Electronic Arts Intermix
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NEW TAPES 0 NEW ARTISTS E NEW VIDEO FROM EUROPE 0 " NEW TAPES MAX ALMY SKIP BLUMBERG Perfect Leader (1983) 4:30 min., color, stereo sound . $50/200* Elephant Games (1985) Narrated by Burgess Meredith . 27:30 min., In Perfect Leader, Almy envisions a computer program which color, sound. $50/200 designsthe quintessential politician, packaged for mass consump- Skip Blumberg, the producer of Pick Up Your Feet: The Double tion. Here, the music video format, with its qraphic visuals and Dutch Show (1981) traveled to Thailand to make this engaging infectious soundtrack, is used by Almy with dynamic effect to documentary about Thailand's Elephant Festival, which features illustrate the process of marketing apolitical candidate through the elephant races, an elephant soccer game, elephant tug-of-war, media. Created with computer animation and sophisticated video and other activities . This tape is humorous yet moving study of effects, this prototype emerges as a familiar yet disturbing product . close contact between humans and the earth's largest mammal, and its integral role in the Thai culture . Flying Morning Glory (on fire) (1985) 4 min., color, sound. $50/200 Blumberg calls this a "zany, hot performance cooking video," ROS BARRON which he recorded on his recent trip to Thailand . Viva Magritte (1983) 20 min., color, sound. $50/200 In a surreal performance environment, Ros Barron juxtaposes the Art-On-Parade (1985) 25 min., color, sound . $50/200 characters of painter Rene Magritte and the Warhol protege Viva . In his distinctive and upbeat style, Blumberg documented a gala The result is a philosophical dialogue on the relationship between arts parade through the streets of Minneapolis . A 200-foot balloon art and life and an inquiry into the nature of the art object. sculpture, 100 kids kicking cans, an off-beat marching band, and other unusual performance art pieces were commissioned by Walker Art Center, including works by sculptor Donald Lipski, painter/sculptor Susan Keiser, theater artist Sandy Spieler, sound artist Richard Lerman, and percussionist David Moss. DARA BIRNBAUM Interviews With Interviewers (1985) 57 min., color, sound.$75/275 Damnation Of Faust: Evocation (1983) 10 min., color, stereo In this new work, Blumberg reverses the traditional "talking heads" sound . $50/200 tapeto reveal the tactics of the interviewers themselves. TV's Mike In this prologue to a larger work, the classic themes of Faustian Wallace and Barbara Walters, Pulitzer Prize winner Studs Terkel, duality are introduced into a contemporary urban setting . Using National Public Radio's Susan Stamberg, New York City Police sophisticated video technology, Birnbaum developed techniques Detective Sean Grennan, and psychoanalyst Dr . Joel Kovel are based on Japanese Ukiyo-e forms - screens, fans and scrolls interviewed about curiosity, style, trickery, truth and other aspects -to explore themes of transcendance and loss, and the conflict of the interview . between the inner self and external surroundings. The literal evocation of this prologue isstructured on original music byJoshua Fried, Sonic Youth, and John Zieman . WENDY CLARKE Love Tapes: Series 19 (1980) 28 min., b&w, sound. $50/200 Series 19 continues Wendy Clarke's project of collecting state- ments on love from a diverse group of individuals. For each segment, a participant sat alone in front of a video camera and monitor, talking spontaneously for three minutes. A social and personal study of love emerges as a direct result ofClarke's use of the intimacy and immediacy of the video medium . PETER D'AGOSTINO DOUBLE YOU (and X,YZ .) Parts 1 & 2 (1982-83) 10 min., color, sound. $50/200 In DOUBLE YOU (and X,YZ.), birth and the acquisition of lan- guage are presented in relation to the four forces now believed to cause all physical interactions in the universe : light, gravity, strong and weak forces . Parts 1, Light (the birth), and 2, Gravity (words) incorporate live action, animation, digital and analog processing, and a music score to explore early language development from cries at birth to a child's first words. ED EMSHWILLER Skin Matrix (1984) 17 min., color, sound. $50/200 This visually complex videotape explores themes oftexture, energy, and mortality by technologically interweaving imagery of land- scapes, faces, skin and tactile surfaces . The intricate transforma- tions in this tape were achieved with an inexpensive Bally Arcade computer designed for playing video games. A shorter, 9-minute version, Skin Matrix S, is also available ($50/200) . Perfect Leader KIT FITZGERALD JOAN JONAS To Sorrow . (1984) 5 min ., color, stereo sound. $50/200 Double LunarDogs (1984) Produced by Jonas in association with To Sorrow . is a modern tone poem inspired by the poetry of the TV Laboratory at WNET/Thirteen and the Contemporary Thomas Hardy. This video pastoral combines a lush yet troubling Art Television (CAT) Fund . 