SanctionedArray was a project produced in 2010 by an ad hoc collective under assumed name SpecifyOthers in response to the restrictions of artists’ submissions to the YouTube Play, a biennial of “creative video” co-organized by the Guggenheim Museum and YouTube (its inaugural billing as “biennial” seems to have been preposterous – no subsequent installments have been presented yet since the first one in 2010). Despite its self-proclamation as “global initiative” with “hopes to attract innovative, original, and surprising videos from around the world, regardless of genre, technique, background, or budget,” its Terms and Conditions, Eligibility (d.) prohibited citizens and residents of the US sanctioned countries from submitting weblinks to their videos on YouTube for jurying and participation.
SpecifyOthers issued an open call for online video art submissions from around the world, including, but not limited to, the sanctioned countries. Over 345 videos have been submitted during the month of October; 100 videos have been selected for interactive screenings by the jury of international artists, scholars, curators, gallerists, and cultural producers, including caraballo-farman, Denise Carvalho, Grithiya Gaweewong, Ali Hossaini, Nadine Knotzer, Carlos Motta, Kourosh Nouri, November Paynter, Juan Puntes, Steven Rand, Renuka Sawhney, Andrei Severny, John D. Spiak, Jovana Stokic, and Jessica Winegar. Review and voting was conducted entirely online using an open-source program developed and kindly provided by apexart. Independently from the jury’s selections, SpecifyOthers curated a playlist of 52 videos that was screened along with the 100 jury-selected works. The screenings were held on October 29th at Big Screen Plaza and November 2nd and 3rd at White Box gallery, both in New York City; the project was subsequently presented at March Meeting 2011 in Sharjah, UAE.
Review: SanctionedArray: Curating Video Art beyond YouTube Play
In conjunction with the screenings, a panel discussion was held on November 2nd, 2010 at White Box. It was moderated by SpecifyOthers and included the following panelists:
Wafaa Bilal, Iraqi-born artist and Assistant Professor at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. He has exhibited and lectured world-wide, promoting awareness of the situation of the Iraqi people and stressing the importance of peaceful conflict resolution. Bilal’s 2007 dynamic installation, Domestic Tension, placed him on the receiving end of a paintball gun that was accessible online to a worldwide audience, 24 hours a day.
Hamid Dabashi, Hagop Kevorkian Professor of Iranian Studies and Comparative Literature at Columbia University in New York, who has written more than twenty books on colonialism, art, society, and religion.
Shayana Kadidal, a senior managing attorney of the Guantánamo Global Justice Initiative at the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York City. In his eight years at the Center, he has worked on a number of significant cases in the wake of 9/11, including the Center’s challenges to the detention of prisoners at Guantánamo Bay (among them torture victim Mohammed al Qahtani and former CIA ghost detainee Majid Khan), which have twice reached the Supreme Court, and several cases arising out of the post-9/11 domestic immigration sweeps.
Ricardo Miranda Zúñiga, artist and Associate Professor of Film and Media Studies at Hunter College – CUNY. His social art practice seeks to establish dialogue in public spaces, in projects and exhibitions including Portables, 2010, Museo de Bellas Artes, Santiago, Chile; RETRO-TECH, 2010, San Jose Museum of Art; Return to Function, 2009 Madison Museum of Contemporary Art; Im_polis, 2007, Laboratorio Arte Alameda, Mexico City; Russia: Significant Other, 2006, The National Center for Contemporary Art, St. Petersburg, Russia; inSite_05: Tijuana Calling; Time Shift Ars Electronica 2004, Linz, Austria; Digitafogia, tactical media festival at Museum of Image and Sound, Sao Paulo, Brazil; Counter Culture at The New Museum of Contemporary Art, NYC; artport, gatepage web initiative of the Whitney Museum.
SanctionedArray co-presented by ArteEast
SanctionedArray at March Meeting 2011, Sharjah
100 JURY-SELECTED VIDEOS:
Esther Achaerandio, Spain
INTER-VIEW, 2007. Stereo, 5:00
This work is a visual reflection that deals ironically with the control and manipulation processes routinely found during a search for employment, particularly if young people with no experience are involved. The encounter between candidate and interviewer often turns into an unconscious act of degradation on the interviewer’s part that, in addition to wielding greater power over the job seeker, regularly abuses candidates and interferes in their private lives, even though this is illegal. Privacy’s boundaries are ignored and it is left totally unprotected, subject to need and the harsh glare of a voracious labour market. Nevertheless, we are usually obliged to make this kind of systematic concession, because if not, it is impossible to be part of “society”. Humiliation and discrimination lie within the context of what is politically correct.
