Careof, in collaboration with Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design at the University of Dundee (Scotland), presents REWIND British Artists' Video in the 1970s & 1980s, a research project developed from 2004 to 2010 focused on the study and archiving of British video art, now collected in the publication of the same name edited by Sean Cubitt and Stephen Partridge (John Libbey Publishing, 2012).

REWIND was conceived with the aim of bridging the gap in historical knowledge of electronic and multimedia art in the United Kingdom, with particular attention to the production of the 1970s and 1980s. Alongside the study of the works, REWIND carried out an intense activity of conservation and restoration, aware that the ephemeral nature of many of these works and inadequate technical conditions would soon lead to the loss of important resources and research sources. REWIND has thus remastered and archived more than 450 single-channel works and installations on Digital Betacam and high-quality files on Hard Disk. The new masters were then deposited at the University of Dundee and the Scottish Screen Archive (National Libraries of Scotland). From the masters, viewing copies were produced, forming the basis of the REWIND| Artists’ Video Collection, an archive available at the Visual Research Centre at Dundee Contemporary Arts and at Central St Martins College of Art & Design, University of the Arts London.

This was accompanied by an important activity of archiving interviews, recordings, critical texts, oral testimonies, images and technical information, with the aim of collecting and contextualizing data concerning the protagonists, activities, institutions, and initiatives aimed at outlining a history of video art in Britain. The materials are accessible through the online database www.rewind.ac.uk.

The project also resulted in another important research tool, REWIND + PLAY, a box set containing a selection of key works from the decades in question, from early conceptual experiments to works engaging with the world of television. The DVD, published in collaboration with LUX, contains 24 videos by John Adams, Peter Anderson, Kevin Atherton, Ian Bourn, Ian Breakwell, David Critchley, Peter Donebauer, Catherine Elwes, Judith Goddard, David Hall, Mick Hartney, Brian Hoey / Wendy Brown, Madelon Hooykaas / Elsa Stansfield, Tina Keane, Tamara Krikorian, Mike Leggett, Stephen Littman, Stuart Marshall, Chris Meigh-Andrews / Gabrielle Bown, Marcelline Mori, Stephen Partridge, Clive Richardson and Tony Sinden.

REWIND| British Artists' Video in the 1970s & 1980s is finally the volume published in September 2012 that brings together the experience and materials of the project through contributions by Sean Cubitt, Grahame Weinbren, Yvonne Spielmann, Malcolm Dickson, Stephen Partridge, Adam Lockhart, Jackie Hatfield, Emile Shemilt, Mike Leggett and Brian Winston.