About

 

CYLAND VIDEO ARCHIVE
International Digital Online Archive

The CYLAND Video Archive (since 2008) is one of the first systematized online video art platform of its kind: most of the works gathered here are accessible for view on the internet at the archive website. 

The idea to make video art works and films open for the public viewing online comes from the beginning. It was a very progressive thing to demonstrate and promote video art online and to have this exchange between classic and young artists and to make an international networking platform. CYLAND Video Archive is a great information and educational resource. Each year the Cyland Video Archive produces an international competition video art program for the CYFEST media art festival.

One of the tasks of the archive is to build an open and accessible collection, to protect works of art from being locked in private collections, and to prevent their technical basis from becoming outdated. The archive is structured in two parts: videos on the website with open access (artists personal pages), and the offline collection for professionals accessible at the archive office. Currently, the collection comprises over 600 videos from different countries. The collection includes video art, experimental films, computer graphics, 3D animation, stop-motion animation, poetic video, video documentation of art and education projects on cutting-edge technologies. 

The content of the archive collection can be divided into 2 periods: analogue-to-digital (VHS, MiniDV, DVD) in 1986-2011 and works in HD video format from 2011. Naturally, the bulk of our collection came from St. Petersburg artists, since it is based in this city. Historically, the first period can be linked with influences of the post-Perestroika spirit. The phenomena of the St. Petersburg underground culture of the time such as Parallel cinema, New Artists, Rave, Pirate TV (PTV), Pop-Mechanics, Necrorealism and Neoacademism had a huge impact on the development of video art. Masterpieces by media art pioneers from the archive collection illustrate the transition from analogue to digital art and computer editing. Some masterpieces of Parallel Cinema were originally shot on 35,16, or 8 mm film and then stored in the archive collection in digital from the artists. The database contains many works by renowned artists that reflect the living spirit of this time. The other part of the CYLAND Video Archive collection is dedicated to artists of the next generation and reveals the lines of development of digital video art in the 2000s-2020s.

Exhibitions and screenings of programs from the CYLAND Video Archive have been held in the United Kingdom, France, Brazil, Turkey, America, Germany, Italy, Sweden and Eastern Europe. The Video Archive is run by the CYLAND Media Art Lab, most active non-profit organization in media art operated by independent artists and curators since 2007, and dedicated to expanding the intersection of Art::Tech. In the first years of collecting, the archive started out with video works by artists who participated in the international media art festival CYFEST held by the CYLAND Media Art Lab

From the very beginning the CYLAND video archive was conceived as a platform for networking and interaction between artists, curators and art institutions. It is an exceptional international project which promotes media art and makes it possible for a broad audience to track new trends in digital visual art. 

videoarchive.cyland@gmail.com

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