Sarah Ahmad, Pakistan
Ash-is(IV), 2010. Stereo, 0:36
Experimental art video born out of my mind’s obscure relationship with the popular culture of today.
Marina Albu, Romania
Public Funeral of the Fears, 2010. Stereo, 5:40
Public Funeral of the Fears concerns aspects of public and social life, relating both to the transformations that occurred in Romania by auto-westernization after the fall of communism, adopting habits and behaviors that reshaped the street human interaction, the openness, the eye contacts and the speed of life, and to the public outcome of personal history influencing contact and interplay. Inside of a mortuary car, shouting through a loudspeaker “ALL FEARS DIED, GET CLOSE TO PEOPLE!”, with “intruders” forming a cortège on the sidewalks, dressed in black, who double the message by whispering it into the passersby ears, invading the personal space, the action becomes both visible and powerful, both public and private.
Juan Arata, Argentina
Structure, 2010. Stereo, 03:30
The structure inside the structure inside the structure…
Hamdi Attia, United States
Two Performances.RAM, 2007. Mono, 11:00
This piece is a collage based video work that consists of images, text, and video & audio clips found on the web regarding the tow public figures, Amr Khaled of the Arab/Muslim world and Thomas Friedman of the American/Western world. The main source for Khaled’s materials was his web site, www.amrkhaled.com. For Friedman, Google and Yahoo search tools led to varies web sites that contain video files of his lectures at several institutions that hosted him as a guest speaker speaker to promote his new books. 1- Amr Khaled Chapter (FROM LONDON) The left screen shows him preaching from a satellite Arabic TV channel broadcasting from London. The right screen contains footage of made-up commercials and Arab streets as if they were broadcasted from the sam channel. The subtitle bar contains a rendered English translation. 2- Friedman Chapter (REHeARSAL TAPE) The left screen shows him giving lectures from varies places and it is divided into 16 clips. Some parts of his rehearsed lecture are repeated in a way in which the sound track of a clip matches the footage of the following clip. The right screen contains footage of golf courses– which he likes to spend time in, NYTimes commercials, and lecture rooms. The subtitle bar contains a rendered Arabic translation. I am looking at the fact that different forms of media created a flood of endless accessible public records, and at how public figures considered the key access points to the entire production. In other words, these figures became the translators. Some aspects of this translation seem to be feeding into the sense of anti-intellectualism among the vast majority of the population. Other aspects of this translation aim to offer a justifiable representational facade of sociopolitical acts. This video work examines the translation of discourses, ideas, and concepts within both American/western and Arab/Muslim cultures and politics.
Maneli Aygani, Iran
O’ Fable, they are the fodder, who have blocked the way to the garden, 2010. Stereo, 4:28
Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions, a 1884 satirical novella by the English schoolmaster Edwin Abbott Abbott. The noted science writer Isaac Asimov described Flatland as “The best introduction one can find into the manner of perceiving dimensions, so it have been inspirational for these short experimental film acknowledging the existence of several dimensions not only in a mathematical way but also in a human and social way.
