Pros-ented By TheAmerican Film Institute

Sponsored By Sony Corporation of America

Table of Contents 11111111111

4 Staff and Acknowledgements Ways of Seeing: Points of View Image & Sound: Collaborations

29 Point-Counterpoint : Controversy 57 Video Art: Melodrama to Metalogue 72 Conjuring: The Image of Music by Television Organized by Robert Wisdom Curated by Peter Broderick Auto-Olympia 74 "Great Stuff That Never Got Out" Introductions as Cultural Impressions Chanoyu Curated by Roger Steffens Curated by Marita Sturken 7 Jean Firstenberg Director, Coastline 75 Music &Video: Extended Play The American Film Institute 36 Nicaragua and El Salvador : Far From Poland Art and Activism, Urgency and Ethics The Return of the Native 7 J. Philip Stack President, Organized by Julianne Burton and Karen Ranucci Framed Youth Sony Communications Products Company Rock My Religion 42 Japanese Video Works: An Historical Survey Des Frauenzimmer e James Hindman Executive Director, Curated by Fujiko Nakaya "Once in a Lifetime" National Video Festival heaven is what i've done 45 Japanese Public Broadcasting The Kiss 9 Jacqueline Kain Director, Introduction by Yasuke Nakahara La Tete Qui Tourne National Video Festival Jai 46 Japanese TV Commercials Juste le Temps Installation to Keynote Speaker: Benjamin DeMott Introduction by Sakumi Hagiwara NakedDoom 76 The West 48 Kheda Communication Project Introduction by K.S . Karnik Pictures that Sing

49 Native American Video The Riot Tapes 78 National Video Festival Student Preface Curated by Elizabeth Weatherford Vault Competition 12 Interview with Raymond Williams 51 Electronic Images : Popular Visions by Colin MacCabe Introduction by Victoria Costello Video Letter

Why Do Things Get in a Muddle?

66 Video: Recent Narratives Television : Cultural Form From The Narrative : Screenings Curated by Barbara

19 Television in Search of Itself : The 1950s 54 Public Television : Politics, Fiction and Curated by Robert Rosen Fantasy

24 Britain's Channel 4: The Story So Far Boys from the Blackstuff Curated by John Wyver Faustus Faustus Faustus 25 The Arts Magazine Overdrawn at the Memory Bank Alterlmage Der Riese Dis/Patches Russian Artistic Experiment There is a Videocassette in the Soup Video: Recent Narratives

