Spanning three decades, the Media Arts Series is comprised of various video and audio formats from 16mm to DVDs.

Marshall Weber’s relationship with media art began in the 1980s when he was a video performance student at the San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI). Weber focused on raw performance and Cinéma vérité style reportage in short films rather than traditional acting or conventional documentary film. Subsequently, his productions became connected with growing alternative art scenes in San Francisco (CA), New York City (NY), and Madison (WI). The collection contains a significant selection of his media production from the 1980’s to the early 2000s, peaking in the early 1990s with noted productions such as The Emotional Tourist, Correcting Corrections, and the 30-minute documentary production Beautiful Losers (1996).

Throughout the 1980s and ’90s, Weber taught in various art schools and art departments and gave countless lectures promoting the use of art as a tool of social change on the front lines of the Culture Wars. Following Weber’s own art in this collection is a selection of audiovisual material created by other media artists, acquired as gifts, trades, and purchases. The selection also reflects Weber’s tenure as a media literacy teacher in Wisconsin, San Francisco, and New York City, and includes media works by his students in both high school and university media programs.

The majority of the items in the collection are VHS and U-Matic Tapes, with a small section of audio material in various formats (vinyl records, cassette tapes, and compact discs). There is also a small collection of audio cassette mix-tapes that amply documents the lush personal mix-tape culture of the 1980s and 1990s.

The last subseries of the collection consists of a substantial slide library of nearly 2,000 slides. These slides document groundbreaking artworks by artists pioneering activist, environmental, installation, and performance art in the 1980s. Also included are three-ring binders housing video art press clippings and related exhibition ephemera. 

Bulk of materials: 1980 – 2000
Item Count: Approximately 3,445 items.
Notable Creators and Authors: 
Kathy Acker, Scott Alexander, Skip Arnold, David Avalos, Alex Bag, Craig Baldwin, Barbie Liberation Organization (Igor Vamos), Sadie Benning, Joseph Beuys, Nancy Burson, Joyce Burstein, Trisha Carney, Enrique Chagoya, Chuck Z, Portia Cobb, Mary Daniel, Anna Deavere, Dipti Desai, Andrej Dudek-Durer, Fela-Kuti, Guerrilla Girls, Guillermo Gomez-PeÒa, Phillip Goodman, Ingo Gunther, Hans Haake, Deedee Halleck, Mona Hatoum, Todd Haynes, Barney Haynes, Matt Heckert, Stephan Hendee, Louis Hock, Dale Hoyt, Steve Hurd, Nam Jun Paik, Tom Kalin, Tony Labat, Gina Lamb, Kevin Mccurdy, Ana Mendieta, Thomas Merrick, Keith Morrison, Manuel Ocampo, Helio Oiticica,  Orlan, Tony Oursler, Phil Patiris, Mark Paulin, Michel Peppe, Francisco Perez, Adrian Piper, Alan Rath, Rigo 23, Barry Schwartz, Stan Shellabarger, Charles Simmons, Leslie Singer, Valerie Soe, Matthew Sommerville, Annie Sprinkle, Dutes Miller And Stan Shellabarger, Mark Wagner, Selena Wang, Marshall Weber, David Wojnarowicz, Jody Zellen

Notable Organizations and Art Collectives:
ACT-UP, AdBusters, Artist Television Access, Barbie Liberation Organization, Cameraworks, Chiat Day Television, Damned Interfering Video Activist-TV (DIVA TV), Deep Dish Satellite TV, Educational Video Center (EVC), Fischli & Weiss, Harlem Heritage High School, National Disgrace, Paper Tiger TV, San Francisco Exploratorium, T. Kim-Trang Tran