VIVO Media Arts Centre, run under the Satellite Video Exchange Society, (SVES) is an

artist-run centre An artist-run space or artist-run centre (Canada) is a gallery or other facility operated or directed by artists, frequently circumventing the structures of public art centers, museums, or commercial galleries and allowing for a more experimental ...

and video distribution library located in

Vancouver Vancouver ( ) is a major city in western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

. It was founded in 1973 to promote the non-commercial use of video technology by providing international and educational video exchange through a public video library. Its mission has then been expanded to provide equipment rentals, artist workshops, and provide information to the public about

media arts New media art includes artworks designed and produced by means of electronic media technologies, comprising virtual art, computer graphics, computer animation, digital art, interactive art, sound art, Internet art, video games, robotics, 3D pri ...

History

A group of artists interested in video met at the Matrix Video Conference, held at the

Vancouver Art Gallery The Vancouver Art Gallery (VAG) is an art museum in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The museum occupies a adjacent to Robson Square in downtown Vancouver, making it the largest art museum in Western Canada by building size. Designed by Franc ...

in 1973. Organized by Michael Goldberg and Trish Hardman, the conference encouraged depositing a videotape and filling out a Video Exchange Directory card. Shawn Preus and Paul Wong were recruited to work on the collection, and this became the base of a video library. Shortly after the conference, The Satellite Video Exchange Society was founded (incorporated in 1973), and included a publicly accessible video library; the space later became known as the Video Inn. Its space became a sort of "drop-in" where artistic and other communities came together, and included viewing spaces and tape shelves. Starting out as Intermedia, VIVO is an early Canadian example of an artist-run centre, and exhibited the characteristics of the tentative beginnings of the artist-run centre and the development of new forms of art making that such centres generated.

Intermedia

Intermedia existed between 1967 and 1972 in Vancouver, and served as an umbrella organization for diverse interdisciplinary practices including performance, music, poetry, happenings, dance, cooking, photography, filmmaking, fashion, sculpture, music and video. A priority towards ephemeral art, much was staged outside of institutional spaces. Many were inspired and participated in Intermedia's events, including

General Idea General Idea was a collective of three Canadian artists, Felix Partz, Jorge Zontal and AA Bronson, who were active from 1967 to 1994. As pioneers of early conceptual and media-based art, their collaboration became a model for artist-initiated ac ...

, where

AA Bronson AA Bronson (born Michael Tims in Vancouver in 1946) is an artist. He was a founding member of the artists' group General Idea, was president and director of Printed Matter, Inc., and started the NY Art Book Fair and the LA Art Book Fair. E ...

details, "inspired by Canada's first artist-run centre, the unbeatable, unforgettable, indescribable wonder that was Intermedia (where Jorge performed his first art performance in Vancouver in 1968)." While Intermedia dissolved in 1972, it played a role in the denial of becoming a constrained institutional directive. Many independent organizations and spaces came out of Intermedia, most notably a direct link to what is now VIVO Media Art Centre.

Programming

VIVO Media Arts Centre facilitates various programming structures including events, exhibitions, artist and curatorial residencies, and media workshops and has hosted festivals such as Vancouver New Music Festival, and LIVE (performance) Biennale in 2015. The space has hosted artists and curators such as Noxious Sector, Paul Wong, Stacey Ho, Jayce Salloum,

Hank Bull Hank Bull D.F.A. (born 1949) is a Canadian artist, curator, organizer and arts administrator. Life and work Hank Bull was born in Calgary, Alberta. HIs father was an Anglican minister and his mother a weaver. He was raised in Ontario and Nova Sc ...

Abbas Akhavan Abbas Akhavan is a Montreal-based visual artist. His recent work consists of site-specific installations, sculpture, video, and performance, consistently in response to the environment in which the work is created. Akhavan was born in Tehran, Iran i ...

Elizabeth MacKenzie Elizabeth MacKenzie (born 1955) is a Canadian artist based in Vancouver known for her drawing, installation and video since the early eighties. MacKenzie uses drawing to explore the productive aspects of uncertainty through the use of repetit ...

and

Marina Roy Marina Roy is a visual artist, educator and writer based in Vancouver, British Columbia. Life Roy was born in Quebec City, and moved to Vancouver, British Columbia in her youth. She obtained a B.A. in French Literature at Université Laval, a B. ...

Crista Dahl Media Library & Archive

VIVO is home to the Crista Dahl Media Library & Archive (CDMLA) Canada’s most significant repositories of video by artists and independent producers. It includes over 5000 video titles, an extensive publication and textual record collection, a photo archive, and the societal records of its parent organization - the Satellite Video Exchange Society (SVES). The Archive safeguards video collections chronicling unique B.C. histories including those of Metro Media, The Women’s Labour History Project, The First Nations Access Program, Vancouver Status of Women, GaybleVision, Operation Solidarity, and Women in Focus. Crista Dahl, after whom the archive and library is named, is a long-standing SVES member and VIVO volunteer (former board chairperson, board member, and volunteer archivist). Dahl's involvement with the organization began from her involvement

Intermedia Intermedia is an art theory term coined in the mid-1960s by Fluxus artist Dick Higgins to describe various interdisciplinarity art activities that occur between genres, beginning in the 1960s. It was also used by John Brockman to refer to works ...

in the 1970s.Nicholson, Cecily, Mancini, Donato, Muir, Alex, Kazymerchyk, and Bradly, Sharon (2013). "Interview with Crista Dahl" in ''Anamnesia: Unforgetting, Polytemporality, implacement and possession in The Crista Dahl Media Library & Archive. DVD, book and website. Retrieved 23 March 2017.'' http://anamnesia.vivomediaarts.com/ She supported Michael Goldberg with international video exchange projects which resulted in the Matrix Video Conference tape exchange and eight International Video Exchange Directories (1971 to 1981)—all of which form the basis of the current collection. A tireless volunteer with a natural affinity to archiving, Crista Dahl has been described as a "visionary volunteer archivist."

References

{{coord, 49.2608, N, 123.0476, W, display=title Artist-run centres 1973 establishments in British Columbia Art museums and galleries in British Columbia