<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?><feed xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom" ><generator uri="https://jekyllrb.com/" version="4.4.1">Jekyll</generator><link href="https://collopy.net/feed/discussions.xml" rel="self" type="application/atom+xml" /><link href="https://collopy.net/" rel="alternate" type="text/html" /><updated>2026-03-09T16:09:41-07:00</updated><id>https://collopy.net/feed/discussions.xml</id><title type="html">Peter Sachs Collopy | Discussions</title><author><name>Peter Sachs Collopy</name></author><entry><title type="html">Art and Science Collide at Southern California’s Third Annual PST ART Series</title><link href="https://collopy.net/discussions/2024/airtalk/" rel="alternate" type="text/html" title="Art and Science Collide at Southern California’s Third Annual PST ART Series" /><published>2024-09-12T00:00:00-07:00</published><updated>2024-09-12T00:00:00-07:00</updated><id>https://collopy.net/discussions/2024/airtalk</id><content type="html" xml:base="https://collopy.net/discussions/2024/airtalk/"><![CDATA[Touted as the “largest cultural event in the United States” by organizers, the PST ART series (formerly known as Pacific Standard Time), returns for its third year in Southern California. This year’s theme *Art & Science Collide* celebrates the interrelationship of art and science with over 800 artists and more than 70 cultural institutions participating across Southern California. The series, which will take place from September 15, 2024 - February 16, 2025, looks to bring science to the public with conversations touching on the crossroads of climate change and social justice, the future of Indigenous knowledge and technology, and exploring the science behind the colors in some of your favorite films.]]></content><author><name>Peter Sachs Collopy</name></author><category term="discussions" /><category term="art" /><category term="Caltech" /><category term="science" /><category term="visual culture" /><summary type="html"><![CDATA[Touted as the “largest cultural event in the United States” by organizers, the PST ART series (formerly known as Pacific Standard Time), returns for its third year in Southern California. This year’s theme Art &amp; Science Collide celebrates the interrelationship of art and science with over 800 artists and more than 70 cultural institutions participating across Southern California. The series, which will take place from September 15, 2024 - February 16, 2025, looks to bring science to the public with conversations touching on the crossroads of climate change and social justice, the future of Indigenous knowledge and technology, and exploring the science behind the colors in some of your favorite films.]]></summary></entry><entry><title type="html">Behind the Book: Escape from Earth</title><link href="https://collopy.net/discussions/2022/escape-from-earth/" rel="alternate" type="text/html" title="Behind the Book: Escape from Earth" /><published>2022-03-24T00:00:00-07:00</published><updated>2022-03-24T00:00:00-07:00</updated><id>https://collopy.net/discussions/2022/escape-from-earth</id><content type="html" xml:base="https://collopy.net/discussions/2022/escape-from-earth/"><![CDATA[]]></content><author><name>Peter Sachs Collopy</name></author><category term="discussions" /><category term="Caltech" /><category term="politics" /><category term="technology" /><category term="technopolitics" /><category term="engineering" /><category term="communism" /><category term="California" /><summary type="html"><![CDATA[]]></summary></entry><entry><title type="html">Virtual Talks with Video Activists: Dean and Dudley Evenson</title><link href="https://collopy.net/discussions/2022/dean-and-dudley-evenson/" rel="alternate" type="text/html" title="Virtual Talks with Video Activists: Dean and Dudley Evenson" /><published>2022-02-03T00:00:00-08:00</published><updated>2022-02-03T00:00:00-08:00</updated><id>https://collopy.net/discussions/2022/dean-and-dudley-evenson</id><content type="html" xml:base="https://collopy.net/discussions/2022/dean-and-dudley-evenson/"><![CDATA[Dean and Dudley Evenson are video pioneers who became immersed in the half-inch scene when in 1970 they happened to purchase the first AV Series Sony video portapack sold in Manhattan. They became members of the Raindance video group and co-edited Radical Software, working under grants from New York State Council on the Arts. They taught video to high school students through the Arts Awareness Program at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Dean was the first person to hook up a half-inch video deck to the Sterling Manhattan Cable system paving the way for Public Access Television. They also ran Downsville TV in upstate New York where they would video local people and events and drive their VW Van to a telephone pole where they plugged into the cable head end and transmitted their weekly programs. During the 1970s, Dean and Dudley lived and traveled the country in a converted school bus documenting what they called ‘the emerging consciousness.’ They created hundreds of half-inch videos which they have been archiving and releasing on their Soundings Mindful Media YouTube Channel.]]></content><author><name>Peter Sachs Collopy</name></author><category term="discussions" /><category term="video" /><category term="art" /><category term="visual culture" /><category term="media" /><category term="technology" /><category term="New York" /><summary type="html"><![CDATA[Dean and Dudley Evenson are video pioneers who became immersed in the half-inch scene when in 1970 they happened to purchase the first AV Series Sony video portapack sold in Manhattan. They became members of the Raindance video group and co-edited Radical Software, working under grants from New York State Council on the Arts. They taught video to high school students through the Arts Awareness Program at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Dean was the first person to hook up a half-inch video deck to the Sterling Manhattan Cable system paving the way for Public Access Television. They also ran Downsville TV in upstate New York where they would video local people and events and drive their VW Van to a telephone pole where they plugged into the cable head end and transmitted their weekly programs. During the 1970s, Dean and Dudley lived and traveled the country in a converted school bus documenting what they called ‘the emerging consciousness.’ They created hundreds of half-inch videos which they have been archiving and releasing on their Soundings Mindful Media YouTube Channel.]]></summary></entry><entry><title type="html">Electronic Artist Nam June Paik Celebrated in SFMOMA Retrospective</title><link href="https://collopy.net/discussions/2021/nam-june-paik/" rel="alternate" type="text/html" title="Electronic Artist Nam June Paik Celebrated in SFMOMA Retrospective" /><published>2021-07-23T00:00:00-07:00</published><updated>2021-07-23T00:00:00-07:00</updated><id>https://collopy.net/discussions/2021/nam-june-paik</id><content type="html" xml:base="https://collopy.net/discussions/2021/nam-june-paik/"><![CDATA[In the first retrospective of his work on the West Coast, SFMOMA’s current exhibition on electronic art pioneer Nam June Paik features more than 200 works from the artist whose five-decade career “changed the way we look at screens.” One of most acclaimed of the first generation of video artists, Paik’s early work in the 1960s changed perceptions of television, video and the boundary between art and spectator through its integration of camera, video, music and performance. We’ll talk about Paik’s work and legacy, and we’ll hear from contemporary video artists who will discuss Paik’s impact on their own art.]]></content><author><name>Peter Sachs Collopy</name></author><category term="discussions" /><category term="video" /><category term="art" /><category term="visual culture" /><category term="media" /><category term="technology" /><category term="consciousness" /><summary type="html"><![CDATA[In the first retrospective of his work on the West Coast, SFMOMA’s current exhibition on electronic art pioneer Nam June Paik features more than 200 works from the artist whose five-decade career “changed the way we look at screens.” One of most acclaimed of the first generation of video artists, Paik’s early work in the 1960s changed perceptions of television, video and the boundary between art and spectator through its integration of camera, video, music and performance. We’ll talk about Paik’s work and legacy, and we’ll hear from contemporary video artists who will discuss Paik’s impact on their own art.]]></summary></entry><entry><title type="html">Archiving Communities of Resilience and Resistance in Caltech’s Present &amp;amp; Past</title><link href="https://collopy.net/discussions/2021/archiving-communities/" rel="alternate" type="text/html" title="Archiving Communities of Resilience and Resistance in Caltech’s Present &amp;amp; Past" /><published>2021-04-07T00:00:00-07:00</published><updated>2021-04-07T00:00:00-07:00</updated><id>https://collopy.net/discussions/2021/archiving-communities</id><content type="html" xml:base="https://collopy.net/discussions/2021/archiving-communities/"><![CDATA[The legacy of Caltech is marked by stories of injustice. It is also marked by the communities forged in the face of that injustice, exclusion, and bigotry. In this virtual event hosted on April 27, 2021, a panel of current and former members of Caltech’s staff, faculty, and student body (Rochelle Diamond, Dr. Melany Hunt, and Dr. Edray Goins) offered reflections on their personal histories of organizing, agitating, and advocating on campus.

In doing so, we consider the ways that remembering those histories - through practices of archiving and other forms of memory work - can inform, ground, and inspire present and future activism at Caltech.

