Experimental Television Center
The Goldsen Archive is the repository of the 40-year history of the Experimental Television Center (ETC), including over 3,000 titles of video art and original ephemera documenting the history of the media. Founded in 1971 by Ralph Hocking in Binghamton, NY, ETC moved in 1979 into studio spaces in Owego, where its residential studio program, overseen by Sherry Miller Hocking, hosted over 1,500 of the world’s leading video artists until its closure in 2011. The early collaborators, who helped design ETC’s unique video processing system, included Nam June Paik, Shuya Abe, David Jones, Steina and Woody Vasulka, and Walter Wright. ETC catalyzed the growth of media art in the Central New York region, while providing support to emergent artists, such as Gary Hill, Joan Jonas, Bill Viola, Paik, Shigeko Kubota, and Charlotte Moorman, who would develop into icons in the international art world. Alan Sondheim, Mary Ross, and Lynn Sachs are among the ETC artists depositing their personal archives in Goldsen.
A grant from the Cornell Library Program for Digital Collections in Arts and Sciences provides online access for the Cornell community to a substantial range of digitized ETC video art. Titles can be accessed here.
ETC: Experimental Television Center, 1969-2009, DVD set. 2009. Experimental Television Center Collection.
5-set disk anthology of video art works created through the ETC Residency Program. Digitization of these tapes was supported by a 2006 NYSCA grant in which the Goldsen Archive partnered with ETC as the digital repository. Standards and impetus for the Cornell Library’s own video digitization and preservation program were established when the ETC media library was transferred to the Goldsen Archive in 2012.
Experimental Television Center Early Media Instruments, DVD set. 2010. Experimental Television Center Collection.
8-DVD set featuring demonstrations by Dave Jones, Hank Rudolph and Benton C. Bainbridge of some of the major tools made available to artists in the ETC media studio.
Letter from Joan Jonas to Ralph Hocking. 1972. Experimental Television Center Collection.
This letter from performance and media artist Joan Jonas documents the importance and impact of the technical support and equipment offered by the ETC to independent artists and their communities.
Rich Brewster, Patch Color Legend. 1980. Experimental Television Center Collection.
Hand-colored diagram from the technical documentation for ETC media studio, demonstrates the complexity of the early video synthesis and mixing machines.
Nam June Paik with Ralph Hocking in New York City. Photograph by Evangelos Dousmanis, ca. 1972. Experimental Television Center Collection.
ETC Information Works 1 & 2, VHS tapes, 1976. Experimental Television Center Collection.
2 VHS tapes of work compiled by ETC for the groundbreaking 1976 exhibit of video art at the Everson Museum of Art in Syracuse, NY.
Connie Coleman and Alan Powell, The TV Years, videotape. 1996. Experimental Television Center Collection.
Photographs of ETC video station, Owego, NY. Experimental Television Center Collection.
Artists in residence at the Center worked and lived in the ETC studio, which included space for sleeping and cooking, as well as the media lab and library.
Kathy High, Sherry Miller Hocking, Mona Jimenez, eds., The Emergence of Video Processing Tools: Television Becoming Unglued. Bristol, UK: Intellect Ltd, 2014.