A R I /K N T ISSUE 11 SPRING 1992 UK £3.50 US$10 CAN $10.95 IRS4.00 mm FIGHTERS Big star in a wee pictur Despite T David Hal The cur ises in Eastern Eu Video in Slovenia Virtual Real Estate Computer Art m>m European Media Art Festivals Reviewed Improvisation: Derek Bailey interviewed Cyberpunk: Stelarc interviewed illii mm »«««<: Comics/Tina Modotti/Live Art Handboo Felix, Mediamatie/Ear/ReR Ouarterley/E. S. T/Ten8/Sean Taylor Annette Messaoer / Damien Hirst EDITORIAL QUOTES 4 Variant is a magazine of cross- NEWS currents in culture: art practice, 6 media, critical ideas, imaginative FESTIVAL and independent tendencies. We CALENDAR are a charitable project and 8 publish four times a year with the REPORT assistance of grants, advertising The Great British Mistake and sales. Most items are com- Vague + Vagabond Reviewed missioned, but we weicome con- 10 tributions and ideas for news items, reviews, articles, inter- DESPITE TV views, and polemical writing. INTERVIEWED BY MALCOLM DICKSON Guidelines for writers are avail- 16 able. We also welcome ideas for MEDIA MOGULS artists pages and for items which we can distribute within the MENTAL POLLUTION magazine, such as stickers, DON COUTTS + STUART COSGROVE prints, xerox work and other INTERVIEWED BY DOUG AUBREY ephemera. VIDEO FROM SLOVENIA Deadline for issue 1 2 is MARINA GRZINIC May 1 5th (Contributions) May 29th (Advertising) 26 THE CURTAIN RISES To advertise call 041 221 6380. ROLAND MILLER Rates for B & and colour W 28 available. FALSE PERSPECTIVES Subscriptions are £14 for four IN VIRTUAL SPACE issues (individuals) £20 for four SEAN CUBITT issues (institutions) 32 MAUSOLEA + ALTARed NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS STATES JEREMY WELSH Doug Aubrey is a freelance video/TV Director Jochen Coldewey is a writer and curator living in 36 Germany. He is the founding member of the European Media Art Festival, former director of the Oberhausen VIRTUAL REAL ESTATE Festival Marina Grzinic is a video-maker living in Yugoslavia KATHLEEN ROGERS Sean Cubitt is a lecturer in Cultural Studies at Liverpool Polytechnic and is the author of Timeshift' 40 Kathy Rogers is a visual artist living tn London. She is currently producing work using interactive virtual DAVID HALL: TV FIGHTER reality technology, extended video and computer based multi-media. MICHAEL O'PRAY Michael OPray has written extensively on film and video 44 and is a writer and lecturer at North East London Polytechnic. He is a former officer of the Film and Video EXPERIMENTAL Department at ACGB. FILM Jeremy Welsh is an artist and writer. He recently moved TO MEDIA ART from England to Norway where he now teaches at the Kunstakademiet in Trondeim. JOCHEN CONLDEWAY Ed Baxter is writer based in London Roland Miller is an artist based in Sheffield who is 46 currently Advisor to the Minister of Culture in Slovakia Stuart McGlinn is a film-maker based in Glasgow. STELARC Pauline Law is a film-maker based in Glasgow. She INTERVIEWED currently works for the Glasgow Film and Video BY STUART McGLINN Workshop. Stephen Hurrell is a film/video maker. 50 Alan McLean is an artist and organiser of the Sheffield Media Show. DEREK BAILEY Emily Grant is an artist currently working with for the INTERVIEWED BY ED Film and Video Umbrella in London. BAXTER Emma Ayling is a writer based in Essex 56 Alex Fulton is a freelance writer based in Newcastle Dave is Milton an architect based in Sheffield. PROJECT Alan REVIEWS Robertson is a video maker based in Glasgow. Billy Clark is an writer and nihilist living in Glasgow. 60 Chris Byrne is a video/film-maker, Ewan Morrison is a film-maker based in Glasgow. COMIC REVIEWS Graham Johnstone is a comic artist based in Glasgow. 62 PRINTED MATTER REVIEWS ISSN 954 8815 68 REPORT FESTIVALS REVIEWED . "What we do is to recognise that a culture does not die. Under such conditions it is continuation of discourse. It is, of course, a culture in animated suspension, a process that is familiar to our colleagues in Central and Eastern Europe. Above all, it is a culture that necessarily becomes international, because that is the only route by which we come to understand our peculiarites and the commonalities and, until the frontiers get closed off, the only route that we can take to fight an iniquitous, anti-intellectual 1' regime. lean Davies. Borderlines 20/2 1 The need for alternative media, for criticism of our public institutions (government and media], and for insightful analyses of the way media communications operate have all * become particularly resonant. Parallelogram Vol 6 no. 4. "'Politician', n. An eel in the fundamental mud upon which the superstructure of organized society is reared. When he wriggles he mistakes the agitation of his tail for the trembling of the edifice. As compared with the Statesman, he suffers the disadvantage of being