Buffalo Heads

<b>Images and texts document the legendary Department of Media Study at SUNY Buffalo when it set the world standard; a history of the program and examples of work by “Buffalo heads” James Blue, Tony Conrad, Hollis Frampton, Gerald O''Grady, Paul Sharits, Steina, Woody Vasulka, and Peter Weibel.</b><p>Twentieth-century art history is not just a history of individuals, but of collectives, groups. Universities and colleges have had much to do with this through their support of artistic communities and creative interactions. In the 1920s and 1930s, the Bauhaus was known for this. In the 1940s, Black Mountain College became a leader in community-based visual art practice and education. And in the 1970s and 1980s, the Department of Media Study at the State University of New York at Buffalo was the place to be. It was there, in 1973, well before any other university had a program explicitly devoted to media art, that Gerald O''Grady founded a media study program that is now legend