A new documentary by Westcott neighborhood artist and director Courtney Rile takes us back 50 years to the heady days when Syracuse was a world center for a new art form.
Video Ocean, a 60-minute documentary created by Syracuse artist Courtney Rile, provides an
extensive look at the history of video art in Syracuse. The documentary, which mixes interview
segments, archival footage and snippets from video works, skillfully covers a lot of ground.
Indeed, it both revisits the 1970s when Syracuse was a stronghold of the video-art movement
and discusses several contemporary artists. And it touches on Rile’s research into the video
pieces present in the collections of the Everson Museum and Syracuse University Art Museum.
First, “Video Ocean” documents an explosion of creative energy in the early 1970s. David Ross
recalls coming to the Everson to photograph director James Harithas, having an off-the-cuff
conversation with him and being offered a job. He was the first video curator for a museum in
the United States.
Passionate about the medium of video, Ross organized multiple exhibitions. In 1973, he worked
on a video invitational which displayed pieces by 52 artists. He also set up a solo exhibition for
Bill Viola, then a Syracuse University undergraduate. Viola later received national attention for
his videos exploring life, death, the range of human emotions and other subjects.
Ross was in contact not only with SU students but also with experimental-video programs in
Binghamton, Buffalo and Rochester.
At SU, meanwhile, there was a lot going on. The SU School of Art had developed degree
programs in video art.
Beyond that, Viola, Carl Geiger and others took part in Synapse, a student-run, experimental
video collective. In an interview, Geiger, a local artist who’s had a long career creating video
and photographic works, recalls how Synapse built a video network from scratch.
They installed cable all over campus—into dormitories, the basement of the E.S. Bird Library
and the S. I. Newhouse School of Public Communications. Working from a studio in what’s now
Watson Theater, Synapse was able transmit programming to roughly 100 monitors across
campus. It’s worth noting that this was being done at a time when there was no cable television
in Syracuse.
Video Ocean focuses on more than the events of the 1970s. Rile looked at the current scene
and interviewed Anneka Herre, program director for the Urban Video Project. Affiliated with
Light Work at Syracuse University, it provides an ongoing platform for video artists.
The Urban Video Project projects video on to the façade of the Everson Museum, on to its
north exterior wall. During an exhibition’s run, that’s done three nights a week. UVP is one of
the few architectural-projection programs in the USA which operates on an ongoing basis.
Rile interviewed Sandra Stephens and Evan Starling-Davis, two artists whose work has been
presented by the Urban Video Project. She creates video, installations and other work, focusing
on connections between cultural and individual identity. He describes himself as a narrative
artist, curator and digital-age griot.
In addition, the documentary investigates other aspects of the local video-art history. Rile
details the events of 2021 when the administration for the SU School of Visual and Performing
Arts decided to stop accepting new applications for stand-alone degrees in video art. That
decision was protested by a group of SU students.
And there’s discussion of the legacies of the artistic ferment of the 1970s. The Everson’s
permanent collection holds more than 500 videotapes, including work by such well known
artists as Viola, Nam June Paik and Mary Lucier.
Rile interviewed Richard Simmons who was associated with the Everson Museum for more than
a decade. He was an artist in residence, an associate video curator working in concert with
Ross, and video curator from 1978 to 1981. In 1981, the video department was closed down.
Among other things, they discussed the analog nature of videotapes. A 50-year-old video
doesn’t last forever; it needs to be digitized or it becomes unusable.
Beyond that, Video Ocean poses an interesting question: why was Syracuse a hub for artistic
innovation? In an interview segment, Nancy Keefe Rhodes, a local curator and arts writer,
points to Syracuse’s size. It’s a second-tier or third-tier city. That size makes it easier for people
involved with an artistic discipline to contact each other and perhaps work together.
Finally, Rile reflects on video art’s role today, after drastic shifts in technology. In 2025, video is
pervasive; anyone with a smart phone can shoot video.
For her, “Video Ocean” is a labor of love, a vehicle for celebrating video art’s past in Syracuse,
recognizing current-day artists, and considering the future.
The documentary had its premiere on July 25, 2025 at Light Work. It was shown as part of an
evening of archival explorations, after a gallery talk by Aaron Turner, curator of “The Archive as
Liberation,” a show appearing at Light Work.
Rile is sending “Video Ocean” to festivals and seeking other opportunities to show her
documentary. She’s a lens-based artist who’s created a slew of video and photographic works.
Her photo exhibit, “Moments in Between,” appeared at the Everson Museum between January
25 and March 30, 2025.
Carl Mellor covered visual arts for the Syracuse New Times between 1994 and 2019. He
continues to write about artists and exhibitions in the Syracuse area. Carl is a frequent contributor to Westcott.syr of articles and reviews about Westcott Neighborhood and Eastside art and artists.