Electronic Arts Intermix

Electronic Arts Intermix
Name	Electronic Arts Intermix
Formation	1971
Type	Nonprofit arts organization
Headquarters	New York City
Location	Manhattan, New York
Focus	Video art, media art, artist resources, preservation

Electronic Arts Intermix is a New York City–based nonprofit organization and artist-centered resource dedicated to the acquisition, distribution, preservation, and exhibition of video art and media art. Founded in 1971, the organization has played a central role in shaping the field of artist-made moving-image work, collaborating with artists, museums, galleries, festivals, and academic institutions. It functions as a distributor, curator, archivist, and educator, maintaining a large collection of artists' works while providing technical and intellectual infrastructure to sustain media-art practice.

History

The organization was established in 1971 amid the rise of video art alongside institutions such as the Whitney Museum of American Art, Museum of Modern Art (New York), Tate Modern, Guggenheim Museum, and media-focused initiatives like the New York Film Festival, the Anthology Film Archives, and the Video Data Bank. Its founding intersected with influential practitioners and institutions including Nam June Paik, Yvonne Rainer, Bruce Nauman, Bill Viola, Vito Acconci, and Steina and Woody Vasulka, and emerged alongside artist-run spaces such as The Kitchen, Artists Space, and Channel 13. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s the organization collaborated with curators from Lucy Lippard, Marina Abramović, Robert Rauschenberg, Hans Haacke, and programmatic initiatives at Smithsonian American Art Museum and San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. During the transition from analog to digital formats in the 1990s and 2000s, it adapted preservation strategies similar to those developed at the Library of Congress, Pacific Film Archive, and British Film Institute.

Collection and Holdings

The collection emphasizes artists' moving-image works across tape-based, disc-based, and file-based formats and includes works by figures such as Joan Jonas, Martha Rosler, Shirin Neshat, Cecilia Vicuña, Kara Walker, and Hito Steyerl. Holdings document experimental practices represented by artists linked to Fluxus, Minimalism, Conceptual Art, and the later digital generations associated with New Media Art institutions like Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe and MERZ Akademie. The archive comprises single-channel video, multi-channel installations, performance documentation, and time-based commissions, with accession, cataloguing, and rights metadata compatible with standards used by Getty Research Institute, Artstor, and the Digital Public Library of America. Institutional collaborations have facilitated loans and exchanges with museums and collections including Walker Art Center, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Whitney Biennial, and the Venice Biennale.

Programs and Services

Core activities include distribution services, educational access, artist residencies, and technical consulting. Distribution connects artists with venues and festivals such as Sundance Film Festival, Tribeca Film Festival, Berlin International Film Festival, and curatorial departments at Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles and Centre Pompidou. Educational outreach serves universities and programs including Yale University, Columbia University, Pratt Institute, New York University, and Rhode Island School of Design. Preservation and digitization services align with protocols from the National Film Preservation Foundation and the International Federation of Film Archives. The organization also provides artists with rights management, licensing, and representation services paralleling practices at Artists Rights Society and Creative Commons structures.

Exhibitions and Public Outreach

The organization has mounted and facilitated exhibitions, screenings, and programs in partnership with institutions such as New Museum, Brooklyn Museum, Queens Museum, and international venues including MoMA PS1, Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt, and Kunsthalle Zürich. Public programs have featured talks, panels, and screenings with artists and scholars linked to Artforum, Frieze, e-flux, and academic symposia at Columbia University School of the Arts and CUNY Graduate Center. Outreach initiatives have engaged communities via festivals and public television collaborations reminiscent of programming at PBS and artist-commissioned public projects associated with Public Art Fund.

Preservation and Conservation

Preservation work addresses the technical and conceptual challenges of migrating analog video, born-digital media, and installation-based practices. Conservation strategies incorporate standards and tools used by International Association of Sound and Audiovisual Archives, Society of American Archivists, and the National Film and Sound Archive (Australia). The organization documents provenance, revision histories, and hardware dependencies for works by practitioners such as Nam June Paik and Pauline Oliveros, and manages environmental storage, tape restoration, and file-format migration. Collaborative preservation projects have been undertaken with academic labs at New York University Tisch School of the Arts, research initiatives at Columbia University Libraries, and conservation departments at Harvard Art Museums.

Organizational Structure and Funding

Structured as a nonprofit entity, governance comprises a board of directors, executive leadership, curatorial staff, archivists, and technical specialists. Funding streams include grants, donations, institutional partnerships, distribution revenues, and government support from agencies comparable to National Endowment for the Arts, New York State Council on the Arts, and private foundations like The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and Ford Foundation. Collaborative grant-funded projects have involved partnerships with foundations and cultural agencies such as Getty Foundation, Jerome Foundation, and municipal cultural offices including NYC Department of Cultural Affairs.

Category:Arts organizations based in New York City