Collection Guide
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Beck (Stephen C.) Papers
PFA.MSS.015
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Table of contents
Contributing Institution:
BAMPFA Film Library
Title: Beck (Stephen C.) papers
Creator:
Beck, Stephen, 1950-
Identifier/Call Number: PFA.MSS.015
Physical Description:
19 boxes
Physical Description:
2 Containers
Date (bulk): 1966-2016
Language of Material:
English
.
The collection is open for research.
Accruals are likely in a further donation by Beck.
Immediate Source of Acquisition
The collection was dontated by Stephen Beck in 2015.
Stephen C. Beck (born 1950) is an artist and electrical engineer who has been making groundbreaking experimental video and
film works, as well as electronic toys, in the San Francisco Bay Area since the 1960s. His achievements as a pioneering video
artist in the early 1970s included designing and building custom video synthesizers, and he was a core member of the National
Center for Experiments in Television (NCET), a video art lab based out of KQED in San Francisco between 1967-1975. In the
late 1970s and 1980s he started a company that designed and licensed electronic toys and video games, including a talking
game tie-in for Star Wars (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_A7jNA9IeE) and an Atari game benefiting Greenpeace called "Save
the Whales."
Beck was a leading figure of the 1960s-1970s California electronic art scene and collaborated with other notable filmmakers
and musicians in California and beyond, including Jordan Belson, Warner Jepson, Harry Smith, and many others. Trained in composition,
Beck's musical works include audio synthesizers and music for his own and others' films. In 2005, Beck was appointed as a
lecturer in the UC Berkeley College of Engineering where he was also an artist in residence. There, he began a years-long
project in collaboration with students at UC Berkeley.
Beck's primary legacy however, remains in video art, where his signature blend of psychedelic video synthesis and electronic
music set the standard for West Coast video art of the 1970s. He also created immersive video installations in this period
and beyond. Among these, the Videola (1972) is a collaborative sculptural work which projects a spherical video image within
a gallery space. Nearly thirty years after exhibiting his Video Weavings in 1971, the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film
Archive (BAMPFA) mounted a retrospective exhibition featuring Beck and the NCET. Following this 2000 exhibition, Videospace
(https://bampfa.org/program/videospace-0), Beck donated many of his films and videos to BAMPFA, and in 2015 he donated the
majority of his personal papers to the BAMPFA's Film Library and Study Center. His video artworks were also included in the
2018 exhibition at BAMPFA, Way Bay, and he remains in regular communication with BAMPFA curators and staff.
Finding aid written by Mary Jackson, 2021-08.
Beck also donated a print of experimental filmmaker Harry Smith's "Film #23" which has been accessioned into the BAMPFA film
and video collection.
Numerous video works by Steve Beck are in the BAMPFA film and video collection. The "Videola" is in the BAMPFA permanent art
collection.
The collection consists of personal and business papers related to Beck's artwork, exhibitions, and commercial electronics;
photo documentation including slides, positive prints, and negatives of videos and gallery installations; schematics and
drawings related to artworks and commercial ventures; papers related to Beck's teaching and academic pursuits, including his
published research articles; brochures, posters, and other ephemera related to Beck's exhibitions; published and unpublished
writings about Beck; as well as special materials such as the Star Wars board game, a video game cartridge, and floppy disks
with Computer Assisted Drafting files.
Property rights reside with the University of California, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive. Literary rights are
retained by the creators of the records and their heirs. For permission to reproduce or publish, please contact the Berkeley
Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive Film Library and Study Center.
Kodachrome slides in the collection were rehoused and relocated to boxes 16-19. Additional photographic prints have been temporarily
removed for rehousing. Any other items removed from the collection and relocated, such as posters, are noted within each series
or subseries.
Subjects and Indexing Terms
Video art--United States--Exhibitions
Video art--California
Experimental films--United States
Experimental films--California--San Francisco
Beck, Stephen, 1950-