LYNDALE is a story of shifting family dynamics, told through the relationship of two brothers. Shot on ten different video formats, this experimental documentary is both the story of a Chicago family, and a record of the digital revolution in the early 2000s. The piece takes place over a six-year period during which filmmakers Oli Rodriguez and Victoria Stob shared a house with Rodriguez’s brother, Jeff.
(tell me why): The Epistemology of Disco is an often humorous, at times sarcastic and poignant look at the role that disco music has played in the formation of gay male identity.
"I'm not going to go to the Anne Frank House—I don't think I could take it—being a tourist is bad enough—though I'm not really a tourist—I'm here working—my camera's the one on vacation—taking holiday sounds and images—it's having a nice change of pace—for me it's still the same old thing—talking and talking.
In The Girls at the Dock, Teramana features performers at The Dock, a popular LGBTQ+ bar and nightclub in Cincinnati, Ohio. Teramana engages in backstage banter with the performers before a Tuesday night show, especially with Sirrocco, who was a friend and neighbor of Teramana's, and whom Teramana interviewed for an earlier video piece (Sirrocco). The Dock closed in 2018.
"I never knew Tuesday night could be so much fun... but it sure didn't do much for Wednesday." –Diane Teramana
In a version of the “teenage diary,” Benning places her feelings of confusion and depression alongside grisly tales from tabloid headlines and brutal events in her neighborhood. The difficulty of finding a positive identity for oneself in a world filled with violence is starkly revealed by Benning’s youthful but already despairing voice.
This title is also available on Sadie Benning Videoworks: Volume 1.
A fable-like tale, Splash explores the interplay between identity, fantasy, and homosexual desire in pre-adolescence within the narrow confines of black masculinity. The tape is an exploration of the filmmaker’s psycho-social and sexual development within a society that encourages the consumption of whiteness and heterosexuality. Splash reveals how the family becomes the agency through which sexual repression and gender conformity are carried out.
In this video, Glennda is joined by social critic and feminist scholar Camille Paglia in New York's fashion district. The pair visit designers studios to discuss their respective styles and creative processes. Additionally, Glennda and Camille explore fashion's relationship to gender and feminism, ultimately recreating an iconic scene from Breakfast at Tiffany's.
An episode of Glennda and Friends, hosted by Glennda Orgasm and Camille Paglia.
Uh-Oh! is a love story that revolves around the classic text, The Story of O. Not an adaptation, but rather a critical analysis of masochism that investigates the relationship between love, risk-taking, spirituality, power, and sex. An all-female cast plays cowboys who stage sado-masochistic rituals in the basement of a diner. A waitress named Oh (Emanuela Villorini) falls in love with a cowboy (New York poet Eileen Myles).
In a fragrant garden warmed by the sun, a young man inhales the atoms of the world and exhales thoughts that probe the very essence of his existence.
Embraced by a gentle breeze in that tranquil place kissed by the sun, he embarks on a journey inward to that spiritual and sensual state best described as the "cosmic consciousness", - the "quest" to "understand" and "accept".....to have "peace of mind".
Seven homosexuals, ages ranging 28-85, and strangers to one another, convene in a Los Angeles bookstore. The following unscripted conversation is facilitated by the filmmaker in collaboration with community organizer, founding member of the Radical Faeries, and Jungian psychologist, Dr. Don Kilhefner, and explores community, organizing, identity and intersectionality. Gay Men's Book Club is an intergenerational portrait of a community and the social dynamics found within informal learning environments.
A glittering, Las Vegas-inspired music video for John Sex’s song "Bump and Grind It". With an outrageous fountain hairdo (by stylist Danilo), Sex sings his catchy pop lyrics, “You gotta put your love behind it/Bump, bump, bump and grind it.” Featuring the Bodacious Ta-Tas and inter-cut with Vegas showgirl footage.
This title is also available on Tom Rubnitz Videoworks: Sexy, Wiggy, Desserty.
