XFR Events

Upcoming Events

Past Events

2022 [under construction, but I swear we did some stuff!]

XFR Collective Fun-Raiser. The P.I.T, May 7th, 2022 7pm-10pm. The XFR Collective hosted our very first fun fundraiser in our new space in Los Sures (Southside Williamsburg). See here for more details: https://xfrcollective.wordpress.com/2022/05/03/may-5th-2022-xfr-collective-fun-raiser-the-p-i-t . 

2021 [trapped in a time-warp somewhere]

2020

Always in Time: An Archival Workshop for Artists & Filmmakers. Archive Acts Workshops, Sponsored by Tulsa Artist Fellowship. December 15th, 2020 |Tue 6:30pm. Archive Acts presented a free workshop with media conservator Caroline Gil Rodríguez from XFR Collective. Moving through a wide range of formats from analog videotapes, born-digital, and analog film, she shared tactics for artists, videographers, and filmmakers to devise strategies for the care and conservation of their raw footage and completed film and video works. Topics included strategies for documentation and preservation, in addition to sourcing external frameworks such as community archives and distribution that can assist in long-term preservation of moving image works. Recording of livestream available here.

Extending the Reach of Southern Audiovisual Sources: Expansion. Regional AV Preservation Summit, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (Virtual). October 15, 2020 |Thur 1pm. Lorena Ramirez-Lopez presented on the XFR Collective as part of a panel that included representatives of Chesapeake Heartland Project, Mid-Atlantic Regional Moving Image Archive, DCPL Memory Lab, Autry Museum, Basement Tapes Day, and Southside Home Movie Project.

Media Care 101: Digital Preservation that Supports Activists. METRO Zoom. July 30, 2020|Thur 4pm. This webinar was a collaboration between XFR Collective and METRO. Creating a learning environment that empowers our patrons, community, and colleagues is imperative. Even though there is a larger system at play, we can still implement change in our daily practices as cultural workers, and as a collective. This webinar was meant for cultural workers, activists, and anyone interested in exploring practical tips surrounding digital preservation of media through a social justice lens. Presentation by XFR Collective members Samantha Levin (Curator of Digital and Audiovisual Assets at FIT Library’s unit of Special Collections and College Archives) and Chris Nichols (Media Archivist at New York Municipal Archives). Yvonne Ng (Program Manager, Archives) also spoke about the groundbreaking work being done at WITNESS.

What’s That Rack? Preserving Indie Video Art: A METRO/XFR Collective Love Story. METRO Zoom. June 17, 2020|Wed 4pm. Back in 2016, METRO and XFR Collective created an audio/video digitization rack for community use. Join us to learn more about our partnership model with XFR Collective. We’ll talk about XFR Collective’s origin story, digitization partnerships, and community education initiatives. We’ll also screen excerpts of a digitized tape from the Monday-Wednesday-Friday Video Club collection, a 1980s downtown New York underground video art distribution org.

XFR Collective Presents: (Art)work From Home. Spectacle Theater. June 9, 2020|Tue 7pm. Virtual screening hosted on https://www.twitch.tv/spectaclenyc. Artists explore feelings of isolation and making work at home. The program will include: actress Cookie Mueller reading a story about living through the winter of 1970 with Divine in Provincetown, a silent tour of Henry Darger’s home, Colette Justine conducting business from her living environment, and an 8mm dystopian science fiction mockumentary about a virus zombifying residents of Williamsburg, among others.

XFR Collective Presents: All Kinds of Home(Movies). Spectacle Theater. As part of Reimagine: Life, Loss, & Love Worldwide Virtual Festival (May 1 – July 9).  June 23, 2020|Tue 7pm. Virtual screening hosted on https://www.twitch.tv/spectaclenyc. A program centering on recordings of family and community gatherings, protests, and performances. We often frame our work in XFR around the archival concepts of ‘preservation’ and ‘access’, but more often our community partners voice their concerns in the language of memory and legacy. We present these works as examples of not only how individuals save moments on video, but also to demonstrate how processes like digitization and holding screenings allow memories and legacies to persist. Throughout the screening we will include basic personal archiving tips in an effort to share knowledge and to inspire others to proactively tackle their own media memories and legacies. XFR members will use the digital screening chat space to engage attending filmmakers and encourage our audience to ask advice and begin conversations on the practical dimensions of safeguarding your own cultural memories and media materials.

