Bergen Centre for Electronic Arts

Nasjonalmuseet and BEK invite artists to a workshop introducing the Video Art Archive – a reference archive and a portal for artists, curators, art historians and researchers. The archive offers artists the opportunity to store metadata and files in a secure way for the future, and the workshop will give an introduction to uploading and registering of your own video works.

Workshop – daytime: 31 May 14:00—16:30
Workshop – evening: 31 May 19:00—21:30
BEK, C. Sundtsgate 55, Bergen

The workshop is free, but registration is required. Sign up by sending an e-mail to bek@bek.no. We offer two identical workshops, at 14:00 and 19:00. Please write in the e-mail which one you would like to attend.

During the workshop, we will look at metadata related to video works and how to upload files in the portal. We will also get an insight into how the archive is structured, how it is used by curators, art historians and researchers, and will get some information regarding copyright.

The workshop is led by Håvard Oppøyen, who is in charge of the Video Art Archive at the National Museum’s library and archive. Oppøyen is a film archivist and has previously worked with preservation, restoration and dissemination of film at the Norwegian Film Institute and the National Library of Norway.

Practical information

The workshop will take place in BEK, on the 9th floor of C. Sundts gate 55, Bergen. We ask that all participants bring their own laptop, as well as some of their own artwork in the form of digital files. Coffee and fruit will be served. Due to limited capacity, please let us know as soon as possible if you are registered and cannot participate.

About the Video Art Archive

The archive originated as a pilot project initiated and financed by the Arts Council of Norway in 2011 and was developed by PNEK (The production network for electronic art) through 2011–2015. Since January 2021, the Video Art Archive has been part of Nasjonalmuseet as a resource archive in the museum’s library and archive section. The goal is a dynamic and updated archive, an overview of works of video art and all related art made in Norway. The Video Art Archive is an archive system specially developed for artists to register their works and upload files. In addition, access can be given to curators, historians and researchers for searching and viewing digital content. Artists themselves can provide access to download files with a higher resolution directly from the archive. https://www.videokunstarkivet.org/

Images: still images from works by Tone Myskja, Mattias Härenstam and Kaja Leijon, courtesy of the Video Art Archive.