Raindance Foundation (RainDance Corporation) was founded in October 1969 by
Frank Gillette
Frank Gillette (born in 1941) is an American video and installation artist. Interested in the empirical observation of natural phenomena, his early work integrated the viewer's image with prerecorded information. He has been described as a "pion ...
,
Paul Ryan,
Michael Shamberg,
Louis Jaffe,
and Marco Vassi.
Raindance was a self-described "alternate culture think-tank" that embraced video as an alternative form of cultural communication.
The name "RainDance Corporation" was an ironic reference to the mainstream organization Rand Corporation.
Influenced by the communications theories of
Marshall McLuhan
Herbert Marshall McLuhan (July 21, 1911 – December 31, 1980) was a Canadian philosopher whose work is among the cornerstones of the study of media theory. He studied at the University of Manitoba and the University of Cambridge. He began his ...
and
Buckminster Fuller
Richard Buckminster Fuller (; July 12, 1895 – July 1, 1983) was an American architect, systems theorist, writer, designer, inventor, philosopher, and futurist. He styled his name as R. Buckminster Fuller in his writings, publishing more t ...
, the collective produced a data bank of tapes and writings that explored the relation of
cybernetics
Cybernetics is a wide-ranging field concerned with circular causality, such as feedback, in regulatory and purposive systems. Cybernetics is named after an example of circular causal feedback, that of steering a ship, where the helmsperson m ...
,
media
Media may refer to:
Communication
* Media (communication), tools used to deliver information or data
** Advertising media, various media, content, buying and placement for advertising
** Broadcast media, communications delivered over mass e ...
, and
ecology
Ecology () is the study of the relationships between living organisms, including humans, and their physical environment. Ecology considers organisms at the individual, population, community, ecosystem, and biosphere level. Ecology overlaps wi ...
. From 1970 to 1974, Raindance published the seminal video journal ''
Radical Software
''Radical Software'' was an early journal on the use of video as an artistic and political medium, started in 1970 in New York City. At the time, the term ''radical software'' referred to the content of information rather than to a computer progra ...
'' (initially edited by
Beryl Korot
Beryl Korot (born September 17, 1945) is an American video artist.
Biography
Beryl Korot has pioneered the field of video art since the early 1970s. She was co-editor of ''Radical Software'' (1970), the first publication to discuss the possibiliti ...
and
Phyllis Gershuny
Phyllis is a feminine given name which may refer to:
People
* Phyllis Bartholomew (1914–2002), English long jumper
* Phyllis Drummond Bethune (née Sharpe, 1899–1982), New Zealand artist
* Phyllis Calvert (1915–2002), British actress
* P ...
), which provided a network of communications for the emerging alternative video movement with a circulation of 5,000. In 1971, Dean and Dudley Evenson joined the Raindance Foundation and taught video workshops through the Metropolitan Museum of Art under a grant from the New York State Council on the Arts.
Dean Evenson Dean Evenson is a new-age musician, composer, producer and videographer. His hometown is Staten Island, New York. He has a master's degree in Molecular Biology. He worked in Manhattan as a recording engineer for Regent Sound with many Atlantic rec ...
was instrumental in hooking up the first half inch video transmission through New York City's Sterling Manhattan Cable, thus paving the way for Public Access Television. Dudley Evenson co-edited Issue #5 of Radical Software with Michael Shamberg. In 1971, Shamberg wrote ''Guerrilla Television'', a summary of the group's principles and a blueprint for the decentralization of television.
[ ara Greenwald: The Process is in the Streets. Challenging Media America. S. 168-179. In: MacPhee and Reuland (eds.).Realizing the Impossible. Art Against Authority. Oakland, Edinburgh 2007.]
In 1976, Raindance members
Ira Schneider
Ira Schneider (1939 – August 17, 2022)Happe, Uli (2004). Ira Schneider: If Something Interested Me I Filmed It'. YouTube. was an American video artist. He has been living and working in Berlin since 1993 until his return to the US in 2021.
__TOC ...
and
Beryl Korot
Beryl Korot (born September 17, 1945) is an American video artist.
Biography
Beryl Korot has pioneered the field of video art since the early 1970s. She was co-editor of ''Radical Software'' (1970), the first publication to discuss the possibiliti ...
edited ''Video Art: An Anthology'', one of the first readers on
video art
Video art is an art form which relies on using video technology as a visual and audio medium. Video art emerged during the late 1960s as new consumer video technology such as video tape recorders became available outside corporate broadcasting ...
. The original Raindance collective dispersed in the mid-1970s.
The nonprofit Raindance Foundation continued and in the 1980s produced the first comprehensive TV series on video art called "Night Light TV" which showcased video works by
William Wegman,
Ira Schneider
Ira Schneider (1939 – August 17, 2022)Happe, Uli (2004). Ira Schneider: If Something Interested Me I Filmed It'. YouTube. was an American video artist. He has been living and working in Berlin since 1993 until his return to the US in 2021.
__TOC ...
,
Russ Johnson
William Russell Johnson (born February 22, 1973) is a former Major League Baseball infielder. He prepped at Denham Springs High School then went to Louisiana State University. He was drafted in the first round of the 1994 Major League Baseball ...
(of Taly and Russ Johnson),
Joan Jonas
Joan Jonas (born July 13, 1936) is an American visual artist and a pioneer of video and performance art, and one of the most important artists to emerge in the late 1960s and early 1970s.[Juan Downey
Juan Downey (May 11, 1940 – June 9, 1993) was a Chilean artist who was a pioneer in the fields of video art and interactive art.
Early life and education
Downey was born in Santiago, Chile. His father, David Downey V., was a distinguished ar ...]
, John Sturgeon, and Willoughby Sharp. Raindance also administered
The Standby Program The Standby Program is a non-profit, video post-production service organization in New York City. Since 1983, Standby has provided editorial services to independent film and video producers on a wide range of projects, including documentaries, video ...
at Matrix, bringing video editing to artists in the 1980s and 1990s.
Notes
References
* ''Video Art an Anthology'' edited by
Ira Schneider
Ira Schneider (1939 – August 17, 2022)Happe, Uli (2004). Ira Schneider: If Something Interested Me I Filmed It'. YouTube. was an American video artist. He has been living and working in Berlin since 1993 until his return to the US in 2021.
__TOC ...
and
Beryl Korot
Beryl Korot (born September 17, 1945) is an American video artist.
Biography
Beryl Korot has pioneered the field of video art since the early 1970s. She was co-editor of ''Radical Software'' (1970), the first publication to discuss the possibiliti ...
(New York and London 1976 , paperback: ).
* Guerrilla Television'' by
Michael Shamberg and Raindance Corporation (1971 Holt Rinehart and Winstin, New York, Chicago, San Francisco , and paperback {{ISBN, 0-03-086735-5).
External links
RADICAL SOFTWARE, A Brief History of RainDance by
Davidson Gigliotti (2003).
Raindance Corporationin th
Video Data Bank
The 20th Anniversary of the Raindance Foundation was celebrated in 1990 with a retrospective at Kitchen in New York City.
Video art