Barbara Sykes (artist)
Barbara Sykes (Barbara Sykes-Dietze) (born 1953) into a family of artists, designers and inventors. Since childhood, she has produced work in a variety of different art forms. In 1974, she became one of Chicago's pioneering video and new media artists and, later to include, independent video producer, exhibition curator and teacher. Sykes is a Chicago based experimental video artist who explores themes of spirituality, ritual and indigeneity from a feminist perspective.
Early influences
In the early 1970’s, Sykes worked as a commercial silk screener and then as an offset lithographer. Bored with her career, she decided to start a new career in the electronic arts. From 1974 to 1979 Sykes studied at the University of Illinois Chicago, during which experimental video art was developing in Chicago. The Electronic Visualization Laboratory was started by two UIC faculty, Tom Defanti (Computer Science) and Dan Sandin (Fine Art), and was influential in developing computer graphics with the goal of creating video art.[2] The research lab known for developing the Sandin Image Processor, a video synthesizer is similar to synthesizers used to create music. The Image Processor allows for abstract analogue visuals to be created using analogue computer graphics, a new technology at the time. The lab was known for its Electronic Visualization Events (EVE), where live performances combined music and video processing in real time.
As a student of this new technology, Barbara Sykes quickly developed unprecedented skills using the Image Processor and produced a large body of groundbreaking work, that includes Sykes historically significant performances with Tom Defanti of The Poem during EVE I, 1975, and Circle 9 Sunrise during EVE II ,1976, at a time when such real-time performances were the first of their kind.[1] For EVE III, 1978, Sykes produced Electronic Masks and Sykes and Defanti co-produced By the Crimson Bands of Cyttorak and Duals together. Real-time computer performances continue to be vitalized at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Electronic Visualization Laboratory at the University of Illinois at Chicago.[3] Before earning an undergraduate degree, Sykes enrolled in the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, SAIC, emerging video program in 1979, and obtained her MFA in video, computers and performance in 1981.[4]
While a student at the UIC, Sykes worked at their Media Production Center and as a freelance videographer and editor, producing dance, instructional and documentary videos. Concurrently, she was a UIC teaching assistant for graduate and undergraduate classes, providing instruction on the Sandin Image Processor, field production and editing. In graduate school at SAIC, she became proficient on the Rutt Etra Synthesizer and worked at the Video Data Bank co-coordinating Recent Work, a traveling video art exhibition, and documented visiting artists, including Ellen Fisher's performance, Call Her Amedia. She was also a broadcast post-production editor and cameraperson for a weekly Greek variety program that aired on PBS in Chicago and shot Chicago dance performances in order to fund her tuition.[4]
Career
Much of Sykes' work from the 1970s such as The Poem (1975), Circle 9 Sunrise (1976), Movement Within (1976), Reflections (1976), Off the Air (1977), Environmental Symmetry (1978) and By The Crimson Bands of Cyttorak (1978) utilized the Sandin Image Processor to create tapes as montages of meditative, poetic abstractions and her multimedia installations and interactive performance environments. While the nature of the Image Processor allows for limited analogue control, with much of the process left up to chance and experimentation, Sykes's mastery of the Image Processor distinguished her work from other artists in the field. Notable, her pioneering figurative tapes, Electronic Masks (1978) and Emanations (1979), illustrate the innovative work created solely using the IP's oscillators and editing. In 1977, Gene Siskel, film critic and host of Nightwatch, interviewed Sykes about her work and performance of Circle 9 Sunrise during this live television program on WTTW, PBS, Chicago. Her later works evolved into lyrical video poems, mystical stories and experimental ethnographic documentaries that demonstrate more personal and expressive narratives and themes. They showcased her strength as a storyteller grounded with an aesthetic sophistication of great emotional depth that depicted the underlying sacred nature of the people and events portrayed. Shiva Darsan (1994) and Song of the River (1997) are among these works. Sykes created videos that "reflect her interests in female mythological figures, rituals, dance, art, and music of other cultures as well as depicting dream states and fantasized visions."[5] While this later work is different in process, there are clear relationships to her earlier work, as is evident in Electronic Masks (1976), which demonstrates a blend of image processing with themes of spirituality.[5]
Song of the River, shot in Borneo, was created during Sykes's 14-month sabbatical in research and video production throughout Asia, the Middle East and Africa. While there, she visited various indigenous tribes and was interested in learning about their spiritual relationships, and how these relationships are evident in everyday life.