Perry Bard, United States
Man With A Movie Camera: The Global Remake, 2010. Stereo, 2:57
Man With a Movie Camera: The Global Remake is a participatory video shot by people around the world who are invited to record images interpreting the original script of Vertov’s Man With A Movie Camera, upload them to http://dziga.perrybard.net where software developed specifically for this project archives, sequences and streams the submissions as a film. As people can upload the same shot more than once infinite versions of the film are possible. The site contains a scene index, shot list and tags allowing viewers to navigate the site in different ways. There is also a link to the original Vertov film. When users select a shot to upload, instructions appear to walk them through the process. It is asked that people respect the rhythm of Vertov’s original: each shot is logged indicating the duration of the shot. If someone were to upload four minutes rather than four seconds the software would adjust the upload to Vertov’s duration. Once a shot is uploaded it is cued for approval and once approved it becomes part of the stream. The software builds a new film each day reflecting the most recent uploads. The versions of the film alternate when it is screened. A high-resolution daily download file is available for projection. It is usually shown as an installation with projection and website on a computer. The work explores the capabilities of the Internet to achieve global collaboration by encouraging culturally diverse participation and by developing software which accepts input from many sources (e.g. mobile phone, digital still camera, video, screen-grab. To ensure that uploads would not be from the usual places I commissioned 12 foreign correspondents (Brazil, Lebanon, Israel, Columbia, Pakistan, Russia, Serbia, Japan, China, Korea, Mexico, Thailand) whose role is to spread the word through their mailing lists and to organize the upload of scenes or shots that add up to a minimum of one minute in length. In creating the database version Vertov’s experiment enters the 21st century. Its original form and content pose interesting questions about the nature of documentary that are still relevant almost a century later. The remake invites interpretations. It is hoped the project will serve as a platform for discussion raising issues about internet communities and about media and media-making both on and offline.
Michele Beck, United States
440.0 Hz, 2009. Stereo, 3:00
440.0 Hz. was shot with a spy camera that was placed inside the mouth. Beck and Calvo then walked down the busy streets in New York City and recorded what they encountered. The change in audio from breath to pitch as the mouth opens and closes creates a bridge from the interiority of thought and body function to the exteriority of the individual as part of public life. 440.0 Hz is a standard reference pitch, for example a tone that is used by symphonies for tuning- the ultimate referent.
Paul Beck, United States
A Thousand Pound Bomb, 2009. Stereo, 4:16
America is still at war. Reworking of the same message that is never heard.
Bahar Behbahani (Iran), Suspended, 2007. Stereo, 7:00
My imagery is informed by the cognitive dissonance I experienced between comforting familial attitudes and cultural brutality. It is the ambiguity and tension between these two states of existence that I aim to express in my work by balancing images of tenderness and violence and inviting the viewer to decide what is real. In Suspended, a woman questions love, humanity, identity, freedom and femininity when everything seems normal. The woman in the film takes the audience to her backyard and together they observe her life in ambiguity.
Melanie Beisswenger, Germany
Follow Me, 2010. Stereo, 1:30
Images and sounds flow together, like fleeting thoughts shooting through the mind. This experimental video combines images, movement and sound to a pulsating unit, taking us on a journey into the unknown.
Neno Belchev, Bulgaria
Dresden Hand, 2010. Stereo, 8:22
Everything until now is rambling. I feel myself as a speechless piece of styrofoam, crashed against the rocky coast by the waves.
Mary Billyou United States
Good Translator, 2006. Mono, 18:00
Good Translator, or, Mohamed Yousry: A Life Stands Still is a short documentary about Mohamed Yousry, a naturalized American citizen who’s life changed radically after September 11, 2001. Mohamed immigrated to the United States in 1980. For the next twenty years, he developed a full and happy life, as a husband, father, and academic. On September 13, 2001 Mohamed was approached by the FBI on his doorstep in Queens, NY. Currently, Mohamed is serving a two-year prison sentence and waiting to find out what his fate will bring.
Juliana Borinski, Brazil
Stadthimmelskoerper, 2010. Stereo, 7:16
This video work proposes to approach the ecology of a contemporary cosmopolis on a generic level. One or another; because what matters here is the vertical topography out of which fluxes of individuals are ruled, whoever may they be. “Lumpa-Fun Park f¸r proletariat”. At first glance, it is a due tribute to Thea Gabriele von Harbou and her husband Fritz Lang, a couple that created the film-novel Metropolis, therefore incarnating this word in the visual arts regime for generations. You know the plot: an ounce of society is living in the skies, far from the handworking zombies staying in the caves. Over São Paulo are throbbing 1100 heliports, nodes of the capitalist transportation bernetwork. They do overfly the people, muddy pleba, “da heathen”, condemned to the traffic jams of criminality. Rulers must survolate the Real; they daily ‘thriller’ It. “Stadthimmelskörper” is also about reading the stars, attempting to read another future in the moving patterns of choppers daily chopping our sky, and their passengers, shopping our lives. And the future being what it is, the camera remains static, recording machine, a petrified eye, the amazed eye, the gorillic retina, stuck in the midsty middle of some Niemayer Tower (Copan Building). Observatory spot, audiovisual lectorium for a nocturnal and ‘anthropophagical’ hunger, this freedom of our eyes. (R. M. Goldschmiedmeister)
Thorne Brandt, United States
Animated Gif of Day, 2010. Stereo, 5:01
This video has no finished form. You could say that it is an organic video. An animated layer is added onto this video every day. All of these animations were made by me in less than one day, every day, for fun, or from samples sent to potential freelance clients that never panned out. Each exhibition, the video looks different. I’ve noticed that as the video becomes more complex (about 1000 layers in this one), the individual forms from personal and pop life become less recognizable, and drift towards white noise. I like the idea that entropy exists in this video. While the video lives and grows, it also decays (away from order). Newton’s second law of thermodynamics gives me a queasy feeling. I tried to replicate this uneasiness with the audio soundscape.