alive. "'polities', n. A Strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. The conduct of public affairs for private advantage. "'vote', n. The instrument and symbol of a freeman's power, to make a fool of EDITORIAL ADDRESS: himself end wreak of his country."' Variant 73 Robertson Street Ambrose B/erce, 'The Devil's Dictionary' Glasgow G2 8QD There are times, however - and this is one of them - when even being right feels Scotland wrong. What do you say, for instance, about o generation that has been taught that UK rain is poison and sex is death? If making love might be fatal and if o cool spring rain on any summer afternoon can turn a crystal blue lake into a puddle of black poison Teft {041) 221 6380 Fax: (041) 221 7775 scum right in front of your eyes, there is not much left except TV and relentless masturbation." Editor: Malcolm Dickson Hunter 5, Thompson, 'Generation of Swine'. Design: Adam Geary 1 "It is not a question of the 'public , a convenient fiction at best, not 'liking' other Advertising: Ed Baxter, Ken Gill, Billy Clark. the modulations of dominant culture, Euan Sutherland cultural forms. We are all schooled to recognise but only some take a route through it of rejection or renegotiation. Class, gender and Thanks also to: Ken Gill. Euan Sutherland, Doug Aubrey, Silly race collide with the vagaries of biography to drive some people through life with an Clark, Craig Richardson, Alan Robertson, and Steve Partridge for alternative purchase on reality, something which, in the video arena, devolves upon their uncredlted contributions. perception (of self, of others and the relation between them) and communication (the Opinions expressed in Variant are those of writers and not mediated nature of perception and interpersonal relations)..." necessarily those of the editor or of Variant. Sean Cubiit, from 'Timeshift' All materia! is copyright Variant and the authors. "... We tend to use old solutions for the problems even when they are totally inappropriate. Finding new solutions is very exciting. It con also be very rearding. But Printed by: Windrush Press, Witney, (0993) 772197 it requires some work in directions we are not always used to. That's what lateral Typesetting by: Kerry Press, Luton. Effectively, creative Distribution: Variant thinking is about, That's also what creative video is about ... video Central Books (081 986 4845) has to do with developing new perceptions, new forms, new thinking about Distribution AK (031 667 1507) audiovisual language ana getting this over to the public." Counter Distribution (071 274 9009} Alan Mcluskey, European Video Services. Distributed In the UK by Bern hard De Boer (667 9300) Canada Marginal by (705 745 2326) Centralization leads to monoculture and dinosaurism. Maximum variety of life forms has a much stronger survival capacity, and is therefore more ecological." Subsidised by the Scottish Arts Council Allen Ginsberg, 'Drunken Boat'. "I regard a culture that promotes self-confidence to be a requirement for the preservation and enhancement of human dignity. A culture that diminishes or retards people's self confidence, either through what it proposes or omits, I believe is a threat to democracy. When what we do and who we are is not considred culturally significant, wnen our contribution to society is hidden behind 'big names', then the worth of our lives is dimished compared to the value of comparatively few other people," Tom Waymon, in Borderlines # 1 4. "Nothing could be more complex than two human beings meeting. Nothing could be more courageous, in artistic activity, than to risk a performance witn no foreknowledge of the outcome and no certainty of personal and collective responses. It takes a rare kind of foolhordiness, to risk all in this way. And to continue the risks as time goes on. For as a direct confrontational exercise for a beginner, or novice, or the experienced player, such a display of inhibition could be seen to have pgychological advantages in the pursuit of health. But to base an aesthetic, a life's ork, upon such a premise demands a level of courage or foolishness." Eddie Ptevost, from 'No Noise is Innocent' "There is no free money. It is all spent for calculated and usually acknowledged purposes: in immediate trading, but also to substitute a healthy for an unhealthy association (as in tobacco sponsorship of sports), or to reassure what are called 'opinion-formers', or to enhance, as it is slyly put, a 'public ' image'. The specified manna is for this and that. The general manna is for the public reputation of capitalism. But is It paranational manna, from the true paranahonal godfathers, (hat has no to be most closely looked at." Raymond Williams, 'Culture and Society' Cottbus - then deporting them. The Front National is claiming that the French Government is already imple- menting some of their programme.