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Archives Week 2015: Preserving the Videotaped Record of 1970s-era Experimental Theater

When
Monday, October 19, 2015
6:30 PM - 8:30 PM
Location
La MaMa Downstairs, 66 East 4th Street NY, NY 10003 United States

Among the materials housed in the Archives of La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club is a collection of rare video that was shot between 1972 and 1980 on a Portapak camera. These obsolete videos document 170 early Off-Off Broadway productions. Recently, as part of its effort to describe, preserve, and offer expanded access to these materials, La MaMa partnered with New York University’s graduate program in Moving Image Archiving and Preservation (MIAP) and The Standby Program to digitally transfer a small subset of these video reels.

Join us on October 19th for a sneak peek at the newly digitized video, and a panel discussion. Panelists will consider a range of questions, including: What specific preservation concerns do videos shot on portapak (that is, 1/2 inch open reel video) present? What challenges and opportunities does this sort of university-archive-vendor collaboration present? What's the history behind these specific video documents?

Participants will include Peter Oleksik (Assistant Media Conservator at MoMA and professor of MIAP’s Video Preservation II course); Genevieve Havemeyer-King (a MIAP alum who worked on this project as part of her coursework); Rachel Mattson, Suzanne Lipkin, and Ozzie Rodriguez (members of the La MaMa Archives team); and Bill Seery, Director of Preservation Services at The Standby Program. Limited capacity, show up early.

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Questions? communications@nycarchivists.org