Border Art Clásicos (1990-2005): An Anthology of Collaborative Video Works by Guillermo Gómez-Peña DVD Box Set, 2007, 4:38:09 This "conceptual package" of collaborative videos and writings by leading theorists is a unique opportunity for students, artists and educators to explore the psyche, experimental aesthetics, activist ethos and spiritual cosmology of legendary rebel artist Guillermo Gómez-Peña. With filmmakers: Isaac Artenstein Adriene Jenik Patrick Litchy Jethro Rothe-Kushel Daniel Salazar Henry Sayre & Sandy Brooke Roberto Sifuentes Liz Singer Gustavo Vazquez

Disc 1: Border Brujo and Son Border Brujo   Guillermo Gómez-Peña Isaac Artenstein 52:00 1990   Sitting at an altar decorated with a kitsch collection of cultural fetish items, and wearing a border patrolman's jacket decorated with buttons, bananas, beads, and shells, Gómez-Peña delivers a sly and bitter indictment of U.S. colonial attitudes toward Mexican culture and history. Whirling through various Mexican American stereotypes, pulling on costumes as easily as accents, Gómez-Peña emphasizes the collision of Mexican and American cultures, their mixture and misunderstanding of each other, each appearing as a dream/nightmare reflection of the "Other." In turns powerful and playful, Border Brujo poignantly illustrates the double edge of forced cultural occupation. Director: Isaac Artenstein Son of Border Crisis   Guillermo Gómez-Peña Isaac Artenstein 16:00 1990 In these seven short video performances directed by Isaac Artenstein, Gómez-Peña confronts Mexican-American culture clashes, stereotypes, and the Fourth World (immigrants). Speaking through a bullhorn or on the airwaves of mock-station Radio Latino FM, he broadcasts a message that will not be silenced. He delivers such comic comparisons as between "tacos without salsa" and "art without ideas" and such pointed statements as "thanks to marketing and not to civil rights, we are the new generation." The taped monologues include Son of Border Crisis, El Post-Mojado, The Mexican Fly, Dear Californian, Employer Sanctions, The Year of the Yellow Spider, and The Year of the Hispanic. Disc 2: Chicano Sci-fi El Naftazteca: Cyber Aztec TV for 2000 A.D.   Guillermo Gómez-Peña Adriene Jenik Roberto Sifuentes 58:00 1995 Interrupting the nightly news in an act of guerrilla television, Gómez-Peña returns to the persona of a Chicano-Aztec veejay—"The Mexican who talks back, the illegal Mexican performance artist with state of the art technology"—to elaborate the complications of American identity. This post-NAFTA Cyber Aztec pirate commandeers the television signal from his underground "Vato bunker", where virtual reality meets Aztec ritual. Gómez-Peña embodies the doubly radical Chicano performance artist, delivering radical ideas through a radical form of entertainment. With guest performances by Roberto Sifuentes and Ruben Martinez. The Great Mojado Invasion, Part 2 (The Second U.S.-Mexico War) Guillermo Gómez-Peña Gustavo Vazquez 26:30 2001 In The Great Mojado Invasion (The Second US - Mexico War), writer/performer Guillermo Gómez-Peña and filmmaker Gustavo Vazquez combine Chicano wit and political vision to create an ironic, post-millennial and postmodern look at the future of U.S./Mexican relations. Both artist and director generate a complex commentary on history, society, pop culture, the politics of language and the repercussions of ethnic dominance. Like a ghost from the future, Gómez-Peña (also known as the Border Brujo and El Webback) narrates this "mock-umentary," which envisions a queue of mojados ("wetbacks") who reconquer lost Mexican territory to establish the new "U.S. of Aztlan." This pseudo-documentary presents a fictionalized account of the history of the current state of affairs, from pre-Columbian times to the immediate future. Disc 3: Performance Art for TV Temple of Confessions   Guillermo Gómez-Peña Roberto Sifuentes 25:45 1996 A documentation of a performance/installation. Guillermo Gómez-Peña and Roberto Sifuentes created a fictional religion based on inter-cultural confessions. Exhibiting themselves in Plexiglas boxes as "end-of-the-century saints", the two performers hear the confessions of audience members willing to reveal their intercultural fears and desires to the saints. Borderstasis: A Video Diary Guillermo Gómez-Peña 22:00 1998 This strange, lyrical performance video diary is a millennial reflection on the impossibility to "reveal" one's self in stormy times such as ours. The piece is also about the intricate connections between performance and everyday life; about language, identity, love, nostalgia and activism amidst the California apocalypse. Through a series of poetic tableaux vivants, performance actions and found footage, Borderstasis articulates the fluid boundaries between public and private, mythical and real, as they exist in the life of a "migrant performance artist" living in a fully globalized world. Commissioned by German TV ARTE; directed and written by performance artist Guillermo Gómez-Peña. Edited by Lisa Diener, Sound design by Rona Michele.   Disc 4: Recent Works (2003-2005) A Declaration of Poetic Disobedience from the New Border Guillermo Gómez-Peña Gustavo Vazquez 15:15 2005 A video version of a 2004-05 performance that attempts to find a post-9/11 voice and place for alternative viewpoints and radical imaginations. The performance maps out a poetic cartography in order to establish symbolic connections between the artist's psyche, body, language, dreams and aspirations, and those of his contemporaries. Los Videograffitis (A Selection from Ethno-techno) Guillermo Gómez-Peña 29:39 2003/4 Guillermo Gómez-Peña, Gustavo Vazquez, Daniel Salazar, Patrick Litchy, Jethro Rothe-Kushel. "Guillermo Gómez-Peña has invited film and video-maker colleagues from around the world to re-envision his own performance works through a collaborative editing process." --Rupert Jenkins, Director, San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery La Pocha Nostra en Acciõn: Performance as Radical Pedagogy: 1. The Brown Sheep Project Guillermo Gómez-Peña Liz Singer 20:00 2003 "In 2002, my troupe, La Pocha Nostra and I were invited to conduct a workshop at Columbia College in Chicago with 15 students and faculty from different departments. At the end of the two-week workshop, we created a large-scale performance-installation with the participants. Canadian video artist Liz Singer was invited to shoot the entire process, from the early workshop exercises, meant to connect students with their bodies and build a sense of community, up to opening night… In this documentary we reveal the working methods and radical pedagogy of La Pocha Nostra." --Guillermo Gómez-Peña;, 2007 2. No homeland/no fear Guillermo Gómez-Peña Gustavo Vazquez 13:00 2004 Made from the outtakes of a PBS-commissioned documentary on "Latino arts" in the U.S., No homeland/no fear features "re:group," a loose association of S.F.-based performance artists who created "a multi-ethnic/multi-generational performance lab" in response to the perils of 9/11 and the dangers of the Bush era.