Mark Brogan, United Kingdom
The Typical Rejects, 2010. Stereo, 4:30
This is a compilation of video material recorded by the artist Mark Brogan since 2006 in an outsourced market research call centre based in Serbia. The call centre was actually set up and is run by the artist. This film looks at his unconventional use of video recordings from work in the call centre in job interviews for new workers and gives many revealing social and psychological insights into the response of young Serbs to the unfamiliar challenges and frequently alienating nature of such employment.
Elle Burchill, United States
In Black & White, 2008. Stereo, 7:00
In a world full of color, focused on the black and white, I survey the streets of Brooklyn, NY in autumn 2008. The work is a portrait of a place, my visual “Sign O’ the Times,” and a black & white video shot in color using the following 3 rules: Any black or white object, even if lighting distorts its color Any object that appears black, white, or a shade of the greyscale, regardless of actual color. White light in any hue, as well as the occasional glimpse of color from nature (sky, trees, etc). Through the use of real life black & white the piece contemplates what is lost and what is gained from this limited perspective. It is the first in a series of color works.
Valentina Caniglia, Italy
The Rise and The Decline, 2007. Stereo, 5:00
The Rise and The Decline is a video about the creation and the destruction of the society that will bring humanity to the prehistoric era. The elements of the society’s progression make a competitive world ready to explode. This video is the begining of a trilogy of Video art about the human and society progression and destruction. This is a trip of a woman’s future who walks into a futuristic tunnel where an intense light take her away. She finds herself later into a prehistoric past with a different identity where the technology disappeared after a series of destroyed events.
Maurizio Chiantone, Italy
Take a Breath, 2008. Stereo, 4:19
Jeanne Lee’s Take a Breath is the inspiration for this piece: its artlessness and depth of meaning in expressing the basic truths of life and death were ideal for an experiment in fragmenting and reconstructing sound and meaning. the first level of fragmentation was the translation of the text from the original American English into French, German, and Italian, thus augmenting the phonetic variables. The second level was the uneven cutting of the words and sentences of both the original and the translations. the apex of the composing process was the creation of graphic signs used as musical symbols: each symbol represented the phonetic value for the performing voice. thus four tracks, each in a different language, were recorded by the performer in front of a digital camera using the camera’s mike; then the image/sound tracks were computer edited into a coherent whole. The purpose of this experiment is to underline the meaning and function of music as giving value and cohesiveness to differences creating chaos, perhaps, out of order and life out of chaos. the background photo in the video is Le baiser, bordighera ,1982, by Helmut Newton.
CHOKRA, United Arab Emirates
Satie to D (For S), 2010. Stereo, 6:01
CHOKRA (Conscious Hoarding Of Kinetic Rage Associated) presents a video work titled Satie to D (For S) featuring documentation from his sensorial performance “Say to the people, Say it’s Over” at “Studio Blast” curated by Sandra Skurvida on 7th May 2010 at the International Studios & Curatorial Program (ISCP), New York. Satie to D (For S) includes multilingual rap rhyme sequences conducted in Arabic, Urdu, Hindi and English interwoven with CHOKRA’s own composition in digital and analogue sound. The video utilizes a widescreen format slit on the horizon referencing surrealistic vision and the “doubling” of performance in video representation. The frame rate and sonic waveform in Satie to D (For S) are algorithmically rendered to encompass both visuals and audio as interdependent components in video.
