Johannes Gfeller
Born 1956 in Burgdorf, Canton of Bern. He lives in Laupen BE and works in Stuttgart. He co-founded Container TV and from 2001 established the media conservation program at Bern University of the Arts. Since 2011 professor and head of the Master’s degree program in conservation of new media and digital information at the Stuttgart State Academy of Art and Design.
00:00 Start. 00:21 Born with a screwdriver in my hand. 01:45 Interest in automatic machines. 02:50 Hippy times, a green teacher and first contact to video. 03:55 Art history, philosophy and general philology at the University of Bern / First encounters with Alex Sutter, founder member of Container TV. 05:10 Founding Container TV in 1978. 06:41 My fascination for video, to explore the medium technologically / I am the technician supporting our projects. 09:03 Meeting video art. 10:17 Hyper TV, 1982/83, a collage about TV culture / First art video funded by the Canton of Bern / Replays in Bern’s youth movement. 12:25 Movement videos / Housing shortage and other projects. 13:33 Women and men / Leaving Container TV. 15:15 Doing video art / René Pulfer and the Videowochen in the Wenkenpark Basel / History of Swiss Video Art. 17:16 Mandate by the Swiss government to preserve video art – project ‘AktiveArchive’ at Bern University of the Arts (HKB) in collaboration with the Swiss Institute for Art Research (SIK-ISEA). 18:45 Aufgaben der digitalen Archivierung, sichern und kontextualisieren. 21:15 Credits.
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