XFR Presents: Toxxic City and Other Earth Day Delights. Spectacle Theater. April 22, 2020|Wed 7pm. Virtual screening hosted on https://www.twitch.tv/spectaclenyc. “Coming to your home at 6ft+++ distance, we’re back with another anthology of digitized video tapes featuring art, activism, and action over the deteriorating conditions of our global environment. See excerpts from the 1990 eco-activist video zine Toxxic City, footage of a Times Up!’ Earth Day bike ride protest, a short film about the the rising oceans taking over the world in “Rapture of the Deep”, and many more. Don’t forget to peep that chat box! Some of the filmmakers will be in attendance ready to answer your questions!”

Media Care: Audiovisual Archiving for Posterity with the XFR Collective. Museum of Chinese in America. Jan 20, 2020|Mon 12:30pm – 1:30pm. Are your 8-tracks, home videos, and cassette tapes obsolete? Do you have a preservation plan for your audiovisual materials? What formats are most sustainable for the future? Explore how to preserve analog media like vinyl records, VHS tapes, and cassettes; learn why it’s important to migrate your material to digital formats; and consider the pros & cons of home transfer vs. vendor transfer with expert Traci Mark from the XFR Collective.

你的8轨磁带、家庭录像以及盒式磁带是否已经过时？你有保存音像资料计划吗？未来哪种格式保存最持久？探索如何保存黑胶唱片、录像带和录音磁带等物理介质；了解为什么将您的资料转换成数字格式很重要；和来自XFR Collective的专家Traci Mark一起考虑自己在家里做格式转换对比在专门店转换的优缺点。

Home Movie Day. Museum of Modern Art. Jan 11, 2020| Sat 10am – 4:30pm. A daylong workshop and celebration of amateur and personal films. Screen your own VHS, 8mm, and 16mm films and learn about how to keep them safe for future generations. Related special programs, including presentations, film animation activities, and gallery experiences, will take place throughout the day. The Center for Home Movies will offer free analog-film digitization and XFR Collective will provide free VHS-to-digital transfers. Visitors are invited to participate in and watch transfers and to seek advice about preserving audiovisual media.

2019

Independent Preservation for Independent Filmmakers: Practical Advice for Preserving your Work. Korean Film Archive|Seoul, South Korea. Nov 27, 2019. Outtakes, originals, rough cuts, and edit decision lists. What does a filmmaker preserve and how? This presentation looks at preservation as part of the lifecycle of creative work, giving practical advice to filmmakers on what they can do to ensure their film is accessible long after opening night. Topics covered include videotape and audiotape digitization, digital file storage and management, and the all-important metadata. Presented by XFR Collective member Kelly Haydon.

indymedia 20th Anniversary Encuentro. Rice University Media Center | Houston, TX. Nov 29-Dec 1, 2019 . The “Indymedia 20th Anniversary Encuentro” marks the 20th anniversary of when the first Independent Media Center came to life amid clouds of tear gas, as hundreds of volunteer reporters documented protests against the World Trade Organization in Seattle, starting on November 30, 1999. Part of indymedia’s mission was the goal: “Don’t hate the media, be the media.” Its decentralized collectives used open source software to build websites with open-publishing newswires where people could post print, photo, audio and video content. They also collectively produced documentaries, hosted radio shows and published newspapers. Most have dissolved, but the principles and challenges they wrestled with remain relevant. Unfortunately the lessons they offer tend to be overlooked… until now. The title references a Spanish term for “convergence” used by the Zapatistas in Mexico who inspired Indymedia’s horizontal structure and much more.

Nov 30 + Dec 1 XFR Collective will provide a free pop-up VHS and MiniDV digitization station on a first come, first served basis to participants who bring analog indymedia materials! You will be able to download preservation-grade digital versions of your materials from the Internet Archive.

Barchives #5: XFR Collective and Ear Inn Part Two-oooooo. The Ear Inn + The James Brown House. Oct 22, 2019 | Tue 6:30pm-10pm. “The ghosts of the Ear Inn and their friend, Rip Hayman, have invited us back for a spooky October Barchives. Rip will screen a short film, said to be the basis of the movie Ghost (1990), which was shot in the historic James Brown House. Caroline Gil will share a selection of scary shorts digitized by the XFR Collective, a non-profit organization that partners with artists, activists, individuals, and groups to lower the barriers to preserving at-risk audiovisual media by providing low-cost digitization services and fostering a community of support for archiving and access through education, research, and cultural engagement. Let’s raise a glass to all things spectral, historical, and audio-visual as we celebrate Archives Month!”

