Howard Besser

Biography: Howard Besser is Director of the Moving Image Archiving and Preservation masters degree program (MIAP).  In addition to teaching MIAP courses, he teaches a regular Cinema Studies course on “New Media, Installation Art, and the Future of Cinema”.  His current research projects involve preserving digital public television, preserving and providing digital access to dance performance and preserving difficult electronic works, issues around copyright and fair use, Do-It-Yourself media, and the changing nature of media with the advent of digital delivery systems.  Website: http://cinema.tisch.nyu.edu/object/BesserH.html

Jennifer Blessing 

Biography: Curator of Photography, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York.  She joined the curatorial staff in 2002, after previously working at the museum from 1989–97. Most recently, Blessing organized the New York presentation of Carrie Mae Weems: Three Decades of Photography and Video (2014),  an exhibition originating at the Frist Center for the Visual Arts in Nashville. She also co-organized Rineke Dijkstra: A Retrospective (2012) and the Guggenheim’s presentation of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art’s exhibition Francesca Woodman, which opened in March 2012.

Sydney Briggs 

Biography: Sydney Briggs is the Associate Registrar for collections at the Museum of Modern Art.

Steve Dye 

Biography:  Steve Dye is the Exhibitions Technical Manager at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA).  Dye started working at SFMOMA in 1995, in their theater doing public programs and film screenings.  In 1999, he moved to exhibitions and since then has been installing works from the permanent collection and loans.  Dye graduated from the California College of Arts and Crafts, which is now the California College of the Arts.  He studied film, video, and performance.

Christine Frohnert 

Biography:   Christine Frohnert completed her training as painting and sculpture conservator in 1993, joined the Museum Ludwig, Cologne, Germany, and held the position of Chief Conservator from 2000 – 2005. She holds a graduate degree in the Conservation of Modern Materials and Media from the University of Arts, Berne, Switzerland (2003). From 2002-2005, she was the deputy head of the modern art section of the German Conservators’ Association, VDR.  She worked with Cranmer Art Conservation in New York City from 2005 until 2012. In 2012, she was named the inaugural Judith Praska Distinguished Visiting Professor in Conservation and Technical Studies at NYU, IFA, CC teaching the a seminar course: Art with a Plug – The Conservation of Artworks containing Motion, Sound, Light, Moving Images and Interactivity. Since 2012 Christine is a partner of bek&frohnert LLC based in New York City. Website: http://bekandfrohnert.com

Sara (Gordon) Bender 

Biography: Sara (Gordon) Bender was the media conservation technician at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden.  Later she joined the Solomon R Guggenheim Museum in their time-based media conservation department.  Presently she is working at Guild. Website: Guild.  Contact:  s.bender@guildisgood.com

John Hanhardt

Biography:  John G. Hanhardt is a consulting senior curator of film and media arts at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. He joined the museum’s staff in 2006. In 2009, the museum acquired the complete estate archive of visionary artist Nam June Paik. Hanhardt, the leading expert on Paik, is currently preparing an oral history project for the Nam June Paik Archive.  Among his many exhibition credits are “Nam June Paik: Global Visionary” (2012), “Bill Viola: Going Forth By Day” (2002), “The Worlds of Nam June Paik” (2000) and “Andy Warhol’s Video & Television” (1991).  Hanhardt holds a master’s degree in cinema studies from New York University (1970) and a bachelor’s degree from the University of Rochester (1967). He lives in New York City.

Chrissie Iles 

Biography: Chrissie Iles is a curator at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York. Her specializations include film, Minimalist and process-based art of the sixties and seventies, and film and video installation. She is part of the curatorial team formulating the artistic policy of the Whitney Museum.  Iles is an adjunct Professor at Columbia University, a member of the Faculty of the Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College, and External Examiner for Goldsmith’s College London,. She was a Juror for the 2003 Turner Prize at Tate, London, and is an advisory committee member for the New York State Council on the Arts, New York.

Agathe Jarczyk

Biography: Agathe Jarczyk is a Conservator of Modern Materials and Media. Since 2008, Jarczyk is the owner of the “Studio for Video Conservation“ (Atelier für Videokonservierung GmbH) in Berne, Switzerland. Her studio focuses on conservation treatment and caretaking of video artworks for numerous Swiss and international museums and collections.
Since 2011, she is lecturer at the Department for Conservation and Restoration at the University of the Arts, Berne. Between 2010 to 2012, Jarczyk worked as a conservation researcher in a number of national research projects, including “Vacuum freeze drying as a first aid measure for water damaged magnetic tapes – developing a new method for saving endangered archive stock” (funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation) and “Developing durable Foodstuffs for Contemporary Art”. Besides different articles on practical aspects on the conservation of video art, Jarczyk is a co-author of the “Compendium of Image Errors in Analogue Video”, published in 2013.  Website: http://videokonservierung.ch

