S3 Trailer: Steel City Outsiders and the Institutional Avant-Garde

Cut Pathways

“Steel City Outsiders and the Institutional Avant-Garde,” the third season of Cut Pathways, a podcast produced by the Carnegie Mellon University Oral History Program, investigates the history of avant-garde arts organizations and communities in Pittsburgh’s Oakland neighborhood in and around the 1970s.

In the 1970s, Oakland emerged as an unlikely center for avant-garde arts. Pittsburgh prided itself on its blue-collared nature, a work ethic born in the flames of the steel mills and reflected in its successful sports teams. Still, fueled by social and political tensions and newly available technology, a growing audience in the city craved experimental filmmaking, abstract sculpture, computer-generated art, and other new artforms. Influential Oakland institutions like Carnegie Museum of Art, Carnegie Mellon University, and the University of Pittsburgh, along with emerging arts organizations like Pittsburgh Filmmakers and the Selma Burke Art Center, began producing spaces where artists could experiment and establish communities built around non-mainstream ideas.

Through oral history interviews and commentary from special guests, hosts Katherine Barbera and David Bernabo examine the sometimes invigorating, sometimes uneasy relationships among the artists, communities, and institutions in Oakland during the 1970s. The podcast looks at influential leaders like Sally Dixon, whose societal privilege and passion for avant-garde film cemented the institutional connections needed to found the Film Section at Carnegie Museum of Art and Pittsburgh Filmmakers; and Duane Palyka, who faced rejection for his experiments with computer-generated art at Carnegie Mellon University until he received unexpected encouragement from a founder of artificial intelligence.