Ira Schneider: Video Aufnehmen

A multi-venue screening and discussion with early video and experimental filmmaker Ira Schneider. This program presented a selection of Ira Schneider’s early video work (and a few samples of late 16mm film) as well as more recent moving image experiments and newly transferred and edited work from the late 60s. Works range from formal experimentation to documents of the early video art scene in NYC. The artist gave short notes and impressions on some of the pieces. 

Ira is one of the very first video artists. He was a member of the seminal late 60s and early 70s video and communications group or “think-tank" Raindance, as well as one of the co-originators and co-editors of Radical Software, the first publication devoted to video. He co-edited one of the first books on video art with Beryl Korot, titled Video Art: An Anthology.

Ira Schneider was born in Brooklyn, NY in 1939 but has lived in Berlin since 1993.

Program I: Microscope Gallery, April 7, 2015
Lost in Cuddihy, 1966
from 16mm, color, sound, 13min
An information collage of experiences in America of the middle 1960s.
I’d Rather Be Half Right than Vice President, 1968
from 16mm, color, sound, 5 min
An ode to silliness in America in the late 1960s.
Composed Pandemonium, 2013
video, color, sound, 3 min
Experimental collage – clashing edits lead to cadence.
Who Killed Heinrich Hertz (Starring Willoughby Sharp), 1987
video, color, sound, 7 min
1987 was the 100th anniversary of Heinrich Hertz’s discovery of the nature of electromagnetic waves. Ira Schneider, Willoughby Sharp, Davidson Gigliotti, and others joined together to celebrate this event with a comic video remembering Heinrich Hertz. Conceived of by Willoughby Sharp &, Ira Schneider
“*”, 2014
video, color, sound, 8 min
An abstract multilayered video based on water images in Venice with music by Dmitri Shostakovitch.
A Hole in the Berlin Wall, August 1989
video, color, sound, 5 min
After hearing that people were leaving East Germany through Hungary, Schneider produced a special effect video simulating a hole in the Berlin wall through which people could be seen & later could walk through. This sequence was included in the installation. The Berlin Wall came down some 6 weeks later.
The 13 series – 13 Cakes,13 Steaks,13 Snakes & 13 Fakes, 2014
video, color, sound, 13 min
A take off on James Benning’s 13 Lakes – 130min
Nam June Paik is eating Sushi in Southbeach, 1998
video, color, sound, 1 min
Bill Viola, 1975
video, color, sound, 2 min
Bill Viola in Schneider’s ECHO installation.
Janis Joplin, 1968
color, sound, 4 min

Program II: Pioneer Works, April 9, 2015
Whole Earth Exhibition, Berlin 2013, B Fuller & Earthday 1970 + 1977 edited 2013 sound, 20 mins.
TV as a Creative Medium (excerpt), 1969-edit 84 Black & white, sound, 6 mins.
In May of 1969, the Howard Wise Gallery in New York presented TV as a Creative Medium, the first exhibition in the United States devoted entirely to video as a form of art. Schneider recorded this historical document of the landmark exhibition.
H20 #6, 2007, Color, sound, 5 mins.
Lost in Cuddihy, 1966, colour, sound, from 16mm, 13min.
An information collage of experiences in America of the middle 1960s.
Schneider Marries his SONYa, 1998, Color, sound, 3 mins.
Schneider to Marry, 2013, Color, sound, 4 mins.
Austerity Breeds Contempt, 2012, Color, sound, 2 mins.
Austerity measures are leading to disgruntlement and contempt. This Video is the response to cutbacks and degradation. It is an ironic comedy. The cultural safety net has been cut. The screw has been turned. Things are grinding to a halt & the European governments are until now employing methods used by the Hoover administration in the USA in response to the economic collapse of 1929. Not stimulating the economy leads to further deepening depression.
The Great Suds Your Duds Robbery, 1963, Black & white, sound, 3 mins.
Vision and Television, 1970, sound, 6:30 min
A documentary of the first museum group video art exhibition which took place at the Rose Art Museum in Waltham Massachusetts, January 1970. Present were Paik, Gillette, Schneider, The Videofreex, Stan Vanderbeek & others. Installations & a crazy panel discussion are shown.
American Flag, 2014