25 min., color, sound. $50/250 music score by Peter Gordon with video imagery recorded in In Double Lunar Dogs, Hardy's own performance artist Joan Jonas creates an Dorset and Southwest Ireland, which raises issues of abstract narrative of forgotten past and uncertain future through a the coexistence of rural and technological societies. Allusions to sophisticated blend of videotechnology and performance theater. the conflict between free will and predetermination are set in a This tape is a philosophical account of survival in which the beautiful and sensuous environment, with animal and landscape characters aboard a spacecraft (portrayed by Spalding Gray, Jill as the main characters. Kroesen, John Malloy, David Warilow, and Joan Jonas) travel aimlessly through the universe while attempting to realize a continuum between their origin and destination . SHALOM GOREWITZ Subatomic Babies (1983) 7:30 min., color, stereo sound. $50/200 Gorewitz employs his distinctive image-processing techniques in CHIP LORD AND this dense meditation on bringing a new life into the nuclear and technological world of the 1980's . He layers imagery and sound in a disturbing collage aboutthe dreams and visions of the father of a MICKEY MCGOWAN child "born under the atom." Easy Living (1984) Co-produced by the Contemporary Art Televi- sion (CAT) Fund . 18 min ., color, stereo sound. 50/250 In Easy Living, Chip Lord and Mickey McGowan have created a miniature suburban America, where toy cars, plastic figures, and tiny houses provide the setting for an animated depiction of the pursuits of contemporary consumer life - movies, automobiles, DOUG HALL vacation and sport. In this amusing yet unsettling observation of life Songs Of The 80's (1983) 17 min., color, sound. $50/250 in post-war America, the artists illustrate how television and the Based on a series of performances, this tape consists of five media have reduced daily experience to leisure, relaxation and episodes that are unified by themes of displacement, anxiety and passivity . constraint. These metaphors for contemporary political and social tensions are elegantly realized through a series of video tech- niques, such as slow motion, rapid stacatto editing and extended dissolves. Almost Like A Dance (1984) In collaboration with Jules Backus . 3 min., color, stereo sound. $50/220 In Almost Like A Dance, slow motion and precise editing is used to examine the physiology of Olympic weightlifter Mario Martinez as he lifts 404.5 pounds. Hall calls it "the world's shortest docu- mentary." Prelude To The Tempest (1985) 15 min., color, stereo sound. $50/200 Creating a pastiche of images of nature, industry and the artist himself, Hall elaborates on the themes, techniques and style of Songs Of The 80's . Structured on the central metaphor of the tempest, the tape alludes to the crises of contemporary society, the individual's struggle for equilibrium, and a foreboding premonition of upheaval. GARY HILL Primarily Speaking (1983)19 :30 min., color, stereo sound. $50/250 Originally a two-channel, multi-monitor installation, Primarily Speaking activates a complex relationship between spoken language and visual images, with elements of confrontation and ambiguity . Using a verbal text of cliches, idioms and puns which interacts with two sets of video images on a single screen, Hill challenges traditional relationships : artist/ spectator, representa- tion/meaning, words/images. Happenstance (Part One Of Many Parts) (1983) 6 min., b&w, stereo sound. $50/200 In Happenstance, Hill uses a Rutt/Etra synthesizer to sculpt words into pictorial and abstract forms. Juxtaposing formal and analytical elements with philosophical and mystical references, Hill explores the intricacies of meaning in idiomatic language and musical sounds . Why Do Things Get In A Muddle? (Come On Petunia) (1984) 32 min., color, sound. $75/300 Why Do Things Get In A Muddle? is based on a "metalogue" by Gregory Bateson, who defined the term as "a conversation on a problematic subject" in which the "structure of the conversation as a whole is also relevant to the same subject ." With references to Alice in Wonderland, Hill creates an inverted world in which reverse language, startling camerawork, and a convoluted dialogue result in a "meta-illustration" of the Bateson text. Double Lunar Dogs ANTONIO MUNTADAS TONY OURSLER Between The Frames - Chapter 5: The Docents (1983) 12 min., EVOL (1984) Co-Produced by the Contemporary Art Television color, sound. $50/200 (CAT) Fund . 27 min., color, sound. $50/250 Between The Frames is an ongoing series of visual commentaries In this black comedy of disillusioned romance and sexual pain, about the people and institutions located between art/artist and Oursler entangles the viewer in the delirious dream state of a the audience. This fifth chapter, the first completed, is concerned young man, played by Oursler himself . In an expressionistic theater with docents - teachers and guides who work in a museum of dramatically painted sets, cleverly constructed props, and context to educate the public about art. unexpected inversions, Oursler probes the disparity between the myths of childhood and the realities of adulthood .