The event also included remarks from Dr. Peter Collopy, Caltech’s University Archivist, and was facilitated by Nivetha (Niv) Karthikeyan as part of her 2020 Milton and Rosalind Chang Prize project, “Intersections: Building Solidarity Through Community Archives.”

This event was hosted by Athena Castro and Greg Fletcher in the Caltech Y.]]></content><author><name>Peter Sachs Collopy</name></author><category term="discussions" /><category term="Caltech" /><category term="politics" /><summary type="html"><![CDATA[The legacy of Caltech is marked by stories of injustice. It is also marked by the communities forged in the face of that injustice, exclusion, and bigotry. In this virtual event hosted on April 27, 2021, a panel of current and former members of Caltech’s staff, faculty, and student body (Rochelle Diamond, Dr. Melany Hunt, and Dr. Edray Goins) offered reflections on their personal histories of organizing, agitating, and advocating on campus. In doing so, we consider the ways that remembering those histories - through practices of archiving and other forms of memory work - can inform, ground, and inspire present and future activism at Caltech. The event also included remarks from Dr. Peter Collopy, Caltech’s University Archivist, and was facilitated by Nivetha (Niv) Karthikeyan as part of her 2020 Milton and Rosalind Chang Prize project, “Intersections: Building Solidarity Through Community Archives.” This event was hosted by Athena Castro and Greg Fletcher in the Caltech Y.]]></summary></entry><entry><title type="html">Becoming Caltech: A Q&amp;amp;A with Caltech Archivist Peter Collopy</title><link href="https://collopy.net/discussions/2020/becoming-caltech/" rel="alternate" type="text/html" title="Becoming Caltech: A Q&amp;amp;A with Caltech Archivist Peter Collopy" /><published>2020-04-06T00:00:00-07:00</published><updated>2020-04-06T00:00:00-07:00</updated><id>https://collopy.net/discussions/2020/becoming-caltech</id><content type="html" xml:base="https://collopy.net/discussions/2020/becoming-caltech/"><![CDATA[**What is the scope of *Becoming Caltech*?**

In the exhibit, we focus on the transformation of the institution in two periods. The first started in the late aughts, around 1908, when there was a really deep rebuilding of the Institute from one that had tried to be many things to many people in Pasadena to one that was very specifically and narrowly an engineering school. The second period begins when that engineering school, which lasted in that form for about a decade, was successful enough that its leadership decided it could expand to be a scientific institute as well.]]></content><author><name>Peter Sachs Collopy</name></author><category term="discussions" /><category term="Caltech" /><category term="science" /><category term="war" /><summary type="html"><![CDATA[What is the scope of Becoming Caltech? In the exhibit, we focus on the transformation of the institution in two periods. The first started in the late aughts, around 1908, when there was a really deep rebuilding of the Institute from one that had tried to be many things to many people in Pasadena to one that was very specifically and narrowly an engineering school. The second period begins when that engineering school, which lasted in that form for about a decade, was successful enough that its leadership decided it could expand to be a scientific institute as well.]]></summary></entry><entry><title type="html">Strange Science of Astronomy: Past and Present</title><link href="https://collopy.net/discussions/2019/strange-science-of-astronomy/" rel="alternate" type="text/html" title="Strange Science of Astronomy: Past and Present" /><published>2019-10-29T00:00:00-07:00</published><updated>2019-10-29T00:00:00-07:00</updated><id>https://collopy.net/discussions/2019/strange-science-of-astronomy</id><content type="html" xml:base="https://collopy.net/discussions/2019/strange-science-of-astronomy/"><![CDATA[An esteemed panel of astronomers, historians, and engineers explore astronomy's fantastical theories and fascinating discoveries with moderator and Caltech university archivist Peter Sachs Collopy. Panelists include Tracy Drain, JPL Psyche mission deputy project systems engineer; Eun-Joo Ahn, astrophysicist and graduate student in history at UCSB; W. Patrick McCray, professor of history at UCSB; and John Mulchaey, Crawford H. Greenewalt Chair and Director of the Carnegie Observatories.]]></content><author><name>Peter Sachs Collopy</name></author><category term="discussions" /><category term="science" /><category term="astronomy" /><summary type="html"><![CDATA[An esteemed panel of astronomers, historians, and engineers explore astronomy’s fantastical theories and fascinating discoveries with moderator and Caltech university archivist Peter Sachs Collopy. Panelists include Tracy Drain, JPL Psyche mission deputy project systems engineer; Eun-Joo Ahn, astrophysicist and graduate student in history at UCSB; W. Patrick McCray, professor of history at UCSB; and John Mulchaey, Crawford H. Greenewalt Chair and Director of the Carnegie Observatories.]]