette format, which permits their exhibition in the time and place desired.

Still another objective is to gain an audience for the artist so that the impact of his work may be enhanced and to enable him to generate income from his work to help cover his costs.

President of Electronic Arts Intermix, Inc. is Howard Wise, who organized the exhibition "TV as a Creative Medium," presented in May 1969, at the Howard Wise Gallery, N.Y. This was the first major manifestation of the then underground video movement.

John Trayna, Director of the Artists Videotape Resource, was until May 1974, Operations Director of Synapse, a closed circuit communications system of Syracuse, N.Y.

Flora Meyer, Assistant to the President, is a recent graduate of Temple University.

Electronic Arts Intermix, Inc. is supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts and the New York State Council on the Arts.

A WORD ABOUT THE VIDEOTAPE PROGRAMS
Electronic Arts Intermix, through the Artists Videotape Resource, makes available to Art Schools, Libraries, Museums, Universities and other educational and cultural institutions a broad spectrum of videotape programs made by independent artist-producers as well as works produced by artists-in-residence at three major centers concerned with experimental television; the National Center for Experiments in Television in San Francisco; the Public Television Station WGBH-TV, Boston, and its new Experimental Television Workshop; and WNET Channel 13's TV Laboratory, New York.

Also are included programs related to art such as the ten programs of the "Eye-to-Eye" series produced by WGBH in collaboration with the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; "Video-Variations" produced by WGBH and eight videoartists in concert with the Boston Symphony Orchestra; and programs by groups such as TVTV (Lord of the Universe) and The Ant Farm (The Cadillac Ranch Show); Dubuffet's animated painting COUCOU BAZAR at the Guggenheim; and video portraits and interviews of artists and art personalities.

The Programs are in 3/4" videocassette format.

The Artists Videotape Resource is supported by the National Endowment for the Arts and the New York State Council on the Arts.

A WORD ABOUT VIDEO
"Video" has generally come to mean "portable television" which became a reality when Sony introduced the "PortaPak" in 1968. This system uses 1/2 inch videotape instead of the 2 inch tape used in studio equipment. The smaller tape permits the use of the hand-held video camera and a portable battery-powered video tape recorder. The relatively inexpensive cost of the PortaPak puts the television medium in this form within the reach of artists, who were quick to understand its potentials as a medium of their expression.

The principal advantages of Video over other media are:

• The picture and the sound are recorded simultaneously on the magnetic tape, and thus are automatically in synch;
• There is no necessity of processing, and the tape may be played back immediately;
• The information on the tape maybe modified electronically, thus enabling the artist to extend the scope of his creative powers.
• Video operates silently

Statement by Howard Wise in Electronic Arts Intermix Videotapes, 1982
Dear Friend:
As we reviewed the tapes we have distributed over the last ten years while preparing this new catalogue, I began to appreciate what a treasure-house of programming we have accumulated in the room where the Master Tapes are stored. Ten years may be just a drop in the bucket of Universal Time, but it covers the fife span of video. The first video exhibition anywhere was Nam June Paik's show in Germany in 1963, "Exposition of Music-Electronic Television." However, it was not until Sony introduced its lightweight, low-cost "portable television" in 1967-68 that individual artist/ producers perceived that they could gain access to the television medium. This marked the birth of Video as we think of it today.

EAI's involvement in Video goes back to the days of the Howard Wise Gallery in New York, which since 1964 specialized in kinetic and electronic art. I included video works by Nam June Paik in the exhibitions "Lights in Orbit" (Feb. 1967) and "Festival of Lights" (Dec. 1967). Then, after researching "the state of the art," I mounted the first survey exhibition of video, "TV as a Creative Medium" (May/June 1969).

I was so fascinated by the potentials of video as an art medium that I decided to concentrate my energies on the exploration of these possibilities, and early in 1971 I closed my Gallery and formed Electronic Arts Intermix, Inc. as a not-for-profit corporation "to explore video as a means of personal expression and communication."

In this catalogue you will find over 225 carefully selected programs. Some were included in our 1973 catalogue. Others were added from time to time because they were particularly appropriate to our distribution. You will find works by artists who are new to our listings. Some are well-established as video artists, while others are relatively new to the field, but all are producing video works of great distinction.

One major contribution to television is rarely appreciated, and that is the development by video artists of a number of electronic devices (hardware) in their efforts to make the medium more amenable to their expression. Since 1969 a number of colorizers, video synthesizers, imagers and other special effects generators first devised by video artists, some working alone and others in collaboration with electronic technicians, have changed the look of television.

You will find many of these artist innovators represented in the EAI collection. Examples are Eric Siegel, Nam June Paik, Dan Sandin, Woody Vasulka and Bill Etra. Techniques developed by these rare individuals have since been used by network television and advertising agencies, demonstrating their importance to the field, and proving that Picasso had a good point when he said "the followers make the leaders."

We will be more than pleased to welcome you at our headquarters and to screen works for you from our collection. You may also see our sophisticated 3l4-inch Editing/ Post Production Facility which accommodates about 300 individual artist/ producers a year.

We look forward to the pleasure of seeing you. Just phone us so we may reserve the Viewing Room for you.

Howard Wise President