DIVA Station

DIVA Station is a physical and web archive of video art which is being developed since 2005 at SCCA-Ljubljana with the intent to research, document, present and archive video/media art.

By now, it contains more then 1.000 items of different materials. Apart from artistic works it also contains documentations, television shows about video and new media, documentation of events and individual artists. Various sources are of utter importance for research and understanding of video/media art. It contributes greatly to the possibility of interpretation of art works as well as the context in which they were produced. DIVA Station constantly adds newly acquired works to the archive and promotes an overall understanding of artistic oeuvre by organising discussions and presentations.

Materials from physical archive are available for public viewing at Project Room SCCA at Metelkova 6, Ljubljana, where we also organise discussions with artists that are directly involved with archiving contemporary video art.

Photo: Dejan Habicht

Collecting of material for DIVA Station is based on a documentary, archival and research project on video art in Slovenia Videodokument: Video Art in Slovenia 1969-1998, which was developed at SCCA-Ljubljana between 1994 and 1999. Videodokument was the first systematic research of video art in Slovenia, and was important in framing terminology and setting theoretic basis for further research.

Based on a comprehensive research of video and media art practices DIVA Station encompasses a number of programmes: Archiving Practices (research, study exhibitions and educational seminars that thematize the importance of AV archives, their creation, integration and accessibility), Videospotting (a series of video programs of relevant Slovene production and its presentation abroad), Artservis Collection (a thematic project on production conditions in culture), Internet Portfolio (presentations of the selected artists on the Internet) and a collection of Slovene and international books, catalogues and periodicals on contemporary video and new media art and its theory.

DIVA station is a partner archive of GAMA (Gateway to Archives of Media Art) international platform that connects similar European media art archives and enables them better visibility and wider accessibility.

Photo: Dejan Habicht

DIVA Station: study video archive of contemporary arts
(Video and new media arts, documents, international archive projects)

• Art video and documents (actions, projects, performances, lectures, installations,interviews …): over 1.000 units (VHS, S-VHS, Beta SP, mini DV, CD-ROM, DVD, CD, mini disk, audio cassettes)
• ŠKUC-Forum video production (1982-2000)
• Documentary archive of SCCA-Ljubljana (since 1993: programs, projects, actions, lectures, panels, seminars, workshops)
• Art projects: installations, actions, performances, exhibition projects, net art, TV projects (produced by SCCA-Ljubljana)
• Art videos included in Videospotting program (since 1994)
• International archive projects
  

  Apart from a comprehensive archive of local video works we also keep archival projects by various international research organisations and individual video works given by the artists. Most of this works have been presented by us on several public events. All this materials represent an important reference point and additional incentive for our professional work and likewise offer a possibility for international exchange.
  
  DIVA Station currently keeps 40 Years of Video in Germany a documentation and archival project that includes English and German version of the book and 10 DVD compilations with a selection of referential works form different decades; Video Edition Austria - Release 01 a documentation and archival project, a compilation edition of Austrian video art published by independent distribution house Medienwerkstatt from Vienna. We are also proud to present a compilation Rewind + Play. An Anthology of Early British Video Art, a compilation of alternative Paper Tiger TV, video compilation by SCCA-Sarajevo and many others.

DIVA on-line: www.e-arhiv.org/diva