Home Movie Day 2019! NYU Moving Image Archiving and Preservation Program Students/The Association of Moving Image Archivists Student Chapter at NYU along with The Queens Memory Project and XFR Collective. Queens Public Library, Long Island City, NY. Oct 19, 2019 | Sat 12:30pm-4pm. Do you have old films or videotapes that you haven’t watched in years? Join us for a celebration of home movies and cultural heritage — featuring home movie bingo and light refreshments! Bring your friends, family, and most importantly your home movies. NYU MIAP students along with The Queens Memory Project and XFR Collective will be on-hand to inspect your materials and advise on preservation and digitization options. We will be screening 16mm, 8mm, Super 8mm, CHS, 8mm Video, MiniDV, DVD, and digital video files.

Arch, Curated by Noam Parness and Daniel J Sander. Leslie-Lohman Museum. Aug 7-Sept 1, 2019 | Weds, Fri-Sun, 12pm-6pm + Thur 12pm-8pm. “Arch is a month-long exhibition during which four different artists/collectives will each takeover the gallery for one week at a time. Every artist/collective will present a separate project, yet they are united under the title of Arch in their shared attention to the structures of support of queer collectivities. Within each week, Thursday nights from 6-8PM will serve as a space for additional activation and programming.” Aug 21-25 “XFR Collective will offer free digitization services by appointment for analog video and audio media and will provide a space to discuss strategies for preserving personal and community media. Visitors will be invited to watch tapes as they are transferred, to seek advice from XFR Collective members about preserving AV materials, and to explore the mechanics of dissected analog equipment.”

Altered After, Curated by Conrad Ventur for Visual AIDS. PARTICIPANT, INC. July 10-Aug 18, 2019 | Weds-Sun, 12-7pm. “Considering themes of time, caregiving, and transformation, Altered After presents artworks that incorporate archives, archaeology, salvaged objects, material migrations, inherited knowledge and bequests in response to HIV/AIDS. For these artists, stewarding material remnants and activating new meaning from them is a form of care and also a call to bring new engagement and life to what has been lost and left behind. Their practices build bonds of kinship and give form to legacies and personal histories. The artists in Altered After are field guides reporting between worlds through paint, movement, video and film, light and chemistry, plants, everyday materials, thread, stone, pebbles, and clay.” As part of this larger exhibit, XFR WKND: A weekend of analog video transferring with XFR Collective will take place July 27—July 28 | 1pm-7pm.

Ko Nakajima: Exhibition and Screenings. WhiteBox Harlem, organized by Kyoko Sato, Director, East Asia Programming. Exhibition May 18 – May 25 | 11am-5pm, Screening Tue May 21 from 6pm-8pm. Collaborative Cataloging Japan (CCJ) and XFR Collective are pleased to collaborate with WhiteBox Harlem in organizing a rare exhibition and screening of films and videos by Ko Nakajima. This event is part of the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council (LMCC) Creative Engagement grant awarded to the project “New Findings in 1970s Japanese Video Art: Works of Ko Nakajima and Video Earth Tokyo”. This presentation is made possible in part with public funds from the Creative Engagement grant program, supported by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council and the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and administered by LMCC. LMCC empowers artists by providing them with networks, resources, and support, to create vibrant, sustainable communities in Manhattan and beyond.

XFR @ Spectacle Theater Stoop Sale. Spectacle Theater. May 18, 12pm-6pm. Come get your Spectacle Merch, Posters, and an assortment of wares including but not limited to comic books, DVDs, records, wigs, and trousers. Home-made goods both edible and collectable. Iced coffee! This year’s stoop sale also includes XFR Collective! If you missed them in March at the Analogue Roadshow, they will be on site at the Stoop Sale digitizing at-risk media (VHS, Mini DV, etc). Note: XFR cannot digitize anything under copyright!

