Madeleine Altmann

Madeleine Altmann
Born	(1963-05-11) May 11, 1963 São Paulo, Brazil
Residence	Boston, MA
Nationality	Brazilian
Education	Mary Immaculate Catholic Convent School, TASIS England, Hampshire College degree in Film and Video (1985), Masters degree from San Francisco Art Institute (1990), and a Masters degree in Professional Studies from New York University (1996).^[1]
Alma mater	Mary Immaculate Catholic Convent School, TASIS England, Hampshire College (1985), San Francisco Art Institute a Masters degree (1990), and New York University a Masters in Professional Studies (1996).^[2]
Television	MVTV (Madeleine Variety Television) (1994),
Awards	New York University Interactive Media Pioneer Award (1994), American Film Institute Visions of the US (1988), Marin County Fair and Exposition (1990), Queen Bee Editors Award (1999), ACMNE Best PEG Station (2009), AMC Best PEG Station (2013, 2011, 2010), and NATOA First Place Overall Excellence Public Access Station (2012).^[3]
Website	http://madeleinealtmann.com/

Madeleine Altmann is a contemporary video artist. She was born in Brazil and now lives in the United States.^[4]

Her work delves into the intersection of nature, technological change, and visual representation.^[5] Building on a diverse set of influences, from Henry David Thoreau (Altmann lives a few miles away from Thoreau’s home and works in the same environment) to Rebecca Solnit and Bill Viola, her work presents a landscape of both our internal and external worlds. We see a simple walk through the woods with her dog as the cosmic experience, echoing the belief that local is universal. As reiterated in her 6 panel Black Ice piece, the microscopic parallels the macroscopic.^[6]

Background

Madeleine Altmann grew up in São Paulo, Brazil. Despite being the daughter of a World War II Jewish refugee she was sent to Mary Immaculate Catholic Convent School until she moved at age 13 to England. Dropped in the middle of turbulent Britain throughout the mid to late 1970s led to a kind of schizophrenic appreciation of culture and the arts, from Samba to Punk. Her family was the very first to enroll and support the now elite TASIS England It was there she first developed her interest in photography. Throughout those years several near death experiences brought about a certain appreciation for being alive and witnessing the wonders of the world.

Altmann graduated from Hampshire College in the United States in 1985 with a degree in Film and Video. She studied experimental film and broadcast television and would later meld these two fields into MVTV. (Madeleine’s Variety TV). She went on to work at various video houses while getting her Masters from the San Francisco Art Institute.

Career

In San Francisco, Altmann produced 52 live MVTV shows through PEG-TV, a viewer directed, multilayered response and antithesis to the polished and controlled aesthetics of Broadcast TV. The first show was dedicated to Abbie Hoffman^[7] and George Kuchar.^[8] Madeleine worked with Hoffman and his daughter Ilya Hoffman during and after Hampshire College and these interactions served as a launching point for Altmann’s subversive series. Kuchar was Madeleine’s mentor at SFAI and a major contributor and guest on MVTV.^[9]

In 1991 Altmann moved to Prague, The Czech Republic to produce a show for NTV. In coordination with their Cultural institutions, Altmann produced and starred in Tady a Ted ( Here and Now ), a bilingual show in English and Czech showcasing life in Prague after the Velvet Revolution.

Returning to San Francisco, Madeleine created Erotica SF, a magazine style show on leased access about everything erotic in San Francisco. When Viacom pulled the plug and refused to comply with the contract, Altmann took them to court. Along with the help of the ACLU, Altmann vs. Television Signal Corp (Viacom) is a landmark case protecting the rights of free speech for cable producers everywhere.^[10]^[11]

In 1994 Altmann was invited by Nick West, professor at New York University to join his program to develop content for YORB ^[12] (where callers could navigate a 3D virtual world via their phones) as well as learn all about the interactive technologies ITP had to offer. Altmann produced an interactive CD-ROM about dying and assisted suicide. Working with what was then a very nascent internet, Altmann came upon the idea of starting a peep show on the web called Babes4U.^[13] It enabled women who previously worked in strip clubs to go instead to a private office run by women only and transmit their images for the first time ever over a computer to another computer.^[14] Not only was it safer for the women who worked in the industry, the company was run by women and offered profit sharing. At that time almost no one was streaming images over the internet let alone live video.^[15] Babes4U was at the forefront of live video streaming and also developed one of the first micro-payment systems that enabled pay-per-use processing via credit cards.^[16] The business exploded overnight and led the way for mainstream use of the technology. A large majority of the business was eventually outsourced to another company, which also partnered with Playboy.

Next in her careere she worked as a PEG-TV Director for 7 years helping countless non-profits put out their message. Altmann went on to make numerous award winning TV series through Bedford TV, such as the Beatrix Potter series ^[17] and MUNCH.^[18]^[19]^[20]

During that time Altmann lived in a nature preserve and become very interested in the natural world with her photography and now video art.^[21] Her work was selected for "Art on the Marquee" in Boston in 2015.^[22]

References

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