Humor

The unusual combination of a sound like a singing saw accompanies sweet images of frolicking lambs in the meadow, galloping horses, and a strange boy, is eerily beautiful and pure.

This title is also available on Animal Charm Videoworks: Volume 1.

The threat of disaster heightens the shallow into prominence, making their eventual fall all the more poignant as we see through their protective garments to view an eager beaver on the prowl. But beavers build and rebuild, damming back the catastrophes that threaten us all with their sinister seepage.

"The gerbil has long been associated with New World capitalism because of its incessant energy. The Golden Age of Hollywood takes on the history and evolution of this delightful household pet."

--International Film Festival Rotterdam (2003)

"Jim Finn's Wüstenspringmaus, a well-sprung, rear-screened account of a gerbil's life in the '70s."

--Guy Maddin, Film Comment, January (2004)

This title is also available on Jim Finn Videoworks: Volume 1.

A day in the life of a professional photographer (Wegman) and his eager student (Smith), this tape offers a humorous, at times surreal, how-to instructional course in photography. Filled with practical advice, the tape sardonically centers itself more on the need to cultivate an effective artistic persona than actually taking any photographs. Wegman asks: "Before you carve out your own niche, it’s important to ask yourself one tough question: do you have the aptitude?"

The ground is frozen and the whiteness hides the carcass of a thing that once was happy... but now maybe had gotten gassed by things undigested. The bones of once-mighty and blubbery beings stand erect among midgets or dangle around the necks of dormant cannibals destined for a likewise extinction and yet, there is hope. As long as there is still a little meat on those bones our appetite for living goes on.

George Barber doffs his cap to the 20th anniversary of Scratch Video with What’s That Sound?, a mesmerizing montage of questions, answers, and the cries and screams of people caught in a disaster movie. The work uses as its starting point, the film Airport '77 where, improbably, a jumbo jet sinks to the bottom of the sea. What follows is a clever amalgamation of absurd linguistics, cries and shouts, highlighting the artist’s permanent fascination with speech, and human reaction to out-of-the-ordinary situations.

Two young women confront careers in a world of violence, lust, and show-business. This student/teacher co-production I made at the San Francisco Art Institute is a colorful collage of digital dementia.