></summary></entry><entry><title type="html">4 Questions for Peter Collopy</title><link href="https://collopy.net/discussions/2017/4-questions/" rel="alternate" type="text/html" title="4 Questions for Peter Collopy" /><published>2017-08-04T00:00:00-07:00</published><updated>2017-08-04T00:00:00-07:00</updated><id>https://collopy.net/discussions/2017/4-questions</id><content type="html" xml:base="https://collopy.net/discussions/2017/4-questions/"><![CDATA[**What attracted you to archival science as a field and to Caltech specifically?**

I'm primarily a historian of 20th-century science and technology. Caltech is one of the major places where that history has happened. In graduate school, I became interested in the history of computing and the ways the counterculture was experimenting with technology in the 1960s and '70s, which also pulled me into the field of media studies. I wrote a dissertation about how psychiatrists, social scientists, and artists used the new technology of videotape to experiment with consciousness, and I’ve also written about debates about race in the fields of genetics and anthropology.]]></content><author><name>Peter Sachs Collopy</name></author><category term="discussions" /><category term="Caltech" /><summary type="html"><![CDATA[What attracted you to archival science as a field and to Caltech specifically? I’m primarily a historian of 20th-century science and technology. Caltech is one of the major places where that history has happened. In graduate school, I became interested in the history of computing and the ways the counterculture was experimenting with technology in the 1960s and ’70s, which also pulled me into the field of media studies. I wrote a dissertation about how psychiatrists, social scientists, and artists used the new technology of videotape to experiment with consciousness, and I’ve also written about debates about race in the fields of genetics and anthropology.]]></summary></entry><entry><title type="html">Video and Technologies of Consciousness: An Interview with Peter Sachs Collopy</title><link href="https://collopy.net/discussions/2015/video-and-technologies/" rel="alternate" type="text/html" title="Video and Technologies of Consciousness: An Interview with Peter Sachs Collopy" /><published>2015-11-02T00:00:00-08:00</published><updated>2015-11-02T00:00:00-08:00</updated><id>https://collopy.net/discussions/2015/video-and-technologies</id><content type="html" xml:base="https://collopy.net/discussions/2015/video-and-technologies/"><![CDATA[**We were really struck by your description of early video as a technology of consciousness. Can you tell us a bit more about this idea? Did early users of portable video technology use video in order to witness events?**

Absolutely! Technology of consciousness is a term I found in communications scholar Fred Turner’s work, particularly his essay on the composer Paul DeMarinis. Every technology affects how we think and experience the world, but I use this phrase specifically to refer to technologies whose users understood that they were doing so. The quintessential examples are psychedelic drugs, which people use specifically in order to alter their consciousness. For many videographers in the 1960s and 1970, video was like a drug in that it helped a person see the world in new ways; a cartoon in the magazine Radical Software proclaimed, for example, that “Video is as powerful as LSD.”]]></content><author><name>Peter Sachs Collopy</name></author><category term="discussions" /><category term="video" /><category term="consciousness" /><category term="visual culture" /><category term="analog/digital" /><category term="media" /><category term="technology" /><summary type="html"><![CDATA[We were really struck by your description of early video as a technology of consciousness. Can you tell us a bit more about this idea? Did early users of portable video technology use video in order to witness events? Absolutely! Technology of consciousness is a term I found in communications scholar Fred Turner’s work, particularly his essay on the composer Paul DeMarinis. Every technology affects how we think and experience the world, but I use this phrase specifically to refer to technologies whose users understood that they were doing so. The quintessential examples are psychedelic drugs, which people use specifically in order to alter their consciousness. For many videographers in the 1960s and 1970, video was like a drug in that it helped a person see the world in new ways; a cartoon in the magazine Radical Software proclaimed, for example, that “Video is as powerful as LSD.”]]></summary></entry></feed>