Sexuality

Ximena Cuevas: Dormimundo Vol. 1

"If there's something big, big that you want to reach for, you begin by dreaming." —Ivonne and Ivette

"The discomfort in Sleepworld Volume 1 is that of being oneself. The videos included here look at who we are and what we imagine we are. They are experiments in appearances, about the use of artifice to improve life or hide it. It is a reflection on moral displacement, hypocrisy, self-contained dreams, self-loathing, self-destruction in order to repeatedly kill our dreams.

Sterling Ruby: Interventionist Works 2001-2002

Four videos from artist Sterling Ruby that deal with quiet moments, capturing an atmospheric intimacy, both voyeuristic and perverse.

Shu Lea Cheang: Lesbian Shorts

Cheang’s work from the early-to-mid 1990s demonstrated an exciting fusion of identity politics and erotic exploration, making her one of the period’s most prominent queer media artists. This collection presents two of her solo works, along with two collaborations.

Ponytail

This feature-length video follows several inflicted characters and recounts the ways in which they find resolve. A series of entropic scenarios held together by an attraction to failure and its spectacle describe the characters' malfunction - their inability to fulfill personal desire. Compelled by the consequences and rewards of their attempts they question their own trajectory. Using elements of melodrama, performative monologue and traditional narrative structure Ponytail presents a unique society of characters that destroy the distinction between memory and invention.

Poster Girl

As if trapped inside a nightmare, the main protagonist of Poster Girl is haunted by disturbing visions, thoughts and fantasies, which the viewer is privy to. She is joined at various points in the video by another woman, whose role in the narrative remains unclear – is she meant to function as a guardian or a demon? The video further complicates the matter by representing both women as simultaneously wounded and wounding, inviting and threatening, vulnerable and menacing.

Sadie Benning Videoworks: Volume 2

Volume 2 includes the pixelvision works made in 1992: A Place Called Lovely, It Wasn't Love, and Girlpower. A Place Called Lovely references the types of violence individuals find in life, from explicit beatings, accidents, and murders to the more insidious violence of lies, social expectations, and betrayed faith. Benning collects images of this socially-pervasive violence from a variety of sources, tracing events from childhood—movies, tabloids, children's games (like mumbledy-peg)—personal experiences, and those of others.

Pistolary! Films and Videos by Peggy Ahwesh

This 3-disc DVD collection features nine works by maverick film and video maker Peggy Ahwesh. The set also includes title descriptions, a biography, film/videography, a selected bibliography, and the following texts:

  • Pistolary! Films and Videos by Peggy Ahwesh -- Eileen Myles
  • Film, Baby -- Peggy Ahwesh
  • Interview with Peggy Ahwesh -- Scott MacDonald

 

Nelson Henricks Videoworks: Volume 2

Three of these four works form a trilogy that explores one of the principle metaphors of video: the window. The window is used to examine notions of knowledge, voyeurism, surveillance and time. In addition, Crush is a reflection on identity, what it means to be human.

 

Miranda July Videoworks: Volume 1

Four short videos by artist Miranda July, covering the period 1996 to 2001.

Heal Me

A woman is standing barefoot on a tile floor.  In slow motion, the investigative camera circles around her.  Her breasts are bared and liquid runs down her legs.  Bit by bit, every part of her body is shown, except her face, which remains hidden behind her hair.  The camera besets the woman, who remains silent.

This title is also available on Hester Scheurwater Videoworks: Volume 1.

Kip Fulbeck Selected Videos: Volume Two

Known for his fast-paced and hilarious videos exploring Hapa identity and Asian American media portrayal, artist Kip Fulbeck has been featured on CNN, MTV and PBS. A professor of Art at UCSB, he exhibits and performs throughout the world and is the author of several books.

Volume 2 includes: Some Questions for 28 Kisses, Asian Studs Nightmare, Sweet or Spicy?, Sex, Love & Kung Fu, L.A. Christmas, Nine Fish, Vicki in 3:30 and Special Features.

Kip Fulbeck Selected Videos: Volume One

Known for his fast-paced and hilarious videos exploring Hapa identity and Asian American media portrayal, artist Kip Fulbeck has been featured on CNN, MTV and PBS. A professor of Art at UCSB, he exhibits and performs throughout the world and is the author of several books.

Volume 1 includes: Game of Death, A Day at the Fair, Banana Split, Lilo and Me, A Man for You, Rock & Roll Pug Run and Special Feature

"Hilarious from the start." 

--Giant Robot Magazine

Boy/Analysis: An Abridgement of Melanie Klein's "Narrative of a Child Analysis"

"The content of the rogue computer animation Boy/Analysis is perfectly illustrated by the integral title, namely, a drastic abbreviation of Melanie Klein's 1961 key study on child psychology. The initial 93 sessions the psychoanalyst booked with a ten-year-old boy, are reduced down to 16 by Reinke, and thoroughly illuminated. Tumbling around, appearing and disappearing against a black background, are text fragments. A score from Benjamin Britten orchestrates this semantic ballet in which the most arbitrary associations can be made.

Ximena Cuevas: El Mundo del Silencio (The Silent World)

Cuevas is obsessed with the micro movements of daily life, with the border between truth and fiction, with the "impossibility" of reality. Her work relentlessly seeks out the layers of lies covering the everyday representations of reality and systematically explores the fictions of national identity and gender.

Anthology of American Folk Song

Named after Harry Smith's seminal "Anthology of American Folk Music,” Anthology of American Folk Song re-inscribes the optimistically paranoid mythological landscape of contemporary America.

"They had been unable to believe in the existence of terrorists. After all, none of them had discovered any repressed memories of terrorist abuse. They had focused instead on the more immediate and real threat of serial killers, alien abductors and Satanic ritual abusers."