- Raindance Foundation
Raindance Foundation was begun in 1969 by Frank Gillette, Michael Shamberg, and
Ira Schneider among others. Raindance was a self-described "countercultural think-tank" that embraced video as an alternative form of cultural communication.The name "Raindance" was a play on words for "cultural R & D" (research and development). Influenced by the communications theories of
Marshall McLuhan andBuckminster Fuller , the collective produced a data bank of tapes and writings that explored the relation ofcybernetics , media, andecology . From 1970 to 1974, Raindance published the seminal video journal "Radical Software" (initially edited by Beryl Korot and Phyllis Gershuny), which provided a network of communications for the emerging alternative video movement with a circulation of 5,000. In 1971, Shamberg wrote "Guerrilla Television", a summary of the group's principles and a blueprint for the decentralization of television.In 1976, Raindance members Ira Schneider and Beryl Korot edited "Video Art: An Anthology", one of the first readers on
video art . The original Raindance collective dispersed in the mid-1970s.The nonprofit Raindance Foundation continued and in the 1980’s produced the first comprehensive TV series on video art called “Night Light TV” which showcased video works by
William Wegman ,Ira Schneider ,Russ Johnson (ofTaly and Russ Johnson ),Joan Jonas , Juan Downey, John Sturgeon, and Willoughby Sharp. Raindance also administered the Standby Program at Matrix, bringing video editing to artists in the 1980s and 1990s.References
* "Video Art an Anthology" edited by
Ira Schneider andBeryl Korot (New York and London 1976 ISBN 0-15-193632-3, paperback: ISBN 0-15-193634-X).
* Guerrilla Television" byMichael Shamberg and Raindance Corporation (1971 Holt Rinehart and Winstin, New York, hicago, San Francisco ISBN 0-03-086714-2, and paperback ISBN 0-03-086735-5).External links
* [http://www.radicalsoftware.org/e/index.html RADICAL SOFTWARE, A Brief History of RainDance] , by
Davidson Gigliotti (2003).
* [http://www.vdb.org/smackn.acgi$artistdetail?RAINDANCEC Raindance Corporation] in the [http://www.vdb.org/ Video Data Bank]The 20th Anniversary of the Raindance Foundation was celebrated in 1990 with a retrospective at Kitchen in New York City.
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