British Artists Film and Video Study Collection

Initially funded as part of the Centre for British Film & Television Studies, the Study Collection (BAFVSC) is the only research resource dedicated to the development of the artist’s moving-image in the UK. The online ‘Catalogue of the British Artists Film & Video Study Collection’, for which I was responsible, is one a range of outputs from BAFVSC projects conducted by the core team and by external UK and international researchers.

My responsibility throughout has been for researching and collecting the documents and video material and developing this comprehensive on-line Catalogue as searchable databases under the headings: artists’ documents; films and videos; stills; and publications [monographs, catalogues, magazines]. This database is complemented by the Moving Image database developed by my colleague Steven Ball.

Underlying research involved tracing and securing works and documents from numerous sources including: Arts Council England, the BFI, the ICA, and individual artists and scholars. The Collection includes 2,500 works on tape/DVD, 450 files of writings by and about individual artists, 20 dossiers relating to key organisations and events, plus collections of books, magazines, catalogues, still images, posters, etc.

Since 2003 the Collection and its Catalogue has been used by researchers from over 60 different academic institutions, including a third from abroad, provided study facilities for over 30 PhD students and 25 curatorial researchers.

David Curtis

Research Interests

History of British artists' film & video, History of international artists' film & video, Curating artists film & video, Public funding of the arts.
History of British Experimental Film, document and describe the development of experimental film and video in Britain. Study collection of videotapes, and paper documentation of British artists. AHRB funded, exhibitions and conferences

Current Research

I joined CSM as a Senior Research Fellow researching the History of British Experimental Film within the programme of the AHRB Centre for British Film and television Studies. My main concern is to document and describe the development of experimental film and video in Britain, its individual artists, its institutions, and the cultural and funding context in which it has taken place. A major research project has been the assembly of a Study Collection of videotapes and paper documentation covering the work of over 700 British artists. This has been based on donations from the Arts Council of England, the ICA and many individual artists. The Collection is open to researchers and actively supports and initiates exhibition and publishing projects. Another research stand has been building of the first comprehensive database of film and video works by British artists, currently containing 6,000 titles. This is the beginning of a major project supported by the AHRB to build an online resource to support academic research in this area.
My own curatorial research has resulted in a major display at Tate Britain - A Century of Artists' Film in Britain (May 2003-May 2004). My research is devoted to uncovering the histories of artists' film and video in Britain, and recording and documenting them in various forms. I lead the team that is building a Study Collection at CSM devoted to British artists' work that is available to internal and external academic an dcuratorial research. This is the only collection of its kind in the UK and its files already contain a substantial proportion of the history of the 'key' artist-led organisations, such as the London Filmmakers' Co-op and London Video Arts. The Collection is funded by the AHRB and forms part of the multi-partner AHRB Centre for British Film and Television Studies. The Collection includes tapes of artists' works, writings by and about artists, institutional documents, books, catalogues, posters etc. Building this Collection an dencouraging its use forms a major research strand, to which PhD and MA research is contributing. The Collection website (built by colleague Steven Ball) is at www.studycollection.org.uk and contains catalogues of the collection, a historical database of artists and works, and temporary on-line exhibitions. My personal research has resulted in exhibitions such as A Century of Artists Film in Britain for Tate Britain (2003-4) and its website/catalogue www.tate.org.uk/britain/artistsfilm and the forthcoming book A History of Artists' Film and Video in Britain 1897-2003, BFI Publishing, October 2005.

Steven Ball

Research Interests

Artists’ Moving Image, Archives and Collections, Experimental Film, Video Art, Landscape, Urban
Space.

Current Research

As Research Fellow attached to the British Artists’ Film and Video Study Collection, my research activity broadly encompasses the history and contemporary practice of artists’ moving image. The Study Collection includes video copies of artists' works, writing by and about artists, institutional documents, books, catalogues, posters, etc., it is accessible to internal and external academic and curatorial research. In this context my research activity involves the collection, cataloguing and digitization of copies of artists' film and video works, documentation and publications, the dissemination of Study Collection research outputs, and facilitating research in artists’ moving image across UAL and beyond. I am also developing research projects around the nature of the relationship of artists’ moving image practice to that of the wide range of contemporary collections and archives in their analogue and digital forms, online and physically located.

My other research interests are in the relationship between audio-visual media practice, spatial representation, landscape, and urban space within a practice encompassing audio-visual media, performance, curation and writing. These have manifested themselves in projects such as: Figuring Landscapes, artists’ moving image from Australia and the UK, touring programme co-curated with Professor Catherine Elwes (Camberwell), (2008 ongoing until 2010); The Centres Project, an ongoing exhibition and publication research project in collaboration with Irene Barberis, Metasenta Projects, RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia, which has included the Transcentric exhibition at Lethaby Gallery (2008); After Lethaby video performance with Martin Blazícek, (Czech Republic), Lethaby Gallery, 2009.