The Contemporary Art Television Fund / The CAT Fund
# The Contemporary Art Television Fund / The CAT Fund

A collaboration between the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, and WGBH TV, Boston’s Public Television Station, The Contemporary Art Television (CAT) Fund was a special initiative seed funded for three years by the Massachusetts Council on the Arts and Humanities, 1983-1986. Kathy Rae Huffman was appointed curator/producer of The CAT Fund with a mandate to create a context for artists to define television as a medium for their personal expression. The Fund was to increase visibility of artists work in the area of television, to create larger distribution markets for artists television/video, and to experiment in methods for funding and self-sustaining strategies for media arts production. In addition to events, special meetings of producers, and presentations, the following artists‘ projects were commissioned, and co-produced by The CAT Fund, 1984-1991 (in alphabetical order):

* Laurie Anderson: What You Mean We? (video, produced in collaboration with Alive From Off Center, 1986)
* Burt Barr and James Benning: O Panama (video co-produced with New TV Workshop 1985)
* Dara Birnbaum: Will-O'-The-Wisp (video/installation, 1985)
* Peter D'Agostino: String Cycles (interactive work, 1991)
* Ken Feingold: Irony (TV narrative, 1985)
* Doug Hall: Storm and Stress (video, 1986)
* Joan Jonas: Double Lunar Dogs (video, 1984)
* Joan Logue: New England Fisherman: Spots (video portraits, 1985)
* Chip Lord and Mickey McGowen: Easy Living (video, 1984)
* Branda Miller: Time Squared (video for TIME CODE , 1987)
* Jacques Louise & Daniele Nyst: L'Image (video and computer animation, 1987)
* Marcel Odenbach: As If Memories Could Deceive Me (video and installation, 1986)
* Tony Oursler: EVOL (video, 1984)
* Tony Oursler and Constance DeJong: Relatives (video and performance, produced in collaboration with the exhibition BiNational: American Art of the Late 80’s, and toured internationally, 1988-1989)
* Daniel Reeves: Ganapati / a spirit in the bush (video, 1986)
* Raul Ruiz: Expulsion of the Moors The (installation with video, co-produced with IVAM (Valencia) and the Galerie Nationale du Jeu de Paume, Paris, 1990)
* Bill Seaman: The Watch Detail (interactive computer installation)
* Bill Seaman: The Water Catalogue (video, 1984)
* Ilene Segalove: More TV Stories (video, 1985)
* Michael Smith & William Wegman: The World of Photography (video, produced in collaboration with “Alive From Off Center”, 1986)
* Bill Viola: I Do Not Know What it is I Am Like (video, video laserdisc co-produced with The Voyager Co., 1986)

In 1997, The DeCordova Museum presented The CAT Fund, as part of its HISTORY OF VIDEO ART IN BOSTON series. Part II: The 1980s.

