Program This episode of "New Television" features Ellen Sebring's "Aviary."
Sebring's dream-like video piece includes interspersed choreographed scenes of a single female dancer moving about a dark room filled with suspended, swinging, mirrored strips. Among the scenes, all in slow motion, are a gymnast swinging, winter forest shots, a young woman in and around a swimming pool, a party, burning wood floating down a stream (accompanied by spoken German), and sailors sleeping in a small boat. Throughout are interspersed scenes of birds at rest and in flight in an aviary. The loose story concerns a young man and his visions (real and dreamt) of the young woman from the pool. It ends with the man meeting the woman in a city scene. Overall, it is a melancholic mood piece that deals with themes of constraint and freedom. Produced and directed by Ellen Sebring.
Series The New Television Workshop originated at WGBH, a public broadcasting station in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1974 to support the creation and development of experimental video art. This experimental programming included dance, drama, music, performance and visual arts on video and film. As early as 1968, WGBH was committed to the development of video art through residency programs, with artists such as Nam June Paik, and the "Rockefeller Artists-in-Television" project. Many of these early works (pre-1974) were broadcast both locally and nationally.
As an umbrella for arts related programming, the Workshop included "Artist's Showcase, " "Frames of Reference, " "Dance for Camera, " "Poetry Breaks," and "New Television," as well as acquired arts programming. Individual works were created for "Visions," a series produced by WNET (New York), and "Alive From Off Center," a series produced by KTCA (St. Paul - Minneapolis). The Contemporary Art Television (CAT) Fund was co-founded by the Workshop and Boston's Institute for Contemporary Art (ICA) in the 1980's, to commission works by video artists. In 1993 the Workshop ceased production at WGBH.