Besides creating artwork, Barbara Sykes has had a notable presence in the Chicago new media scene. In the late 1970s she became involved with The Center for New Television (formerly The Chicago Editing Center) where she would host video workshops and screen her work.[7][8] In 1981, Sykes curated Video: Chicago Style, which was exhibited at Global Village in New York City, and was additionally screened on Manhattan Cable.[1] This exhibition eventually grew into Video and Computer Art: Chicago Style, which she presented along with Sykes's Retrospective, her one-woman exhibition, throughout Japan, Australia, Spain and was the first woman video artist to present in China, 1988-1989.[1][9]
Sykes was a tenured, Professor of Television at Columbia College Chicago from 1982 to 2005.[10][11][12] She taught experimental video production and advanced and intermediate level field productions and editing courses. While at Columbia College, she also served as video coordinator and as initiator and director of the visiting artist and lecturer series for the Department of Television, organizing lectures by industry professionals and artists such as Gene Youngblood, author of Expanded Cinema, Barbara London, curator at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, Marlon Riggs, filmmaker and gay rights activist, and Rafael Franca, which occurred in conjunction with "Brazilian Video Art", the first ever exhibition of Brazilian experimental video work in Chicago.[13]
In 1996 and 1997, Sykes was a featured artist in the
In 2018, Sykes' work By The Crimson Bands of Cyttorak was included in the Chicago New Media 1973-1992 exhibition curated by jonCates.[15]
Title | Year |
---|---|
The Poem | 1975 |
EVE I | 1975 |
Circle 9 Sunrise [16] | 1976 |
A Movement Within | 1976 |
EVE II | 1976 |
Electronic Masks [17] | 1978 |
By The Crimson Bands of Cyttorak [18] | 1978 |
Duals | 1978 |
EVE III | 1978 |
Emanations [19] | 1979 |
Waking [20] | 1979 |
I Dream of Dreaming [21] | 1980 |
Sketching a Motion | 1981 |
Witness [22] | 1982 |
Kalyian [23] | 1986 |
d/stabilize/d[24] | 1987 |
Shiva Darsan [25] | 1994 |
Song of the River[26] | 1997 |
Amma: A Documentary of a Living Saint [27] | 2007 |
See also
References
- ^ ISBN 978-0-252-04154-9.
- ^ "Dan Sandin | Video Data Bank". www.vdb.org. Retrieved 2018-03-14.
- ^ "COPY-IT-RIGHT - jonCates (2009)". Issuu. Retrieved 2020-04-28.
- ^ a b Golemis, Dean P. (December 15, 1986). "Instructor Achieves Acclaim". Columbia Chronicle. Retrieved 10 March 2019.
- ^ ISBN 9780500237281.
- ^ a b c d "Barbara Sykes". www.hi-beam.net. Retrieved 2018-03-09.
- ^ "The Chicago Editing Center Newsletter (September - October 1981)" (PDF). mediaburn.org. Retrieved 18 March 2019.
- ISBN 0-933856-18-0.
- ^ "The Third Australian Video Festival Program" (PDF). Retrieved 18 March 2019.
- ^ Morris, Ed. "An Oral History Of Columbia College Chicago". An Oral History of Columbia College Chicago: 7.
- ^ Guasco, Richard (1 April 1985). "Ace entries offer variety". Columbia Chronicle. Retrieved 10 March 2019.
- ^ An Oral History Of Columbia College Chicago, Michael. "Neiderman" (PDF). An Oral History of Columbia College Chicago.
- ^ "Brazilian Video Art To Be Shown". Chicago Tribune. April 8, 1988. Retrieved 2 March 2019.
- ^ "Celebrating Women in New Media Arts". saic.edu. Retrieved 10 March 2019.
- ISBN 978-0-252-08407-2.
- ^ "Electronic Arts Intermix Video Collection List (as of Spring 1988)" (PDF).
- ^ "Electronic Masks". YouTube.
- ^ "By The Crimson Bands of Cyttorak". 13 January 2012.
- ^ "Electronic Arts Intermix Video Collection List (as of Spring 1988)" (PDF).
- ^ "Waking". ACM SIGGRAPH. Retrieved 2 March 2019.
- ^ "I Dream of Dreaming". ACM SIGGRAPH. Retrieved 2 March 2019.
- ^ "Witness". ACM SIGGRAPH. Retrieved 2 March 2019.
- ^ "Kalyian".
- ^ "d/stabilize/d - Media Burn Archive". Media Burn Archive. Retrieved 2018-03-14.
- ^ "Shiva Darson".
- ^ "A Song of the River".
- ^ "A Documentary of a Living Saint".