Sandra Crisp, United Kingdom
Oceanics, 2009. Stereo, 6:40
Oceanics is a short experimental film that moves the viewer through dark/ illuminated spaces populated with abstract spheres and cubes textured with appropriated online video clips, images, graphics and personal collage/drawing. Some of these models are based on the idea of science graphics, diagrams and illustrations found in newspapers and magazines explaining climactic phenomena, for example. Rotating cylindrical forms in the film represent satellites above the earth continually capturing images of our world. There is no linear narrative as such, more a collection of collaged scenes and free flowing ideas in the form of a stream of consciousness combined with images and information from the media that saturates and bombards our lives on a daily basis: forming a subtle fusion of private space and public information. The ocean theme is presented in a number of ways including; a 3D virtual simulation of a dark misty ocean complete with melted iceberg fragments, news bulletins depicting floods and low resolution mobile phone video clips of the Atlantic . Overall the film aims to communicate the fragility, complexity and continually changing nature of the environment and how this may be represented in moving-image format.
Yosef Joseph Dadoune, Israel
Phoenix, 2010. Mute, 03:27
Nature and the desert light that loudly proclaim optimism are in direct contrast to the daily hardships of the periphery. Joseph Dadoune actively communes with nature. Somewhere between a meditation and a chuckle. An ironic contrast generated by the appearance of an old acacia tree and the public housing around it on the town’s edge.
Cat Del Buono, United States
Public Feeding, 2009. Stereo, 1:40
After reading Hanna Rosin’s article, “The Case Against Breast-Feeding,” I created a video that deals with public breast-feeding and the role of woman. The large projection in a public space shows images and enhanced sounds that liken the woman to an animal – chained to her duty to feed her child while ignoring societal rules on public nudity, exposure, and bodily functions. I use my piece to question the necessity versus appropriateness but also to trigger thoughts about the expected role of the female in our society.
Lindsay Denniberg, United States
CHANCES! 2010. 16:07
Made from the bowels of the glitter spirit and dog breath. Triscult’s must fight in a dance off to the death with their former mentor Mr. Transylvania, in order to get back their Exotic Wife coupon!
Carole Desbois, France
Residues, 2007. Stereo, 7:30
Cine-poetry film constructed like a journal, a road movie.
DETEXT, Spain
Untitled, 2008. Stereo, 3:30
Filmed in 2008 from a rooftop in Downtown Manhattan, Untitled examines the media representation of the 9/11 attacks in New York. Somewhere between TV trompe l’oeil and a historical painting in motion, DETEXT’s short video unequivocally triggers viewers’ memories of the collapse of New York’s World Trade Center, questioning the authenticity of art and media representations of historical events.
Ana Devora, Spain
Amnesia, 2010. Stereo, 5:31
You don’t know who and where are you. You are dizzy and confused… Just images that keep flashing in your mind, images of trips, roads… You wonder if there`s anybody looking for you if your fate is to stay here forever completely disappeared in oblivion.
Alfred Dong, China
I want to talk: 1956, 2010. Stereo, 14:00
This animation-video hybrid project integrates an image of Chairman Mao Zedong, who is the first Chairman of People’s Republic of China, with his speech to responsible cadres of the National Association of Music Workers and some other comrades which held in Beijing at 24 August 1956. As the text of Mao’s speech could be translated by the artist into other languages, audience are able to have living experience through the screen seeing the most important man in China say his words of significance in English. Through animation of the still image, artist investigate in what extend consciousness of human being could be manipulated in a pro human era where a multitude of advanced media and technologies can radically shape and filter an original event or experience.
Melissa Doran, Ireland
Sleep in a Room, Dream in a Landscape, 2010. Stereo, 2:00
Sleep in a Room, Dream in a Landscape, describes the journey of a dream. It is a meditative, atmospheric piece in which environmental sounds combine with visuals of an abstracted landscape to create an emotive narrative. Rich textures emerge from the rhythm of passing hills.