Mona Jimenez

Biography: Mona Jimenez started transferring obsolete videotapes in the late 1980s and has been an advocate and organizer for the preservation of independent media and media art ever since. She is Associate Arts Professor/Associate Director in NYU’s Moving Image Archiving and Preservation Program, where she teaches the preservation of video and digital works. She is co-editor with Sherry Miller Hocking and Kathy High of The Emergence of Video Processing Tools: Television Becoming Unglued, that documents collaborations between artists and technologists to create custom tools for media art (for the book, visit:University Chicago press). Since 2009 she has been experimenting with participatory models of media/film archiving locally and through Community Archiving Workshops organized by the Independent Media Committee of the Association of Moving Image Archivists. She is the founder of Audiovisual Preservation Exchange (APEX), a project to network audiovisual archivists, educators and students internationally through shared work on collections. Website: http://cinema.tisch.nyu.edu/object/Jimenezm.html

Chris Lacinak

Biography: Lacinak is the Founder and President, AudioVisual Preservation Solutions, New York and Adjunct Professor, Moving Image Archiving and Preservation, New York University.  Chris founded AVPreserve in 2006 with a focus on empowering organizations to maximize the usability of their data for distribution, education, research, monetization, marketing, and business intelligence – both in the immediate present and over the long-term. Much of his recent work has focused on strategic and business planning, as well as research and development of standards and technologies for the creation and management of digital media.  Website: http://www.avpreserve.com

Heather Lyon Weaver

Biography: Heather Lyon Weaver has been working as a video editor and colorist for over 12 years. She specializes in independent documentary programs, but has worked on a wide variety of projects including narrative, experimental, animation and video art.  Heather is an expert in the field of video preservation and restoration. In 2000, she devised the methodology for the reconstruction of Ant Farm and TR UTHCO’s 1976 The Eternal Frame. She worked with artists Chip Lord and Doug Hall to perform all restoration on the piece. She has worked with the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art on the restoration of a 1968 piece by video artist Howard Fried.  Heather has been a student of independent video art, history and theory since 1990. She received a Bachelor of the Arts degree from Hampshire College in 1994 and began working professionally in video immediately thereafter.  Website:  http://www.reeltimecolor.com

Paul Messier 

Biography: Paul Messier received an M.A. and Certificate of Advanced Study in the Conservation of Works of Art from the Art Conservation Program at the State University College at Buffalo. Messier is an independent conservator of photographs working in Boston Massachusetts, USA. Founded in 1994, Messier’s studio provides conservation services for leading private and institutional clients throughout the world. The sustaining focus of his practice is the conservation treatment of fine art photographic prints. He was one of the principal organizers of TechArchaeology, upon which, TechFocus is based. MESSIER Website: http://paulmessier.com

Dara Meyers-Kingsley

Biography: Dara Meyers-Kingsley is a contemporary art curator, arts administrator and educator. She has taught aspiring artists in Parsons’ MFA studio art program, undergraduate honor students in Macaulay Honors College, and now directs Hunter College’s new Muse Scholar Program for undergraduates with talents in the arts. With experience and passion for bringing together diverse professionals for creative new initiatives, she was Project Director for the Mellon-funded Arts Across the Curriculum initiative pilot year at Hunter during 2011-2012 and was a founder of the non-profit organization, IMAP (Independent Media Arts Preservation).

Joanna Phillips

Biography:  Joanna Phillips is the Conservator of Time-based Media at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York. At the Guggenheim, Phillips has founded the lab for time-based media conservation and develops and implements strategies for the preservation, reinstallation, and documentation of the media works in the collection. One of Phillips’ recent publications is the “Compendium of Image Errors on Analogue Video” (2013). As a committee member of the Electronic Media Group of AIC, Phillips is a founding co-organizer and co-programmer of EMG’s educational workshop series “TechFocus”.  Prior to joining the Guggenheim, Phillips specialized in the conservation of contemporary art at the Swiss Institute for Art Research in Zürich and explored the challenges of media art conservation as a conservation researcher in the Swiss project “AktiveArchive”. Phillips holds an M.A. in paintings conservation from the Hochschule für Bildende Künste Dresden (Germany). 

Maurice Schechter

Biography: Maurice Schechter is the Chief Engineer at DuArt Restoration in New York.  Schechter has more than forty years of experience working with vintage analog video equipment.  At DuArt, he oversees video preservation projects of all types and scopes for libraries, museums and archives.  Website: http://www.duart-restoration.com

Carol Stringari

Biography: Carol Stringari is Deputy Director and Chief Conservator of the Guggenheim Foundation. Ms. Stringari joined the Guggenheim staff in 1992. She is responsible for assessing and developing policy and procedures for the care and treatment of the collection. Working closely with the conservation, curatorial, and registration staff, she identifies priorities for collections care and oversees research and treatment.  Ms. Stringari played a key role in formulating and implementing the Panza Collection Initiative as well as the Variable Media Initiative at the Guggenheim Museum. She co-organized an exhibition on the theme of variable media in 2004, entitled Seeing Double: Emulation in Theory and Practice.

Glenn Wharton 

Biography: Glenn Wharton is an Associate Professor in Museum Studies at New York University. From 2007-2013 he served as Media Conservator at the Museum of Modern Art, where he established the time-based media conservation program for video, performance, and software-based collections. At MoMA he initiated programs to digitize analog collections, develop a digital collections repository, and build documentation systems for media and performance art. In 2006 he founded Voices in Contemporary Art (VoCA), a non-profit organization devoted to preserving contemporary art through collaborating with artists and art professionals. Glenn’s current research is on building archives that document artist working methods and their concerns for future conservation and display. This research engages contemporary debates around intellectual property, authorship, and authenticity.