Video, a highly versatile image-making tool, has much earlier than did artists abroad, and have had dialogue. All of the action occurs in a large Euro- tious, others simply misinformed . Buchanan's permeated all aspects of contemporary life . Most more opportunity to use broadcast-quality pean kitchen where women, appearing to belong humorous work points out people's inclination people are aware only of video's role as a power- systems . This is a result of federal, state, and to one family, move slowly and symbolically toward preconceptions . ful "mass medium" produced and distributed foundation support, especially artist-in-residency about . Von Alemann has created a curious commercially as television. Yet video has been programs at public television and public-access nightmare-like world, where women experience Sax Island by Hank Bull and Eric Metcalfe. shown to have vast potential as a poetic form of stations . Today, with active governmental com- considerable pain . 12:00, color, 1984 . . Since the late sixties independ- petition on the electronics frontier, artists in self-expression many The creation of a style and "camp" humor are the videomakers have explored the boundaries of more countries are slowly gaining access to Perfect Leader by Max Almy . 4:00, color, 1983. ent bet- motifs of Sax Island. Hand-painted sets and a result have been able to ter video equipment . This means there are fewer the technology, and as Perfect Leader explores the manufacturing of a comic book dialogue are incorporated into the expressive statements in video technical differences now between work pro- produce individual prototypical leader, who best suits television and adventures of the inhabitants of Sax Island, which ranging from the personal to duced independently in the United States and that that reflect concerns other mass media. Through computer animation, is located between Africa and South America . the political . These artists have been challenging done abroad, as this program makes apparent . the leader is assigned physical characteristics, the conventions, techniques, and styles of video clothes, and personality. Almy demonstrates the be a versatile and Juste le Temps by Robert Cahen. 13:00, color, to develop personal stories, express poetic Video continues to challenging inappropriateness of the dictator's personality for for artists . Whether artists have used 1983. visions, and create metaphorical narrative form the television, and provides an alternative-a conser- sophisticated Justele Temps is an impressionistic vision of a impressions . simplest or the most equipment, vatively dressed "Kennedy-type" figure . whether they have made fact appear to be fiction train ride through the French countryside. fiction fact, the successful work engages the Cahen s treatment of motion involves varying Today major artistic statements are being pro- or Sharkey's Day by Laurie Anderson . 5:00, color, viewer and makes an eloquent statement that camera speeds and the blurred color created by duced in video by both younger and more estab- 1983 . lished artists . "Video : Recent Narratives" could not be expressed in any other form . allowing images to remain or "lag" after the train Sharkey's Day mixes includes 41 videotapes made between 1981 and computer graphics with has moved forward. elements of the artist's performance 1984 and acquired for The Museum of Modern Art style, incor- porating mime, collection. All of the works are narrative in form, Barbara J. London, 1984 dance, and an electronically Conundrum Clinique by Colin Campbell . altered voice. The soundtrack in that they are based upon the sequential devel- describes the 15:00, color, 1981 . doings of Sharkey, who is both opment of verbal and nonverbal images that tell a androgynous and In his work Conundrum Clinique, Colin Campbell intangible-a wisp of in story. Events unfold, characters are developed, Barbara London has been with The Museum of smoke human form, a departs from conventional narrative to tell a story stick figure racing through space. and situations evolve . In many cases, reality is Modern Art's video program since it began in about the exchanging of roles in society . The interpreted impressionistically through the video- 1974 . She has taught at NYU, and lectured in story evolves into a murder mystery, the pro- maker's handling of image, language and sound. Europe, Japan, and the U.S. She has organized Viva Magritte by Ros Barron . 19:00, color, tagonist meeting his death at the point where he The narrative is a familiar form . It is not only the shows of Japanese, Latin American, and Cana- 1983 . breaks out of his normal sexual identity. basis of everyday conversation, but also the foun- dian video, and written for such publications as Ros Barron mixes art from two different periods in dation of most literary, newspaper, television, Artforum and Art News. her work Viva Magritte . Magritte's surrealist style Grimoire Magnetique by Joelle de la Casiniere . theatrical, and cinematic material . To quote and idiosyncratic characters are juxtaposed with Produced by Image Video Maufaucon ; music by Roland Barthes, "narrative is international, trans- the former Warhol "superstar" Viva. Viva Jacques Lederlin . 26:00, color, 1983 . Magritte continues Barron's earlier work relating historical, transcultural : it is simply there, like life In Grimoire Magnetique (Magnetic Rhyme), Screenings : to Magritte, altered time states, and the mingling Joelle itself de la Casiniere adapts to video the story of Hallaj ." of art and life . Program Descriptions were prepared with the AI Mansur, the 10th century Sufi master of Even though video is accessible and the narrative mysticism . The story is told in operatic style assistance of Keith C. Johnson Pictura Minuta : Portrait of the Urban Poor, form is familiar, showcases have been limited for based on a musical score by Jacques Lederlin . Oaxaca, Mexico by Hans Breder. 