Eyebeam Resurfaces: The Future of the Digital Archive

  • Type: event
  • Location: Eyebeam: Art & Technology Center, 540 West 21st Street, New York, New York, New York, 10011, US
  • Starts: Jan 10 2013 at 5:00PM
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Eyebeam Resurfaces: The Future of the Digital Archive
Curated by Lindsay Howard and Jonathan Minard

Opening Reception and Screening: Thursday January 10, 7:00pm–9:00pm
Exhibition: January 8 – January 12, 2013

**$25.00 suggested donation for the opening reception and screening. All proceeds are 100% tax-deductible and proceeds will go toward the organization’s recovery efforts.**
To make a $25 donation: http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/307910

On October 30, 2012, Hurricane Sandy hit New York City causing a record storm surge to sweep through Eyebeam, leaving behind three and a half feet of saltwater mixed with sewage and corrosives. In a single day, the flood claimed over $250,000 worth of AV equipment, books, and computers. Among the wreckage was Eyebeam’s archive of analog and digital media, chronicling the organization’s fifteen years of experimental art and technology. Through an emergency plea on social media, Eyebeam mobilized a team of digital media conservators and volunteers from the community to stabilize and preserve these artifacts.

Eyebeam Resurfaces: The Future of the Digital Archive is an examination of this community-led recovery effort, bringing together a lineup of lectures and workshops, a documentary film screening, and an exhibition of works salvaged from the collection.

After reviewing more than 1,500 recovered DVDs, VHS cassettes, Mini DVs, and digital storage media, curators Lindsay Howard and Jonathan Minard have selected the most unexpected, exciting, and rare materials from the archive to feature in a multi-channel exhibition. These selections include work by artists, programmers, and creative technologists, made during residencies and fellowships featuring documentation of the creative process, historical footage of artists and former staff members, as well as fragments of completed artworks. These works showcase a range of mediums, from net art to interactive performance works, from immersive installations to video game art and theory – collectively marking major touchstones in Eyebeam’s history.

The exhibition celebrates the organization’s incredible history and recovery effort, while engaging in a critical conversation about long-term strategies for digital preservation, institutional memory, and disaster preparedness.

Works by Eyebeam alumni such as Cory Arcangel, Alexander Galloway, John S. Johnson, Isaac Julian, Golan Levin & Zach Lieberman, LoVid, Mariko Mori, Shirin Neshat, and Tony Oursler will be screened throughout the week.

/////Opening Reception: Thursday, January 10, 7-9pm/////

Eyebeam will host a fundraising event for its archival digitization effort, set to start early 2013. Experts from AV Preserve will present lessons learned during the volunteer-led recovery of Eyebeam's media archive damaged during the flood.

The fundraiser will also feature an exclusive preview of Jonathan Minard’s Archive, a documentary film that examines humanity’s dependence on digital memory.

Press release: http://www.eyebeam.org/events/eyebeam-resurfaces-the-future-of-the-digital-archive

For all inquiries, contact: Amna Siddiqui | [email protected]