XFR @ Museum of Chinese in America (MOCA). May 11, 12pm-3pm. MOCA has invited XFR Collective to setup an information station on preserving and digitizing analog media at their Family Treasures event this May. From MOCA: “The goal of Family Treasures is two-fold: to teach the public how to identify, preserve and share their family heirlooms and stories and to allow MOCA to continue and increase community engagement, documentation, and digitization efforts – discovering more contemporary and inclusive narratives and providing public access to community objects and stories. Throughout the day, we have interactive stations where visitors can learn the basics of preserving family photos, paper documents, textiles, jewelry, and more, as well as how to pack and store them. The program is free and open to the public with RSVP.“

Ko Nakajima: Video Earth Tokyo & Japanese Cable Access. Electronic Arts Intermix (EAI). Mar 8, 6:30pm-8pm. EAI is partnering with Collaborative Cataloging Japan (CCJ) to host a rare in-person appearance by the Japanese artist Ko Nakajima, a pioneer of experimental media and early cable access. Nakajima will present a selection of works, including titles recently preserved and made newly available by CCJ and XFR Collective, and speak to his involvement in the video collective Video Earth Tokyo and their engagement with cable access television in Tokyo at a dynamic moment in the 1970s.

ANALOG ROADSHOW: A Very Special Sunday With XFR Collective. Spectacle Theater. Mar 17, 5pm-10pm. XFR Collective pop-up transfer station. Attendees are invited to bring their tapes for basic inspection, and possible digitization. While XFR Collective is transferring,  enjoy a screening of some of our past transfers.

XFR Collective: All-Volunteer Community Centered Media Digitization and Access. Scholar and Feminist Conference: The Politics and Ethics of the Archive, Barnard Center for Research on Women. Feb 9, 12:30pm-2pm. Workshop presentation on the work of XFR Collective, followed by an informal discussion of DIY media archiving tips.

Westbeth Community Workshop. Westbeth Community Room. Jan 23, 7pm-8pm.                 Join XFR Collective and Westbeth Artist Housing to learn what you can do to preserve your audiovisual work. Featuring: care and identification of analog media, converting analog media to digital, and what to do after your recording has been digitized. Free and open to the public.

2018

XFR @ Brooklyn Public Library. Central Branch Info Commons. Oct 13th, 2-4pm. Screening of XFR video and selects from BPL’s Brooklyn Collection. NYC-heavy video. learn about XFR’s work and how to preserve your own AV material.

XFR @ Adelphi. Adelphi University Libraries. Oct 6th, 1-5pm. Presentation and screening with tips on how to preserve your home movies. RSVP preferred.

XFR @ SPR. Secret Project Robot. Sept 15th, 2-8pm. On-site tape digitization: audio cassette, VHS, mini-DV and Hi8. Learn about AV preservation and about XFR Collective’s work. Screening of XFR Collective transfers.

LESXFR vol.2 Opening Screening and Reception, Ulterior Gallery. July 27th, 7-9pm. Second in a series presenting selections of video and film from the Lower East Side and greater NYC from the 1970s-1990s. Screenings will continue during gallery hours July 28th-29th.

XFR Collective Open House First post-hiatus info session at METRO. Open to the general public with advance registration. June 14th from 7-9pm.

Rise up: New England Archivists (NEA) 2018 Spring Meeting. XFR Collective presentation and screening, March 22, 2018.

A Different Kind of Data Rescue: Digitizing and Preserving Obsolete Analog Video. Endangered Data Week Presentation by XFR Collective at Barnard College, February 26, 2018.

2017

XFR Collective: Growing and Sustaining Community Audiovisual Archiving in New York City. A panel presentation on XFR growth and obstacles featuring XFR core members Dinah Handel, Mary Kidd, Marie Lascu, and Ana Marie, at the 2017 conference of the Association of Moving Image Archivists in New Orleans (slides). November 30, 2017.

Community Archiving Workshop with Barbara Hammer and XFR Collective: The Importance of Queer archiving, at The Whitney Museum of American Art. October 30, 2017

2017 New York Archives Week Awards Ceremony, hosted by Archivists Round Table (ART). Members Ethan Gates and Mary Kidd accept ART’s 2017 award for Outstanding Support of Archives on behalf of the collective. October 24, 2017.

LESXFR, vol. 1 at Ulterior Gallery. A program of co-curated footage from XFR Collective and Ulterior Gallery representing Lower East Side culture of the ’70s and ’80s. Screening and reception on August 4, 2017; program was on display at Ulterior from August 5-6 and 11-13.

METRO’s Launch Party at 599.  XFR collective demos new audiovisual rack.  June 1, 2017.

