Paul Ryan - 12-18-95 Air date Paul Ryan is an artist, author and teacher. Mr.
Ryan's video art work has been presented in Japan, Turkey, France, Germany,
Holland, Spain, Equador, and throughout the United States, including at The
Primitivism Show at The Museum of Modern Art and The American Century Show
at the Whitney Museum of American Art. His program for a Hall of Risk in
lower Manhattan appeared in the Venice Biennale. His design for an
Environmental Television Channel has been presented at a United Nations
Conference.NASA published his Earthscore Notational System. Mr. Ryan
authored Cybernetics of the Sacred and Video Mind, Earth Mind. His articles
have appeared in numerous journals including IS Journal, Millennium,
Leonardo, Terra Nova and Semiotica. He studied with both Marshall McLuhan
and Gregory Bateson. Mr. Ryan s teaching experience includes New York
University, SUNY New Paltz, and Parsons School of Design. Currently he is a
Member of the Core Faculty in the Graduate Media Studies Program at The New
School in New York City. The Three-Person Solution, book manuscript near
completion. Creating Curriculum for Sustainability book manuscript near
completion. Video: The Medium is the Message, collected essays, completed.
Fire Water Father,(with Jim Ryan) Earth Group, NYC 1997. Video Mind, Earth
Mind, Peter Lang Publishers, NYC, 1993. Cybernetics of the Sacred, Doubleday
Anchor, NYC, 1974.
Paul Ryan, b. 1943, is a video artist, teacher, writer and theoretician
working and living in New York, N.Y. Ryan's work focuses on triadic
behavior as it relates to ecological sustainability codified by him into
the Earthscore Notational System. His work appeared in the
groundbreaking exhibition "TV as a Creative Medium" at Howard Wise
Gallery in New York in 1969, and he was a member of the Raindance video
collaborative as well as contributor to the seminal video journal
Radical Software.
(Hide Bio)
Paul Ryan papers, 1943-2008
29.4 linear feet
1 rolled doc.
Biographical material, correspondence, project files, writings, videos,
photographs, works of art, and printed material regarding Paul Ryan's career
as a video artist, writer, and theoretician.
Biographical material includes Ryan's birth certificate and school records.
Personal correspondence is with family. Professional correspondence is with
publishers and colleagues Howard Wise, Michael Shamberg, Gene Youngblood,
Frank Gillette, Beryl Korot, Jody Sibert, Marga Bijvoet, Aldo Lira, Peter
Berg, Michel Foucault and Claude Ponsot. Also included are letters from
Gregory Bateson, Al Gore, Marshall McLuhan, Nam June Paik and Jaime
Davidovich. Business files pertain to the Gaia Institute, Talking Wood
magazine, Eco Channel design, and the Raindance collective, as well as
records of the Earthscore Foundation and various contracts. Writings include
working drafts of Video Wake for My Father by Ryan, drafts of published and
unpublished writings by Ryan, spiral notebooks with annotations and
programming for video projects, as well as poetry and creative writing.
Videos, mainly used in preparation for video art, include 47 U-Matic tapes
relating to studies of triadic behavior and the Earthscore notational
system. Photographs are of Ryan, his friends, family, colleagues, as well as
video stills. Works of art include sketches, sketchbooks and drawings by
Ryan. Also included are printed materials pertaining to human behavior and
training, especially triadic relationships, and other printed material on
video art including 4 issues of Radical Software magazine, an announcement
for the exhibition TV as a Creative Medium, brochures, exhibition
announcements and catalogs, clippings, materials relating to teaching, and
posters for the Hall of Risk project.
How to Use this Collection
Drafts and completed work for Video Wake for my Father: Reproduction
for the purposes of publication requires written permission from Paul
Ryan, 924 West End Ave, Apt 42, New York, N.Y. 10025.
Paul's video art work has been presented in Japan, Turkey,
France, Germany, Holland, Spain and throughout the United States,
including at the Primitivism Show at The Museum of Modern Art and
The American Century Show at the Whitney Museum of American Art.
Mr. Ryan authored Cybernetics of the Sacred and Video
Mind, Earth Mind. His articles have appeared in numerous
journals including IS Journal, Millennium, Leonardo, Terra Nova
and Semiotica. NASA published his Earthscore Notation System.
Mr. Ryan was part of the early video movement, founded and edited a
bioregional magazine in North Jersey, and co-founded and directed
the Gaia Institute at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New
York City. His design for an Environmental Television Channel has
been presented at the United Nations. Mr. Ryan studied with both
Marshall McLuhan and Gregory Bateson. His teaching experience
includes New York University, SUNY New Paltz, The Savannah College
of Art and Design and Parsons School of Design. Currently he is a
Member of the Core Faculty in the Graduate Communication Program at
the New School University.
N.B. Paul Ryan is available for lectures, workshops,
consultations and commissions. Please contact by email at
waterpr3@aol.com or go
to the Contact page of this website.
….a fresh synthesis of the artistic and the technological… no
refutation of science and technology here: rather, a system is
defined which embraces the multiple ways humans 'know,' in order to
address the environmental crisis.
John Giancola,
Associate Professor of Communications,
Tampa University Former Director of Video Program at New York State
Council on the Arts
Interdisciplinary… intercultural… To see what Ryan does with
anthropology is to realize what anthropology has become and what if
failed to be… Most interesting [is] Ryan's persistent and developing
critique of duality …in favor of an assortment of triadic
structures…devised…to bring a self regulating openness to human
conscious and community…when Ryan takes on duality, he takes on
human community and consciousness itself, not an academic
commentary.
Thomas De
Zengotita, Anthropologist, New York University
Both the ecological possibilities of TV and the problems of
fascistic domination of it have been grasped by Paul Ryan-artist and
polymath-subtle, complex, relevant, Ryan proposes that we generate
feed-back by television from the scientifically informed, thousand
eyed demos, the people. This is something new under the
sun…decentered, democratic system in which we all can contribute in
unpredictable, self-correcting ways.
Bruce
Wilshire, Professor of Philosophy, Ruters University
This thinking is remarkably consistent…informed by an intelligent
creative use of the theories of Charles S. Peirce, Gregory Bateson,
Rene Thom, Nelson Goodman…Ryan makes some original contributions
himself in the conceptual realm…he is working in an American
tradition of theorizing, exemplified in the work of Buckminster
Fuller and John Cage…one of the most innovative explorers…
addressing the operations of an electronic civilization on its own
terns.
Gregory Ulmer,
Professor of Literature, University of Florida
In 2008 The Archives of American Art
acquired the papers of Paul Ryan (b. 1943), a pioneering video
artist, writer, teacher and theoretician who works and lives in
New York City. Ryan’s work appeared in the groundbreaking
exhibition TV as a Creative Medium at the Howard Wise Gallery in
New York in 1969, and he was a member of the Raindance media
collective as well as contributor to its seminal video journal
Radical Software. Much of Ryan’s theoretical work focuses on
triadic behavior--the interrelation of three units or
persons—codified by Ryan into the concept of “threeing” as well
as the Earthscore Notational System which draws upon video to
address issues of ecological sustainability. The Paul Ryan
papers contain primary source materials on Ryan’s individual
contributions as well as documentation on the video movement in
New York during its germinal phase. The collection is an
important addition to the Archives’ research holdings relating
to the history of video first formed through the acquisition of
the Howard Wise Gallery records in 1971 and augmented more
recently through collections such as the Leo Castelli Gallery
records and oral history interviews with artists such as Bill
Viola, John Baldassari, and Vito Acconci.
•
