7 February 2011

£209,000 grant to take REWIND forward

A Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design project to document the evolution of electronic media arts and preserve important video artefacts has received £209,000 in funding.

REWIND seeks to address the gap in historical knowledge of video art, and investigates the first two decades of artists’ works using video. As there was a danger that many of the works might disappear because of their ephemeral nature and poor technical condition, the project conserves and preserves them, and enables further scholarly activity.

Following the successful research and archiving of UK video art by the original REWIND research project between 2004-2010, a new £209,000 grant from the Arts & Humanities Research Council (AHRC), will enable the team to embark upon REWINDItalia. This 28-month project will explore the important history and narratives of video art activity in Italy between 1968 and 1994.

Steve Partridge, Professor of Media Art and Dean of Research at DJCAD, part of the University of Dundee, is Principal Investigator on the REWINDItalia project.

He paid tribute to his collaborators, saying, 'This outcome would not have been possible without the input of academic colleagues in Italy over the past two years.

'Thanks to them I have realised how the direct involvement of the pioneers of video art in Italy during the period was vitally important, that these far-sighted and amazing people were responsible for the early success of video work. They have all supported our proposal to re-discover this overlooked activity.

'I refer to Maria Gloria Conti Bicocchi; Paolo Cardazzo; and Lola Bonora. Last but not least I am grateful for the advice and support of my artist friend Luigi Viola, Professor at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Venezia.'

Dr Anna Notaro Lecturer and Programme Leader in Contemporary Media Theory at DJCAD and co-investigator on the REWINDItalia project, added, 'As a native Italian I am particularly thrilled at the opportunity to establish a network of contacts with Italian leading academics, and practitioners, while assessing the Italian video centres’ influence on the development of video as a medium of choice in the contemporary digital media landscape.'

After re-mastering and archiving both single screen and installation work on Digital Betacam, the REWIND team deposit new masters at the University of Dundee and the Scottish Screen Archive. From the masters, DVD viewing copies form the basis of the REWIND Artists' Video Collection, for curatorial, scholarly and public access at the Visual Research Centre, Dundee Contemporary Arts.

The REWIND website - www.rewind.ac.uk - forms a database that contains detailed technical information, ephemera, reviews and critical texts on the artists and works, including paper archive, interviews, oral testimony, clips and still images from all the works with searchable index.

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