Christoph Draeger, Switzerland
It’s a Cinch to Give Legs to Old Hard-boiled Eggs, 2010. Stereo, 3:00
Electric wire defines a simplified version of the Maze from The Shining on a field of 50×100 meters. During 2-3 months, cows ate the accessible grass while in the in-betweens spaces the grass was allowed to grow high. The drawing of the maze will be clearly visible from above and from space. The video shows the cows in action during two days from dusk to dawn in a 2.5 min time-lapse video. the new video is shot in 16:9 and HD, and feature smore cows than the sample on youtube below.
Roberto Duarte, Chile
Reflektionen, 2009. Stereo, 6:53
Being capable to recognize, within the contingent reality, when and where multiple layers of a given information intersect, following their own path, a subtle perceptual space will be opened, creating new meanings in deeper ways, re-connecting the communication device.
Emilie Duval, United States
Regulation 1.10, 2010. Stereo, 6:39
Regulation 1.10 stages the limbo of the financial regulations. The white bunny incarnates the speculative guardian. The atmosphere is heavy and slow and depicts a strong ambiguity between finance and inappropriate behavior.
Santiago Echeverry, Colombia
Edwardo, 2009. Stereo, 3:30
In a world of hate and homophobia, that has caused a surge in violence and suicides in the land of the free, the most visible response a gay man can have is laughter and humor. Edwardo, a simple blue collar, broken-hearted immigrant tries to make a difference exploring his feminine side, incarnating a torch song performer. From Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pink_Swastika “The Pink Swastika is a book by Scott Lively and Kevin Abrams. The authors argue that alleged homosexuality found in the Nazi Party contributed to the extreme militarism of Nazi Germany. The title of the book, as well as the book itself, is a spin-off from a book by Richard Plant called The Pink Triangle: The Nazi War Against Homosexuals, a book detailing homophobia in the Nazi Party and the gay victims of the Holocaust. Lively and Abrams also take up the subject of Nazism in America and discuss the Boy Scouts. The links between certain Muslims and Nazi Germany are also investigated. The book claims that many leaders in the German Nazi regime, including Adolf Hitler himself, were homosexual and claims eight of the top ten serial killers in the US were homosexuals. Erik N. Jensen regards the authors’ linkage of homosexuality and Nazism as the recurrence of a “pernicious myth”, originating in 1930s attacks on Nazism by Socialists and Communists and “long since dispelled” by “serious scholarship”. Jensen sees the book as coming about in “the aftermath of an Oregon measure to repeal gay rights”. Dorthe Seifert cites it as a response to increasing awareness of Nazi persecution of homosexuals. Christine L. Mueller argues that the historical record does not support Abrams’ assertions. The book has also been criticized by the Southern Poverty Law Center as untrue.”
Eckhard Etzold, Germany
Head Shots, 2010. Mono, 00:37
Head Shots is a short CG animation based on the thought how daily news is overpowering our reception of reality.
Navid Fashâmi, Iran
The Taste of Mint, 2010. Stereo, 8:00
A Poetic Short Video has made in Pekin and Tehran. One night of a foreign girl in China’s streets; her sadness, nostalgias, roving and the another side of little poetic happiness. Cast: Shura Esmaeili, Narration: Navid Fashâmi, Photography: Vahid Sadeghi, First Assistant Director: Negar Behbahani, Art Direction: Ramin Parvin, Vocal: Farnaz Ganji A Video by Navid Fashâmi Chason Art Studio Iran-China ©2010
Arash Fayez, Iran
The Wall, 2008. Stereo, 5:39
The are lots of wall in the world; some are visible, and some are not. This is a slideshow of my pictures of the Berlin Wall, accompanied by the music of Arvo Piart. The bitter days of the cold war, and the glory in 1989.
Charley Friedman, United States
Four Track Memory, 2008. Stereo, 43:00
Composed of 4 separate video channels synchronized together, I sing a’cappella all of The Beatles’ Sgt Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band in one take from beginning to end. Each channel represents a different audio track from lyrics, guitar, percussion and bass. I am not listening to the original music. All of the “record” is from memory.
Kathryn Garcia, United States
Untitled, 2009. Stereo, 2:28
This work is a portrait of myself as another, the fantasy of him becoming I, and I becoming him. What that entails and what it arouses. How to document the space between him becoming I and I becoming him, what exists in that region of becoming each other.