24:00, color, videomakers . Excluded from most regular broad- The text is sung, broken down into computer 1981-83 . cast programs, the independent has pursued City ofAngels by Marina Abramovic and F. Uwe generated syllables and told in deaf signing, over public and Pictura Minuta: Portrait ofthe Urban Poor, screening opportunities in galleries, on Laysiepen (Ulay) . Produced by Continental Video, stills which relate to this Islamic religious tale . cable television, and at film/video festivals, all of Brussles . 22:00, color, 1983 . Oaxaca, Mexico goes beyond strict documentary exposure and only nominal to present the characters and viewpoints found in which provide modest Abramovic/Ulay Qui Vole Un Oeuf, Vole Un Oeuf by Elsa Cayo. remuneration . Today, some artists are adapting In City ofAngels, set in Bangkok, a small Mexican town . Within his larger frame- a feel- 15:00, color, 1982 . vernacular of broadcast program- use lengthy shots and slow pans to evoke work, Breder creates a "portrait of Rosa," outlin- the polished minimal as Videotaped in a Paris supermarket using a for artistic and political use, in order to ing of stillness . Camera movement is ing this woman's role in a marriage in which ming both the Thai people, motionless amid rich colors and surveillance camera, artist Elsa Cayo performs the gain access to larger audiences (and funding) . "macho" sets the guidelines for the husband . textures, gaze meditatively at the viewer. role of shoplifter in Qui Vole Un Oeuf, Vole Un Technical options for videomakers are limited by Oeuf (Who Steals an Egg, Steals an Egg) . Col- Sensible Shoes by John Adams. 11 :00, color, Der Westen Lebt by Klaus vom Bruch and laborating with an office worker whose job is to their financial resources . Now that it is possible to Heike-Melba Fendel. 4:00, color, 1983 . join all levels of video systems with more 1983. monitor all activity in the store, Cayo examines Der Westen Lebt (The West Lives) is a vision of sophisticated computers and image-processing Sensible Shoes is a stream of consciousness nar- the system and personalities of the people found the train as a symbol of eroticism . The repetitive equipment, the medium offers almost inexhausti- rative told from the point of view of a young in the market . sound of the train, altered to resemble rapid ble creative potentials. Broadcast-quality equip- woman, with visual images taken from television breathing, accompanies the image of the speed- ment has been largely confined to corporate and and magazine advertising . Throughout the piece, Possibly in Michigan by Cecelia Condit . Music John Adams cleverly connects seemingly ing train intercut with the artists' dance-like by Karen Skladany . 12:00, color, 1983 . commercial studios because of its high cost, courting . whereas consumer video cameras and recording unrelated words that appear in writing, the source Possibly in Michigan is a humorous and bizarre decks are readily available and are relatively inex- of which is revealed at the tape's conclusion . work in which the themes of fetishism and California Stories by Nancy Buchanan . pensive. Although artists begin their experimenta- 23:00, violence between the sexes are joined in a fairy Das Frauenzimmer by Claudia Von Alemann . A color, 1983 . tions with the latter, they invariably upgrade their tale, rock opera scenario. Condit places heavily ZDF German Television production . 75 :00, color, equipment as they seek precision, particularly in In California Stories, people living in Madison, stylized "slick" shots alongside Super-8 footage editing . 1981 . Wisconsin describe their impressions of Califor- in a loosely constructed narrative story about two Das Frauenzimmer (The Women's Room) is a nia, which come from mass media and stories women who frequent a shopping mall to satisfy Artists in the United States embraced technology spare, "associative" narrative that has no 67 they have heard. Some of their views are face- their love of perfume . meeting for Mon Tout PremierBaiser (My Very Verlusten (The Distance Between Myself and My objects bursting into flame, and people falling are Historia de la Fisica by Eugenio Dittborn . First Kiss). Losses), Marcel Odenbach illustrates a stirring 15:00, color, 1983 . the portentous verses of this "eighties" anthem . soundtrack with images that stimulate the Fisica (History of Der Riese by Michael Klier. 82:00, color and imagination . Utilizing different electronic framing In his videotape Historia de la The Invincible by Gusztav Hamos . 20:00, color, Eugenio Dittborn meshes shots having blw, 1983 . techniques, Odenbach reveals small portions of Physics), 1983 . work common themes of creativity and physical exer- DerRiese (The Giant) is an unsettling an image and creates a window that conceals as to the hero in which installed in tion . Through the repetition of certain sequences, The Invincible is a tribute recorded from surveillance cameras much as it offers . Hamos assumes the role of Flash Gordon . With urban locations . The ceaseless Dittborn gradually introduces more of a new different his eyes on the camera, Hamos reacts to the scanning pattern reminds the viewer image and less of an old, until a complete transi- mechanical Spin Out by Tony Oursler . 15:00, color, 1983 . action of a radio play not simply as a listener, but that the cameras are part of an omniscient elec- tion has occurred . The effect is similar to the Spin Out combines painting, sculpture, narrative, as the heroic character himself . tronic system . The viewer's role is one of device of anticipation in music. and poetry, as well as imaginative "home-made" vigilance, of waiting to catch the out-of-the- The schizophrenic narrative The Force BehindIts Movement by Madelon special effects . Withheld by Juan Downey. ordinary or to intrude upon unsuspecting aspects of the conscious Information Hooykaas and Elsa Stansfield. 17:00, color, examines the darker . subjects. of honing in on the 28:00, color, 1983 1984. realm, with the intent Chile, and New York Information subconscious . Shot in Egypt, The Force Behind Its Movement is a study of the Between Daydream and . . . by Naoko Kurot- compares signs in everyday life which Withheld movement created by the invisible force of the suka . 9:00, color, 1983. convey information instantly and NakedDoom by Edward Rankus . 