As a foulness shall ye know Them. Their hand is at your throats, yet ye see Them not; and Their habitation is even one with your guarded threshold. The wind gibbers with Their voices, and the earth mutters with Their consciousness. They bend the forest and crush the city, yet may not forest or city behold the hand that smites. The ice desert of the South and the sunken isles of Ocean hold stones whereon Their seal is engraven. They walk unseen. They Live.
This archival film remixes the systemic violence and power throughout the 1984 National Day Parade, the 1989 Tiananmen Square Protests, and the 2014 Umbrella Movement.
Another chapter in the parallel-leftist-universe of Jim Finn, this video appears to be part of a communist self-help videotape series made in the early 1990's. The series author, Lois Severin, was responding to the move from mass sociopolitical engagement of the 60's and 70's to the personal fulfillment fantasies of the 80's – the Jane Fonda-ization of the Left. But these tapes were not merely a desperate attempt for Trotskyites to stay relevant in the neoliberal era. They were mimicking the Christian fundamentalist activists who organized in churches and community centers in the 70's.
Applying the same economy used in César's other films — one shot which uses the duration of an entire 16mm film reel — Porto 1975 is a tracking shot that unfolds at the social housing complex Cooperativa das Águas Férreas da Bouça, designed by Álvaro Siza Vieira as an integral part of the Ambulatory Service of Social Support (SAAL, 1972–76). The work's construction was initiated in 1975, but only completed in 2006.
"A refreshing look at karaoke, psychedelic dance moves, and donuts all mashed together into a small and swinging film about a man who considers his private thoughts and private jokes worth sharing with a large audience. And it's unlikely that many would disagree."
--Impakt Festival, Utrecht, The Netherlands, 2001
This title is also available on Jim Finn Videoworks: Volume 1.
Addressing the imbalance of information flow between the wealthy and the destitute nations of the world, Towards A New World Information Order suggests means by which this imbalance might be rectified, including ways to control the press.
In this interview, American writer, artist, performer Eileen Myles (b.1949) discusses the various philosophies that motivate her work, including the language of film, embodied performance, and the alienation evoked by bodily vulgarity. Myles links her wide range of artistic and literary practice with notions of abstraction, improvisation, and the mythology of gender, which she explores in relation to her own identity as a working, middle-class lesbian woman. She reflects on the significance of geographical locations, both New York City and San Diego, on her art, and shares how her past struggles with addiction have shaped her life and practice.
Spanning two years of protest and resistance, this video chronicles the politically-motivated police harassment of the homeless population in Manhattan’s Lower East Side; including suspected arson, illegal eviction, and the demolition of buildings that forced families onto the street. Taking its title from a quote by Malcolm X, By Any Means Necessary is an indictment of government systems that violate the law willfully and at random in the service of wealthy real estate developers.
Short Circuit is an experimental documentary—a semi-autobiographical rant that challenges the obsolescence of human labor at the vortex of the machine and digital ages. Through a flow of images, text, and sound, the mechanical and the electronic clash in the thought processes of our protagonist. Is the global revolt of the machines at hand?
In February 1970, the Freex visit the garage of the Hells Angels to informally discuss American politics and motorcycle maintenance. In this video, David Cort leads an extensive interview with the group’s president, Sandy Alexander.
Long still frames, text, language, and sound are weaved together to unfold the narrative of an anonymous group who fill their time by measuring distance. Innocent measurements transition into political ones, examining how image and sound communicate history. We Began by Measuring Distance explores an ultimate disenchantment with facts when the visual fails to communicate the tragic.
Produced by The Sharjah Biennial Production Programme.
John Tagg is a writer, educator, and a leading contributor to the development of art-historical and photographic theory, focusing on political analysis of institutionalized culture and interventions within it. He is a professor of art history at State University of New York-Binghamton and author of Grounds of Dispute: Art History, Cultural Politics and the Discursive Field (1992) and The Burden of Representation: Essays on Photographies and Histories (1988). Interview by James Hugunin.
A historical interview originally recorded in 1988.
The 2024 installment in Muntadas and Reese's series documenting the selling of the American presidency features political ads from the 1950s to ads from the 2024 campaigns, and highlights the development of the political strategy and marketing techniques of the TV campaign process.
