Chronology

Events at the Center for Media Study [founded 1972, since 1982: Department of Media Study] at State University of New York, Buffalo [SUNY, Buffalo] [in cooperation with Media Study/Buffalo - a non-profit organization founded by Gerald O'Grady in 1973]
 

Conferences

1972 [October 23-27]
National Conference on Teaching Resources of FIlm and Media
18 speakers. During the late 1960s and early 1970s, film education courses, offered then in only six institutions, expanded to 1500 institutions, new degree and doctoral programs had to be created.

1973 [March 22-25]
Buffalo Conference on Autobiography in the Independent American Cinema
Screenings and discussions with filmmakers and scholars, including Gerald O'Grady, Stan Brakhage, Jonas Mekas, Hollis Frampton: 14 filmmakers, four scholars. This recognized the gradual evolution from third-person cinema [theatrical actors] to second-person cinema [Neorealism, in which ordinary people played themselves] to first-person cinema or self-recording.

1973 [December 11-17]
Conference on Teaching Film-Making
30 film- and video-makers, 10 representatives of funding agencies. This dealt explicitly with those teaching experimental work, as independent media makers were becoming academic faculty members for the first time in American educational history.

1974 [February 16-18]
Women in Film and Media
12 film- and video-makers, three theorists and critics. This was the first conference of women film-makers in the United States.

1974 [November 21-22]
Education Communications Centers and the Television Arts
15 media artists and 10 speakers. This was an attempt to encourage colleges and universities to allow independent film-makers to use their high-cost facilities.

1975 [December 5-6]
Film Analysis Conference
An attempt to define the possibilities and limitations of film analysis.

1976 [February 28]
Film and Dreaming Conference: A Conference on the Analogy of Film and Dreams
With Thierry Kuntzel, Stan Brakhage, and Gerald O’Grady at the Department of Media Study at SUNY, Buffalo and Media Study/Buffallo. The conference explored the relation of film to dreams as narrative processes.

1976 [April 4-May 1]
Materials of Film Conference
With Tony Conrad, Jon Rubin, Hollis Frampton, Standish Lawder, and Paul Sharits at the Department of Media Study at SUNY, Buffalo and Media Study/Buffallo. The subject of the conference was the exploration of the new genre of film which approached the materials of the medium as subject matter.

1976 [August 15-21]
Design / Electronic Arts Conference
as part of the 1976 Summer Institute in the Making and Understanding of Film and Media, 20 artists, designers, and scholars presented new concepts of image and sound composition, and new designs for electronic tools, and new designs in communication, information, and data systems at the Department of Media Study at SUNY, Buffalo and Media Study/Buffallo.

1978 [February 22-25]
Contemporary Directions in the Public Affairs Documentary
23 film-makers from the United States, Great Britain, France, and Australia. This was an attempt to encourage new directions in documentaries about community concerns by using lightweight media.

1979 [February 22]
The Uses of Technology In The Arts
Participants: Paul Sharits »The Camera and Projector Shutters as Subject Matter«; Woody Vasulka »Digital Images«; Hollis Frampton »The Digital Image Laboratory at the Center for Media Study«, and Gerald O'Grady »Tecknowledge«.

1979 [September 30-October 8]
Middle East Filmmakers Project
12 professional feature filmmakers from Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon and Syria discuss their production and distribution problems.

1980 [March 23-30]
Strategies of Signification in Ethnographic Cinema
15 scholars and film-makers. This related to a retrospective of the films of David and Judith MacDougall.

1984 [December 8-9]
The Electronic Narrative
With Ernest Gusella, Brian Henderson, Gerald O'Grady, John Sanborn, and Woody Vasulka. The conference explored the alterations in storytelling as a result of new electronic technologies [video, home computer, videodisc] and the various forms of artistic expression [according to O'Grady]: 12 artists and scholars. An investigation and theorization of the new forms of electronic opera and interactive narrative.

1989 [April 5-26]
Construct and Construe: Faculty Work
Participants: Peter Weibel »Songs of the Pluriverse. Video Presentation and Discussion«; Tony Conrad »Network Society and Personal Pluralism: Video Presentation and other Digressions«; Paul Sharits »Razor Blades: Double-Screen Film and Discussion«; and Gerald O'Grady »Symbolic Action in The City by Steiner and Van Dyke: Screening and Lecture«.
 

Workshops/Seminars

1972-1979
Summer Institute in the Making, Knowing and Judging of Film/Media
supported by the National Endowment for the Arts, Public Media Program [14 courses, 200 participants each summer] at SUNY at Buffalo.

1975-1977
American Seminar in Film
Nine 3-day seminars with faculty and graduate students from Harvard University, New York University and the State University of New York at Buffalo, in addition to distinguished visiting filmmakers, scholars, and guests - 50 persons in all. This was an effort to determine what the nature of a university film and media curriculum should be.
 

Screenings/Exhibtions etc.

Video/Electronic Arts Series between 1976-1979 [brochures presented]

Selection:
29 Sept. 1976 Vito Acconci: Presentation and Discussion of The Red Tapes
11 Nov. 1976 Peter Campus: Tapes [Double Vision, Four Sided Tape etc.]
4 Nov. 1976 Aldo Tambellini: Presentation and Discussion of Work [6673, 10 Second Day, The Medium is the Medium]
9 Dec.1976 Alvin Lucier, David Tudor presenting works of John Cage
23/24 March 1977 Nam June Paik: Two Video Events [presentation and discussion of videotapes by Paik, opening of an installation]
20/21 March 1977 Steina: Presentation and Discussion of Videotapes
25 May 1977 John Baldessari: Presentation and Discussion of Videotapes
30 March 1977 Steina: From Cheektowaga to Tonawanda, A Travelogue in Three Chapters and other tapes
1/2 Nov. 1977 Bill Viola: Three Video Events, presentation of Videotapes from the Solomon Islands: Music, Dance and Ritual, Migration, Four Songs, and Memory Surfaces and Mental Prayers, informal screening and discussion
27 March 1978 Charlemagne Palestine: Presentation and Discussion of Video, Audio and Other Works
30 April 1978 Alvin Lucier: Performance of Queen of the South
17 Jan. 1979 Woody Vasulka: An Examination of Media’s Application to the Space, Performance and Myth of Operatic Forms
31 Jan. 1979 Gary Hill: Presentation and Discussion of Process Videotapes
 

Film Series

May-August 1976
American Film Series at Media Study/Buffalo with Department of Media Study at SUNY, Buffalo

1978/79
Evenings of New Film: Hollis Frampton: new work form the Magellan Cycle [26 April 1979]; further films by Vito Acconci, Hollis Frampton, Peter Kubelka, and John Baldessari, among others.
 

Professors

1972-1990 Gerald O'Grady
director

1973-1984 Hollis Frampton
Associate Professor for Film and Film History

1973-1992 Paul Sharits
Associate Professor for Film History and Analysis of Film

1973-1979 Woody Vasulka
Associate Professor for Video

1977-1979 Steina Vasulka
Adjunct Professor for Video

1977-1980 James Blue
Associate Professor for Documentary Film

1976-today Tony Conrad
Associate Professor for Video Production and Analysis

1984-1989 Peter Weibel
Associate Professor for Video and Digital Arts