XFR Collective Selects: Resistance screening at Hunter College. Organized by Educate & Act, an educational series aimed at empowering all of us to be better informed citizens and activists, with stronger voices and longterm stamina. Cohosted by Hunter Artist Action Group (HAAG) of Hunter MFA, The Creative Resistance, and 2 Hours a Week. March 4, 2017

MIX NYC Queer Experimental Film Festival, XFR Collective: Mini-transfer station redux. February  2017

XFR Collective Selects: As Seen on TV at Ulterior Gallery. January 6, 2017

2016

Archiving and Preserving Your Films for the Indie Filmmaker workshop, hosted by Third World Newsreel at City College of New York. November 16, 2016

Power to the People: A Discussion of Personal Digital Archiving Labs , a panel presentation featuring Rachel Mattson (for XFR Collective), Lauren Algee (DC Public Library), Samantha Abrams (Wisconsin Public Library) , and Dorothea Salo (University of Wisconsin) at the 2016 Digital Library Federation Forum in Milwaukee, WI. November 2016

Lighting talk at the Preservation and Archiving Special Interest Group (PASIG) Meeting by XFR Members Mary Kidd (NYPL), Marie Lascu (Film Society, Lincoln Center), Rachel Mattson (La MaMa Archives), Lorena A Ramirez-Lopez (2016-17 NDSR). October 27, 2016

XFR Collective Selects: As Seen on TV at Le Petit Versailles. September 30, 2016

XFR Collective @ Mix NYC: Queer Community Audiovisual Archiving – A panel presentation given by Carmel Curtis at the annual Society of American Archivists (SAA) conference in Atlanta, GA. [HTML Slides]

The Archivist is IN: An Open Q&A with Members of the XFR Collective, A Groundswell: Oral History for Social Change Practitioner Support Network Chat. July 8, 2016

Hands-on Practice: Video presentation in the Intro to Personal Digital Archiving Summer course at Tisch School of the Arts. June 29, 2016

XFR Collective Selects: Short Works by Joan Jubela 1978-1993 at Le Petit Versailles. June 18, 2016

Cataloging and File Management workshop for the Asian American Oral History Collective. [Google Slideshow] April 18,2016

XFR Collective: What We Do and Why We Do It, a workshop for Graduate Students from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign School of Information. March 2016

XFR Collective – A lightning talk presented by Lorena Ramirez-Lopez at the code4lib Conference in Philadelphia, PA. March 2016

Archiving and Preserving Film/Media Collections, a workshop at the Third World Newsreel ORGANIZING / FILMMAKING / ARCHIVING: FILMS FROM THE THIRD WORLD NEWSREEL ARCHIVES Symposium. February 2016

2015

MIX NYC Queer Experimental Film Festival residency, XFR Collective: The Installation. November 2015

XFR Collective – A lightning talk presented by Lorena Ramirez-Lopez at the Association of Moving Image Archivists Annual Conference in Portland, OR. November 2015

XFR Collective Selects: A Night of Activist-Themed Videos at Le Petit Versailles. September 25, 2015

Experimental Politics screening curated by Carmel Curtis for the Dirty Looks Film Festival. Featured archival footage from 1992, of African American drag queen Joan Jett Blakk, campaigning for President of the US, and a 1995 video of Sylvia Rivera giving a tour of her home in a gay homeless camp in the West Village.  July 9, 2015 

XFR Collective Selects: A Medley of Art Compositions at Le Petite Versailles. August 28, 2015

Stretched Resources, Flexible Solutions: XFR Collective In Action – A poster session presented by Pamela Vizner at the Personal Digital Archiving Conference in New York, NY. April 2015

Rebecca Fraimow, Rachel Mattson and Yvonne Ng (WITNESS) at the Cataloging Hidden Special Collections and Archives Unconference and Symposium: Innovation, Collaboration, and Models. March 12, 2015

2014

Click Capture, Press Play: Digitization Initiatives for Regional AV Collections – A panel session with the California Audiovisual Preservation Project and Moving Image Preservation of Puget Sound at the Association of Moving Image Archivists Annual Conference in Savannah, Georgia [PDF] October 11, 2014

Beyond Transfer Stations: Collaborative Efforts Towards Digital Preservation of Analog Video and Born-Digital at XFR Collective – a panel session presented at the NDIPP Digital Preservation Meeting. July 22, 2014

XFR STN Collective? Guerrilla Archiving of Obsolete Artist Material – A lightning talk presented by Julia Kim at the Personal Digital Archiving Conference in Indianapolis, IN. April 10, 2014

Presentación en la Mesa Redonda “Self-Preservation: Ideas para cuidar tu archivo personal”. 25 de Noviembre de 2014 en Universidad Católica del Uruguay.