Summer Research Reports: Elizabeth Sun on the Video Data Bank
BCNM is thrilled to support our students in their summer research. Read about Elizabeth Sun on the Video Data Bank!
The Video Data Bank (VDB) is nestled on the 14th floor of a downtown Chicago high rise. The official logo is a 3x3 matrix, appearing authoritative, while simultaneously suggesting a modest kind of timelessness. I’d seen its square, retro-blue logo, hovering at the beginnings and ends of local and international screenings. Eventually, I learned that Ursula Biemann’s works were all hosted by this video archive. Biemann was an artist I’d been analyzing for my research on migration, borders, and eco-criticism.
Since its inception in 1976, the VDB has become the leading resource for US researchers on video art. Currently, it houses the work of over 600 contemporary artists and 6000+ titles. When I visit the first time, the Distribution Manager, Emily Martin, tells me that the VDB continues to use its former Google Maps business profile, a zig-zagged walk away from its current spot alongside Chicago’s famous elevated transit system, also known as the “L.” The move is temporary, Martin explains to me, but it seems to be one of those temporary moves with an undetermined end. In a few years, presumably, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, will help VDB return its prime location on Michigan Ave, directly across from the Art Institute of Chicago and steps away from the Chicago Bean.
I had never requested to access the private screening room of a moving image archive and was unsure what to expect. Would I have to sift through aisles of worn-sleeved DVD’s and VCR’s? Would I get the chance to hold aged objects in my hands or would my experience be a completely digital one, with time-sensitive passwords and strict viewing parameters (no phones, no water, no bags)?
The visit turned out to be remarkably casual, like walking into a university administration’s office space. When I arrived, Emily had already prepared two stacks of every video I had requested, which would cover four sessions of two-hours visits. The screening room was spacious, with two black-leathered rocker chairs, a coffee table and three walls of archived VCR’s and magazines. Behind me through a glass wall, employees at VDB continued their daily tasks. The sun’s glare perfectly reflected the movements of these employees whenever my screen turned dark.
Why did I visit an archive that’s more known for its digital dissemination of videos? In my theoretical work on the concept of archives, I’ve come to realize that what we know depends on what we preserve. When requests for access are a series of clicks and emails, we might forget the human elements and resources that support the continued existence of these places. I realized this when I visited the Prelinger Archive in San Francisco, maintained by Rick Prelinger, and the archives of Cologne’s Documentation Center and Museam on Migration (DOMiD), located above an immigration bureau. Visiting these places, I learned that all archives are also waiting to be discovered by educators and curators who have visions for changing knowledge in the public sphere. As I went through the video works of Ursula Biemann, Harun Farocki, Kip Fulbeck, Shu Lea Cheang, Richard Fung, and others—with two colleagues—, I was intensely aware that our encounters and experiences with these works were contingent on my own curatorial decisions. As I work on a syllabus on “Archival Resurrection” for Spring 2025, I know now that obtaining access to the largest collection of contemporary video art is just an email away.