In this early Tom Rubnitz, Barbara Lipp and Tom Koken collaboration, "Frieda" performs her rap song with a bevy of dolls as back-up singers and dancers. Features rock-bottom production values and song lyrics by Barbara Lipp and Tom Koken.
Future From Inside is the last in the trilogy begun in 2016, by Dani and Sheilah ReStack (also including Strangely Ordinary this Devotion and Come Coyote.) The work traces the ReStack collaboration, as it manifests in life and in work.
There is no future in reproduction. I have no concern with any species extending itself through time. You think you have given birth to a baby, when really you have given birth to a bus driver, or tax collector. Instead I'm interested in the placenta, the real mother of us all, forgotten discarded. The softest machine, all lipids and blood, that blooms and rots like any vegetal/floral martyr. That umbilical cord did not connect you to your mother. It connected you to that most partial of objects — the placenta — part you, part mom, all martyr and garbage.
The Hundred Videos is a project undertaken by prolific video artist Steve Reinke, including 100 video works made from 1989-1996. Discussing death, sex, the body, philosophy, and contemporary art, The Hundred Videos defines a unique style of video-essay for the end of the 20th Century.
"Each disquieting image breaks down into a pixel, each pithy phrase into a word, and Reinke's stream of video-thought continues apace. The corpse won't stop talking."
— Jon Davies, Images Festival: Spotlight Essay, April 2018
An exploration of cruising glory holes, feminism, and general queer frustration.
This experimental video breaks many the silences surrounding lesbians and AIDS. Interweaving the voices of two friends—an HIV+ Latina lesbian and an HIV- Jewish lesbian—the video juxtaposes two very different yet overlapping experiences. The piece points to the often unspoken tensions occurring within this epidemic—survival and power, mourning and loss.
Having a party and in a fix for a dessert? The “Lady” Bunny has just the recipe: combine a doughnut, Cherry 7-Up, jelly, strawberries, and whipped topping.
This title is only available on Tom Rubnitz Videoworks: Sexy, Wiggy, Desserty.
Cool sheets and warm male bodies ignite the screen with antics that go from hot pink to black and blue as they romp, stomp, spit and strut their "goods" before your eyes.
… Watch out – things get rough!
This title comprises Peek-A-Boo (2008), Litany of the Seven Kisses (2011), and Boy Toys (2000) which were compiled into this form by Mike Kuchar in 2022.
Rosie Cutler, a middle school lunch lady, and TJ Fortune, a outcast student, have an unusual relationship. Mystically-minded and gender ambiguous, TJ recoils into an abandoned warehouse where he builds a massive sculptural shrine from discarded objects and trash. Through a dream Rosie makes intimate contact with a trans-worldly being who she hopes will bridge the gap between real and imagined to reveal truths about our world.
A voice for which an event impossible to internalize remains distant. An event that in its distance does not cease to make the narration of something that should not take place anywhere foreign. The military massacre against unarmed students in 1968.
Part Two of Secret Spaces. A sensitive soul with skin receptive to the World's natural elements and who has a mind open for expansive contemplation, embarks on an 'inner journey' towar the New Age of awareness.
Covert Action is a stunning melange of rapid-fire retro imagery accomplishing Child’s proclaimed goal to “disarm my movies.” “I wanted to examine the erotic behind the social, and remake those gestures into a dance that would confront their conditioning and, as well, relay the multiple fictions the footage suggests (the ‘facts’ forever obscured in the fragments left us). The result is a narrative developed by its periphery, a story like rumor: impossible to trace, disturbing, explosive.”
Stephen Varble began Journey to the Sun as a series of performances with projected slides in 1978. After becoming notorious for unauthorized costume performances on Soho streets in the mid 1970s, Varble receded from his public persona at this time. Deriving from his identification with his idol, the reclusive actress Greta Garbo, and informed by the spiritual practice of Subud, Varble began writing an allegorical epic about a musician, the Grey Crowned Warbler, who undergoes tribulation and metamorphosis on a journey to transcendence.