Anthony Ramos' astute deconstruction of television news focuses on his part in the media coverage of President Jimmy Carter's 1977 declaration of amnesty for Vietnam draft evaders. Ramos, who had served an 18-month prison sentence for draft evasion, was interviewed by news reporter Gabe Pressman, whose film crew meets Ramos' video crew in a confrontation between technologies and sensibilities. At the time, some broadcast television news crews still used 16mm film, although the expensive transition to ENG (electronic news gathering) systems had begun in 1974.
Best known for her drawings and prints, Nancy Spero (1926-2009) worked as an oil painter on both paper and canvas and with installations. As both artist and activist, Nancy Spero's career spanned fifty years. Spero was active in many radical groups including WAR (Women Artists and Revolution) and AIR (Artists in Residence), the first women’s cooperative gallery in New York. She was renowned for her continuous engagement with contemporary political, social, and cultur
Taped on Prince Street in Soho, New York City, Skip Blumberg creates a one-word performance. Shouting the word "money" over and over, he attracts the attention of New York's finest. The video crew attempt to explain to the policemen that there is no public disorder as the streets were empty when they began to tape.
The video is an unwitting early example of the reaction of the state to the use of video cameras on the streets.
River ice sets the scene for Judy Garland's international justice cri de coeur. It's hard to understate the amount of anxiety created by a vice president who usurped authority for eight years to start wars and wreck the economy and then sidled off to Wyoming to be a retired Hero of the Right. Impunity is not just the stuff of autocratic dictatorships in the third world. The American form of impunity is going to get us all killed.
The Sun Quartet is a solar composition in four movements, a political composition in four natural elements, an audiovisual composition in four bodily mutations: a sun stone where youth blooms in protest, a river overflowing the streets, the burning plain rising in the city. And, finally, the clamor of the people that shook Mexico after the night of September 26, 2014. The disappearance of 43 students from Ayotzinapa opened a breach in the Mexican political body.
Gravity Hill Newsreels: Occupy Wall Street comprises Jem Cohen’s twelve-part series as a continuous and complete compilation. Cohen, who witnessed the New York occupation from day one, borrowed a digital camera and started gathering footage in subsequent weeks. Initially acting upon an instinctive impulse to document and be guided by the events of the movement through quiet participation, Cohen’s documentation took a more public and expansive form through an agreement with the IFC Center, a local movie theater.
In Takeover of the Empire State Building, Brenda and Glennda visit the top of the Empire State Building as it is lit up in lavender for Gay Pride. They interview both tourists visiting the building, and activists who have come to see the lights. Ultimately, they question whether this gesture is adequate, or if there is still a way to go until equality is achieved.
Irreverent yet poignant, The Eternal Frame is a re-enactment of the assassination of John F. Kennedy as seen in the famous Zapruder film. This home movie was immediately confiscated by the FBI, yet found its way into the visual subconscious of the nation. The Eternal Frame concentrates on this event as a crucial site of fascination and repression in the American mindset.
"The intent of this work was to examine and demystify the notion of the presidency, particularly Kennedy, as image archetype...."
— Doug Hall, 1984
E42 is a cinematic exploration of the area in Rome knows as the EUR, a modernist landscape that was originally designated by Mussolini as the the site of the World Fair of 1942 and as a celebration of the 20 year anniversary of Fascism. Originally designed as a monumental space for public performance and collective acts of solidarity to the Fascist regime, this landscape was in fact never inaugurated.
A woman recounts her story of the mass exodus of Palestinians from Jerusalem. Beginning with the arrival and ending with the departure, the tale moves backwards in time and through various landscapes. The events are neither undone nor is the story untold; instead, Farther than the eye can see traces a decaying experience to a place that no longer exists.
The latest in Muntadas and Reese's series documenting the selling of the American presidency features political ads from the 1950s to ads from the 2004 campaigns, and highlights the development of the political strategy and marketing techniques of the TV campaign process.
Edited without commentary, the artists show an endless stream of candidates, from Eisenhower to Kerry, who are marketed like commercial products. As Muntadas and Reese trace the development of the campaign TV spot, what becomes apparent is a consistent sameness of political issues amid complex, changing visuals.
This two-part video Gender Cruise on the Circle Line involves Brenda and Glennda leading a group of drag queens, drag kings, and other gender nonconforming people on a three-hour ride on the Circle Line boat around Manhattan.
