19 September 2012
TATE Modern launch for REWIND book
A book celebrating the pioneers of video art in the UK, co-edited by Professor Stephen Partridge from Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design (DJCAD), will be launched at TATE Modern next week.
The REWIND project to exhume the lost history of the invention of British video art was led by Professor Partridge, Dean of Research at DJCAD, part of the University of Dundee, from 2004-10.
The book resulting from the project, REWIND: British Artists’ Video in the 1970s & 1980s will be launched at TATE Modern’s Starr Auditorium on Tuesday, 25th September. Edited by Professor Partridge and Professor Sean Cubitt from Goldsmiths, University of London, the book focuses on the projects findings.
In documenting the evolution of electronic media arts and preserving important video artifacts, REWIND has addressed a gap in historical knowledge of 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.
Professor Partridge said, "The book has already received tremendous interest and we trust will become essential reading to all those interested in this important artform of the late 20th century across the world."
The REWIND team re-mastered and archived important early single channel and installation works, interviewed artists, collected ephemera, curated exhibitions, distributed DVDs, developed conferences and built a strong web presence at www.rewind.ac.uk
This launch event will be attended by Professors Partridge and Cubbitt, along with some of the pioneers of UK video art and the curators, distributors, activists and writers who made it happen. Screenings of key works and presentations by special guests Siegfried Zielinski (Chair for Media Theory: Archaeology and Variantology of the Media at Berlin University of the Arts) and Grahame Weinbren (of the School of Visual Arts in New York, editor of the Millennium Film Journal).
Following the successful research and archiving of UK video art, with the original REWIND research project, a grant from the Arts ∧ Humanities Research Council (AHRC), has seen the project team to embark upon REWINDItalia. This 28-month project explores the important history and narratives of video art activity in Italy between 1968 and 1994.
The REWIND website 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.
For media enquiries contact:
Grant Hill
Press Officer
University of Dundee
Nethergate, Dundee, DD1 4HN
TEL: 01382 384768
E-MAIL: g.hill@dundee.ac.uk
MOBILE: 07854 953277 |
