Manuscripts Collection
The history of Intermedia Arts Minnesota evidences a complex succession of administrative and programmatic changes. The organization began in the early 1970s as a video equipment and production resource center of the University of Minnesota and grew to become an independent corporation which distributes, commissions, and exhibits video art.
Initially, the resource center was formed in 1973 as University Community Video under the Minnesota Student Association Telecommunications Corporation by the combination of the Video Access Center of the West Bank Union and the Cable Video Project of the Minnesota Student Association. Funded by student fees, University Community Video provided training, equipment, production facilities, and broadcasting opportunities for students interested in telecommunications and documentary video production. In January of 1975 the MSA Telecommunications Corporation was renamed the University Student Telecommunications Corporation (USTC). Part of the corporation's original mission included plans to own, manage, and operate both radio and cable television broadcasting facilities on the University of Minnesota campus. As a result of further restructuring in the latter part of 1980, University Community Video absorbed what was previously its governing body, USTC. At that time plans for campus broadcasting facilities were elminated in favor of a mission which fostered the appreciation, understanding, and creation of video and related media arts.
In 1985 the corporation was renamed UCVideo, Inc. Impetus for separation from the University began during this same year when the Minnesota Student Association decided to phase out student fee funding of the corporation by 1989. On April 23, 1987, UCVideo legally separated from the University and was renamed Intermedia Arts of Minnesota, Inc. As expressed in its articles of incorporation, its purposes are "to foster and advance artistic and cultural expression through new forms, mediums, and technologies; and to further public appreciation, understanding and involvement in these arts." With this new independence, the corporation shifted its emphasis from video as a documentary form to video as an interdisciplinary and experimental art form.
Since 1980 Tom Borrup has been the executive director of the corporation. Previous directors included Laurel Bonte, Jim Malec, Ron McCoy, and Stephen Kulczykci.
Historical information was taken from the collection.
The collection includes administrative and financial files containing background information, articles of incorporation, annual reports, long range plans, minutes of the board and staff, financial records, and correspondence of the executive director which document the evolution and management of the organization. Also included are subject files, grant proposals and reports, contracts with producers for the distribution of video recordings, press releases, newspaper and magazine clippings, and promotional materials documenting the organization's services, programs, and projects.
In particular, the records document the corporation's organizational changes, its sources of funding, its advocacy of public-access cable television, its role as a distributor for video producers, its partnership with other funding sources to promote artists and new art forms using video, and its role in commissioning and exhibiting video works. The collection also focuses on the shift from video as a documentary medium to video as a performance and interdisciplinary art form. Additionally the collection includes information on independent video makers whose works were fostered by Intermedia Arts.
The records are divided into the following six sections:
Newsletters published by the corporation are available in the Minnesota Historical Society serials collection.
The sound and visual collections of the Minnesota Historical Society
include many of the video recordings distributed by the corporation as well as
many of the recordings originally broadcast on KTCA-TV as part of the
This collection is indexed under the following headings in the catalog of the Minnesota Historical Society. Researchers desiring materials about related topics, persons or places should
Accession number: 15,257
Processed by: Monica Manny Ralston, November 1997
Catalog ID number: 09-00319897
The administrative and financial files contain information related to the formation and evolution of the organization, its mission, and management. Included within this series are historical background and briefing information, articles of incorporation and bylaws, annual reports, management statements, long-range plans, board member rosters, minutes of the board and staff, financial records, and correspondence of the executive director. In particular, these files detail the corporation's formation in 1973 as a service unit of the Minnesota Student Association, its several reorganizations under the University, and its financial and corporate separation from the University of Minnesota.
Minutes for the period October 1982-September 1984 are missing from this series. While some of the corporation's fiscal year audits, budgets, and financial statements are separately filed within the financial files, others are contained within the files regarding student service fees requests. Additional financial information may be found within the minutes of the board as well as the grant files.
Includes descriptions of programs and projects produced or distributed by University Community Video between 1974 and 1976.
Arranged alphabetically, the subject files include a wide range of
information related to the corporation's interests, programs, and staff
projects. The most extensive files document the organization's involvement with
the Committee for Open Media in supporting public-access cable television in
the metro-wide region, as well as the organization's collaboration with Film in
the Cities, Fresh Air Radio (KFAI), and Artspace Projects, Inc., to develop a
collaborative center for the media arts. Additional files contain viewer fan
mail and phone logs regarding documentaries broadcast by KTCA-TV on the
programs
Arranged alphabetically by name of funding source and thereunder chronologically by the corporation's fiscal year. The files include applications for both funded and denied grant proposals, correspondence, letters of support, expense requests, financial status reports, and interim and final reports. Proposals were submitted to private foundations as well as to the National Endowment for the Arts for aid with operating expenses, programmatic support, equipment purchases, commissioned works, artist-in-residence programs, performances, and exhibitions. A large proportion of the files document projects specifically funded by the Visual Arts and Inter-arts categories of the National Endowment for the Arts.
In addition to seeking financial support for its own operations and programs, the organization also began in 1984 to provide grants and commissions to artists through partnerships with other granting sources such as the Northwest Area Foundation, the McKnight Foundation, the Jerome Foundation, and the Rockefeller Foundation. Additional information describing these grants, the commissioned artists, and the works produced under these grants are available in the collection's printed materials.
Background information on grants-in-aid applications and introductory correspondence with The Rockefeller Foundation, the Honeywell Fund, the Hill Family Foundation, and other funding sources.
Arranged alphabetically by production title, some arranged by the name of a producer when a contract applied to more than one production. The files include contracts between Intermedia Arts Minnesota and producers for the distribution of videos, licenses issued by Intermedia Arts for the showing of distributed productions, biographical background on producers, photographic stills used for promotional purposes, printed promotional materials, and press materials.
Arranged chronologically by file type, the press files include public service announcements and press releases issued by Intermedia Arts to promote its programs, services, and exhibitions, as well as clippings from local newspapers and magazines which featured articles and stories about the organization, the artists supported by the organization, and the changing form of video media.
This series includes ephemeral printed items and publications issued by the organization. The materials include conferences and workshop announcements and programs, distribution catalogs, education schedules, materials promoting exhibitions and video showings, and publications. The bulk are postcards, posters, programs, and catalogs used for exhibitions and showings.