17:00, color, are supposed to wind in different environments in Japan and Between Daydreams and . . . juxtaposes the road signs, to signification in the 1983 . clearly, such as Holland-from the subtle motion of a sheer cur- human form with the textures and contour of as in classical painting, which resonates The of this work is a crime of passion fine arts, tain, to the passage of massive storms viewed by landscape. Kurotsuka's camera moves in close to subject multiplicity of meanings and ambiguous viewpoint of the criminal, now with a satellite . the surface of the human body and finds striking seen from the constructions . Extended segments of landscape landscape imagery in the movement of the body . prisoner, as he writes in his journal . Filled with are rapidly intercut with illustrations of sign usage Hideo, It's Me, Mama by Mako Idemitsu. harsh angles and shadows, NakedDoom has an to give the work a lush visual and temporal 20:00, color, 1983 . Kikiriki by Tony Labat. 27:00, color, 1983 . ambiance of macabre humor, described by the "psychological noir thriller." texture . Hideo, Its Me, Mama metaphorically depicts the In Kikiriki, Tony Labat weaves together a series of artist as a merging of Japanese with western culture, and tales of immigration through broken narrative, the changing, potentially fragmenting familial flashback, and the divided screen. Labat Des Feenband by Ulrike Rosenbach . 15:00, relationships that result . Hideo, an adolescent reconstructs his personal experience of coming to color, 1983 . boy, is seen only as a recorded image on a monitor the United States as a teenager, using symbolic Das Feenband (Visual Gong) is a visual which sits on the family dinner table. Mama characters to depict the problems of entering a autobiography glimpsed through a round glass places three meals a day before the television in different culture . held before an upturned monitor. The glass at her desperate attachment to the past. times is transparent, revealing the monitor, or, My Mother Makes Soup Noodles . My through video editing techniques, serves as the Father Cuts a Simple Thread by Dimitrije. . Mar- monitor itself, with the properties of a magic look- tinovic . 11.00, color, 1983 . ing glass. My Mother Makes Soup Noodles . . . My Father Cuts a Simple Thread shows the artist's parents in Cubist's Fantasy 11 by Yasuo Shinohara . 20:00, the work that has occupied them for most of their color, 1982 . adult lives. Martinovic compares ideas of work, Cubist's Fantasy ff uses electronic editing tech- including labor, craftwork, raising a family, and Information Withheld niques to express the conflicts between Japanese artistic creativity. culture . A motionless, traditional . Directed by and western New Frontier by Donald Fagan Kyoto becomes a digitally 1983 . L.A. Nickel by Branda Miller. 9:00, color, 1983 . rock garden in Annabel Jankel. 5:00, color, colors, then is transformed into the inner city, animated grid of New Frontier is an imaginative work set to the L.A. Nickelis a visual poem about kids ;" Japanese teenagers who skid row the "bamboo artist's tightly arranged music, using live actors paced by a rock music score. Shots of western style every week in certain Tokyo observant quality. Footage taken dance and animation . The mood is one of irony, as a have a detached, streets . young man and his date cavort in his bomb from a moving car at night shows the boulevards hustlers operate, a Hideo, It's Me, Mama shelter, drinking champagne and listening to where Los Angeles street Some Call It Bad Luck by Lisa Steele . 50.00, but hauntingly compelling . Brubeck, finally emerging to find a beautiful world Chanoyu by Sanja Ivekovic and Dalibor Martinis . world which is tough color, 1982 . still intact . 11:00, color, 1983 . La Tete Qui Tourne by Jacques Louis Nyst. Some Caflt BadLuck creates the experience of a the tradi- Jai Chanoyu, which derives its title from Produced by Continental Video-Wallonie Image woman interrogated for a crime she did not com- What Under the Sun? by Ernest Gusella . a highly tional Japanese art of serving tea, is Production . 16:00, color, 1984. mit. Under the relentless probing of the inves- 60:00, color, 1984. sophisticated ritual of great simplicity and har- the La Tete Qui Tourne is a poetic treatment of an tigators, her story breaks down. Although In What Under the Sun?, Ernest Gusella's lively mony . This videotape comments ironically on the Jai imaginary plan for cosmic rearrangement . A tape has the appearance of a documentary, the songs tell the story of the traveler's adventures in disharmony found in western culture by depicting philosophical conversation between two people is truth is veiled, putting the viewer in the same Mexico . The artist creates a cast of humorous a young Yugoslavian couple drinking tea against a what is by the materialization of their idea . position as the prisoner-confused as to characters who dance in costumes and masks in background of a newscaster seen on a television interrupted poetic, electronic collage, Nyst creates real and what is fabricated . this animated musical narrative . . Through a screen an abstract confusion from the rhythms of the The Commission by Woody Vasulka. 45:00, Baiser by Danielle Jaeggi . everyday world. Songs ofthe Eighties by Doug Hall . 12:00, Mon Tout Premier color, 1983 . 18:00, color and blw, 1984. color, 1983 . Die Distanz Zwischen Mir and Meinen The Commission is based on the relationship of Songs of the Eighties is a series of five pieces in Using her teenage diary as a source, Danielle Verlusten by Marcel Odenbach . 9:00, color, Paganini and the composer Berlioz, . the violinist record album form which project a sense of Jaeggi recounts her first kiss as a young girl 1983 . played by Ernest Gusella and Robert Ashley. Video Twenty-five years later, she locates the man who precariousness, an apocalyptic courting with 69 In Die Distanz Zwischen MirandMeinen and audio techniques are used to suggest the fist, had kissed her and then videotapes their informal 68 disaster . Repeated images of a hammering similarity of distortions of reality through elec- tronics and the supernatural.

