Animal Charm Videoworks: Volume 1

In Animal Charm's masterful example of video montage, a monkey is mesmerized as he watches two dolphins toss a woman from snout to snout. Go cross-eyed with cross-cutting. Sometimes, in order to prevent the insidious absorption of mass media, it is necessary to apply Vaseline to your eyes and ears. Other times, you only need to watch Stuffing — it’s inside of everything.

This title is also available on Animal Charm Videoworks: Volume 1 and American Psycho(drama): Sigmund Freud vs. Henry Ford.

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.

Fuelled by lavish doses of disjointed hyper-editing, super-talented Jim Bailey dances with wild animals in Animal Charm's hot and exciting performance of "Fever."

This title is also available on Animal Charm Videoworks: Volume 1 and American Psycho(drama): Sigmund Freud vs. Henry Ford.

What are all of these photographers trying to capture, and just who is collaborating with whom? This short piece could be a take on fame and the cult of the personality — or a tourist portrait with the audience as subject.

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

Animal Charm's Ashley seems to develop a conventional story about a modern mother and wife with typically modern desires. But the insertion of incongruous soap opera scenes soon ensures that the seductive images take on an absurd and oppressive charge. “The antiseptic cleanliness of the imagery has a superficial appeal, but begins to feel claustrophobic — or toxic — after prolonged exposure.”

— Fred Camper, “First Friday Film,” Chicago Reader (26th December 1997)

“A tour de force of incongruous juxtapositions, startling dislocations and ingenious visual rhymes assembled from the banal detritus of late night TV.”

— New York Video Festival (1998)

This title is also available on Animal Charm Videoworks: Volume 1 and American Psycho(drama): Sigmund Freud vs. Henry Ford.