In November 2012, VIVO Media Arts Centre, Vancouver’s oldest media access artist run centre, presentedAnamnesia: Unforgetting, a series of three screenings of videos from the 1970s and 1980s, collected through the early Satellite Video Exchange program. The videos are now housed in VIVO’s Crista Dahl Media Library and Archive, a collection of 4500 titles of international video art and related ephemera. Emerging out of Intermedia, the Satellite Video Exchange collection documents important correspondence, performance and activist video collaborations in Vancouver’s art history.

Along with the three video programmes, a publication, DVD box set, and online component were also produced. On February 7th, all contributors to the publication: Sharon Bradley, Crista Dahl, Amy Kazymerchyk, Donato Mancini, Alex Muir, and Cecily Nicholson, will discuss their texts and the development of the project.

The publication consists of an introduction by Sharon Bradley on the history of the Satellite Video Exchange Society (SVES), and the emergence of the Crista Dahl Media Library & Archive. Amy Kazymerchyk contextualizes the curator’s programmes, and their collaboration with VIVO over the past four years, within the history of social and cultural production at SVES. Alex Muir extrapolates upon early artist-television pioneer Byron Black’s international practice, his Images from Infinity program on Cable 10, and his affiliation with Robert Filliou’s Eternal Network, Image Bank, and the Western Front. Donato Mancini situates his curatorial frame within broader discourses on polytemporality, polyrhythmia, and the archive, in literature, cinema, and poetry. Cecily Nicholson reflects upon the legacy of the Oglala Sioux and American Indian Movement stand at Wounded Knee, prison asylum activism, and the civil rights movement, on contemporary movements, and political and cultural engagement. All contributors interviewed Crista Dahl about the inception of the video library and viewing lounge at SVES’ first Powell St. location, the international outreach of the Satellite Video Exchange project, the evolution of the library & archive, and its collaboration with Video Out Distribution.

The publication is 200 pages, with 16 colour plates of video stills, numerous black and white photos of the original video library and viewing lounge at 261 Powell St., postcards, letters, and day book and log books scans, from the archive’s print collection. The publication is designed by The Future.

The web component and boxset will also be launched at this event. The web component, which features select texts, streamable videos from the curatorial programmes, and ephemera from the publication can be accessed:http://anamnesia.vivomediaarts.com/

Admission: $10 (includes a book) * No one will be turned away for lack of funds
DVD box set (includes one disc for each programme): $20.00
(Book launch prices)