Anthem by Bill Viola. 11:00, color, 1983 . The structure of Anthem is provided by a seven- toned soundtrack derived from the scream of a young girl standing alone in Los Angeles's Union Railroad Station . Against this isolated figure, the artist juxtaposes images of industrialized southern California. The eerie soundtrack and the compelling imagery form a powerful poetic com- parison between the urban and the natural .

Casablanca // by Peter Weibel . 1:00, color, 1983. Casablanca His what the artist calls an "elec- tronic narration :' Utilizing the rapid pace and extreme editing style found in commerical adver- tising, Weibel presents an ironic hero who resembles Bogart, parodying the desires of western culture .

Green Card: An American Romance by Bruce and Norman Yonemoto. 68:00, color, 1982 . Green Card: An American Romance adopts the Hollywood genre of soap opera to present a pro- vocative social satire. A young Japanese artist finds herself in the ironic position of having to marry in order to stay in the United States and thus avoid the trap of marriage in Japan's tradi- tional society . III iiiii .i .i .i . . s t I iiiiiii .i,i .i . . s t

From the video installation The West

The West. Created by Steina ; instrumentation, primary structural element of the circle is invoked Woody and Steina Vasulka were pioneers in production assistance, and 4 Channel audio by the Vasulkas' mirrored, rotating globe, the cir- the development of the electronic arts . In 1970 environment by Woody Vasulka. Copyright : The cular structure of the Anasazi ruin Chaco Canyon they founded "The Kitchen;' a Vasulkas, 1984 . and the giant silver discs of the VLA (Very Large media theater and exhibition center. Steina has Array) - a radio telescope system which turns The West is a video environment which generates continued explorations in the possibilities for the a phenomenological experience slowly to scan the sky. The natural red and blue generation and manipulation of the electronic of the vast South- tones of the earth and sky are manipulated to pro- western landscape, a landscape so and and clear image. In 1978 her exhibit, "Machine Vision ;' duce highly which hardly that any human notation on the land saturated colors seem was held at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in is preserved out of place in the dramatic landscape for a very long time. . Buffalo, New York. She was a Guggenheim Fellow in 1976 . In 1974 Woody became a faculty The Vasulkas' installation employs a matrix of six The West is an elegant demonstration of how member of the Center for the Media Study at monitors in a darkened room . The viewer sees image and sound can constitute a complex map- State University of New York, Buffalo, and began imaginary panning in constant, stately motion, ping of the presence of the individual in a vast his investigations into computer controlled video, enveloped in the eerie tones of the audio track. landscape of space and time. building "The Vasulka Imaging System ;" a per- This 2-channel video/4-channel audio piece sonal imaging facility . He is a 1979 Guggenheim depicts not just the landscape, but also The West was produced through State University Fellow. Since their move to Santa Fe in 1980, manifestations of human expression on that land- of New York's Program in the Arts, with funds Woody has produced Artifacts and The Commis- scape: ceremonial Indian dwellings, earthworks from the Rockefeller Foundation and National sion. Steina has produced a series of videotapes 78 and installations of scientific equipment . The Endowment for the Arts. 79 relating to the land of the Southwest .