A high and low fidelity record of obsessions past and present. A hooded man named Cobra Commander (drawn naked) and a boy with black glasses. A fanged woman named Shadow-La and a girl in a rose colored wig. Belinda (Heaven on Earth), Madonna (Live to Tell), and headphones (worn naked). An airport terminal. Home. The Montgomery Ward catalog circa 1980. That orange bedspread, that red flowered couch.
In 1985, Hassan Zbib and Olga Nakkas separately started to develop film scenarios based on simple narratives, and would shoot them on Super 8, which was still possible to develop in Beirut at the time. Their work featured the city as a stage where lonely characters drifted: a taxi driver in his car, a man walking around, talking to a Rambo poster.
This music video for the band Julie Ruin, fronted by Kathleen Hanna, formerly of Bikini Kill, critiques the cynical music marketeers of corporate America. Criticism particularly targets campaigns aimed at women, which Benning and Hanna refer to here as the "Girls Rule (kind of) Strategy."
Using a pulsing rock soundtrack and music video-style editing, X-PRZ combines archival footage of Malcolm X, advertisements, and corporate logos in No Sell Out to provide a scathing commentary on commodity culture.
Commissioned for the Ocularis curated Free to Be…You and Me Invitational compilation, which premiered at Brooklyn’s Galapagos Art Space and also screened at Chicago Filmmakers, where Mercedes Landazuri and I performed a banjo and synth rendition of “It’s Alright to Cry” (the song that followed Dudley Pippin on the compilation).
A Sly and the Family Stone tarmac arrival as a point of departure.
This title is only available on Can You Move Like This: Black Fire.
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 January 2001, the KEN BURNS’ JAZZ promotional blizzard hit New York City. Billboards, banners on buses, elaborate retail displays in book and record stores, feature coverage in every major print, radio and TV outlet, chatter around the water cooler at the office — total saturation.
This is the invocation to the gods, the incense to the gods. A kinetic dance to the gods. Behold the hieratic nature of Tonatiuh (The Sun) and the ferocity of Tlaltecuhtli (Goddess of the Earth) raising her agitation from the white smoke of the burned Copalli, Mesoamerican aromatic resin, sacred resin that tears celluloid with smoke, white hair, on the dark background of the world.
"The human ear. A gatherer of energy. A gatherer of sound. RPMs and BPMs. Satellites go up to the sky."
In the video Satellite, Nelson Henricks combines found footage and techno beats to question western society's ongoing obsession with science, technology and the future. Juxtaposing images derived from old educational films with absurd, aphoristic slogans, Henricks offers up a witty, entertaining and provocative commentary of our need to make sense of everything, at any cost.
A structure of Lawrence Weiner.
Graphics and Computer Editing: K. Hassett; The Song: “Wind and the Willows” Music: Ned Sublette, ASCAP; Lyrics: Lawrence Weiner BMI; Cover Photo: Alice Weiner
This title is also available on Lawrence Weiner: There are Things that Move Outside of Motion.
A man learns his daughter has been brutally murdered by her husband. Time stands still as he oscillates between the need for solace and his urge for revenge. La Bouche is an experimental musical featuring Guinean percussion master Mohamed Bangoura (“Red Devil”), loosely based on his own story.
The video hovers tentatively between therapy, documentary, poetics and mystic traipsery and ends, like all good things, in surrender to song. There is a challenge presented (the challenge to engage earnestly with the piece as it requests) to fall into the breathing and pacing presented, and the challenge to view the video as a discrete piece of art at the same time. The piece relies heavily on the text, the disembodied Virgil through which the words become musical, instructive and (due to the absence of image) visual.
Jam #1 highlights the colorizing ability of the Sandin Image Processor. This hour-long video compiles a jam session with a piano and drum set, video footage from movies and nature, and visual feedback. The video mixing juxtaposes and alternates the images to create a kaleidoscopic stream of events, accompanied by the improvised music. With keying techniques, bodies and objects become containers that engulf, assimilate, and disintegrate the alternating visual reality. The final part features a “holographic” aesthetic and ambient electronic soundtrack.
Solstice is a music video illustrating the feelings inspired by this holiday song written by a young man I met in Atlanta, Georgia, Andy Ditzler. My students and I, at the San Francisco Art Institute, concocted the visuals to accompany the tune and the result should evaluate all those suffereng from blues of every shade and intensity.
Tired of underworld and overworld alike, Isis escourts her favorite son on their final curtain call down the Nile, leaving a neon wake of shattered tombs and sparkling sarcophagi.
Starting with an activity as basic as four hands clapping, Landry composes an arresting visual documentation of the fundamentals of music through a play of visual and sonic rhythms. Landry considers these movements “imaginary hand exercises for beginning drummers.” As disembodied hands swim through shallow space, a strobe light freezes them in the process of clapping, creating a mesmerizing play of eye-ear coordination.
This title was part of the original Castelli-Sonnabend video art collection.
In 1985, Hassan Zbib and Olga Nakkas separately started to develop film scenarios based on simple narratives, and would shoot them on Super 8, which was still possible to develop in Beirut at the time. Their work featured the city as a stage where lonely characters drifted: a taxi driver in his car, a man walking around, talking to a Rambo poster.
This music video for the band Julie Ruin, fronted by Kathleen Hanna, formerly of Bikini Kill, critiques the cynical music marketeers of corporate America. Criticism particularly targets campaigns aimed at women, which Benning and Hanna refer to here as the "Girls Rule (kind of) Strategy."
A structure of Lawrence Weiner. Based upon the LP Niets Aan Verloren (1976) and the performance tape Niets Aan Verloren (1984).
Players: Alice Zimmerman, Sophie Calle, Peter Gordon, Kim Gordon, and Kirsten Vibeke Thueson; Still photography: Alice Zimmerman; Photography: Moved Pictures; Computer editing: K. Hassett; Voices: Coosje Van Bruggen and Lawrence Weiner
This title is also available on Lawrence Weiner: There are Things that Move Outside of Motion.
Utilizing a four-way split screen, Divided Alto documents Landry’s improvised flute performance—focusing on the harmonics of the instrument as he plays double and triple chords. The camera centers on the elements that make the music—the mouth and fingers of the musician—as the music moves from counterpoint to synchronization, establishing rhythms that ebb and resurface. The tape is double-tracked in stereo, video, and audio.
A Sly and the Family Stone tarmac arrival as a point of departure.
This title is only available on Can You Move Like This: Black Fire.
In this video diptych, Snyder uses image and music to depict opposing forces in semi-abstract terms. Exploring processes of fracture and permutation, Hard and Flexible Music contrasts two groups of images, gridded architectural structures and fluid natural imagery, on opposite sides of the screen. The experimental music soundtrack carries two synthesized tracks with differing musical qualities.
This title is also available on Bob Snyder: Sound and Video 1975-1990.
Kuyenda N’kubvina looks at how thought and culture propagate in the slender nation of Malawi. Weaving our way through video halls, book stores, dance floors and radio stations, in cities and small villages, we meet Malawians who traffic in ideas, reflecting the rhythms of Malawian contemporary life. The video was instigated by the filmmaker’s relative ignorance about the people and culture of southeast Africa, and accompanies her as she seeks out individuals and infrastructures that channel and articulate Malawian identity.
Martin Sorrondeguy, former vocalist for Los Crudos, produced this powerful and uplifting documentary about the U.S. Latino punk scene and the DIY movement. The video features live performances by bands, including Huasinpungo, Los Crudos, Subsistencia, Sbitch, and many more.