Joaquin Gasgonia Palencia, Philippines
Basbas, 2009. Stereo, 5:58
“Basbas” means “to bless by sprinkling with holy water,” much as a Catholic priest does. In my mind, alternatively, with blood, as in this context. Exploring dichotomies in gender, religion and cultural stereotyping, Basbas uses the backdrop of Christendom’s Good Friday observance in the small town of Vinzons, Camarines Norte in the Philippines, to lay open and tease out, layer by layer, the undercurrents of a culture superimposed, of a nation bound by the chains of religious zeal and questionably placed superhuman devotion. Using a double-channel approach to frame the videos characterized by sexual roles and the yawning gap between official religious dogma and folk observance, we are tantalized by the fluxing of pain and salvation, of offered blood and voice in rituals meant to cleanse and rejuvenate, to open supernatural doors for easier passage, at the very least, to offer pain and suffering to show love and devotion. The Philippines is an overwhelmingly Christian country in an Asian region of Buddhist equanimity and tolerance, a country of Latin temperament amongst Muslim Malay and sinicized East Asian calm deliberateness. Whichever way the Philippines is examined, it stands in stark contrast to its neighbors even as it mirrors its multiple facets as well as its unending contradictions. In its core religion, the Philippines is both victim and ritual slayer, mind and body, blood and host consumed in the internecine agony and pain of redemption and rebirth. Basbas presents the Philippine psyche as well as its reflexive mirror, the Pygmalion of religion that has shaped this country of victims and supplicants, eternally, endlessly hopeful for blessings.
Bo Gehring, United States
JD Foxey Lady, 2010. Stereo, 3:18
A camera flight so detailed that it even captures breathing as we and the subject hear one of his favorite pieces of music. The goal is to capture every emotional and gestural nuance.
Henry Gwiazda, United States
On the Roof, 2008. Stereo, 4:16
My work is about the choreography of reality. It’s about the way everything moves and is interconnected to create beauty. It shows that each motion, whether it is made by human, animal, object, light or sound, is connected and extended by other motions to compose a phrase, a sentence of great artistic interest. Each small, choreographed scene can be appreciated for itself, but on subsequent viewings, takes on a separate meaning. They become metaphors for our lives, our dreams and ourselves.
Jeremy Haik, United States
28 Matches, 2010. Stereo, 2:56
A succinct meditation on mortality and the passage of time, 28 Matches is a performance in miniature of the cyclical and flawed experience of the human experience. The film uses burning matches as a visual metaphor to explore the repetitive and cyclical nature of existence. The sole character in the film is represented only by his hand as an obsessively organized row of matches is exhausted one by one.
Felice Hapetzeder, Sweden
Matsushiro Headquarters, 2010. Stereo, 12:07
The Matsushiro Imperial Headquarters from World War II remain a neglected part of history, enormous ruins in decay. Many people seem to want this negative national history to remain forgotten. In 2002, the year of the World Cup organized by South Korea and Japan, the artist Hitoshi Kimura first organized his art festival, Matsushiro Contemporary Art Festival, part of which was held in the tunnel system, as a symbol of peace, hope and remembrance. The invited artists are mainly from Japan and Korea. The artists somehow all relate to the site-specific events in their works for the annual festival. Felice Hapetzeder’s video work Matsushiro Headquarters interprets both some of the artist’s personal stories about why they create in relation to the war theme and the location and architecture with its unique history.
Jelle van Hulle, Belgium
Peek a boo, 2009. Mute, 00:10
The project is called “peek a boo” and is commisioned by BAS (art rental business). The project contains 25O frames, all printed on recycled paper, polished, photographed and send to 250 different people. Except for the video, there isn’t a way to put the video back together, so its an finality. But at the same moment, the movie is in the possession of 250 people.
Fermin Jimenez Landa, Spain
Everything is impossible, 2008. Stereo, 4:10
Everything’s Impossible, a genuine declaration of principles, is a video in which the artist continues his investigation into the physicality and mass of household objects. Here he subjects them to the unyielding laws of gravity. Countless banal, practical everyday objects fall as a result of their own weight and instability and we witness the fleeting moment in which chairs, brooms, glasses and other such elements devoid of grandeur simply topple. It’s a simple act that probes life’s grandiloquence and ridiculousness in lower case.
Christophe Katrib, Lebanon
Untitled Hands, 2010. Stereo, 4:00
A short visual essay combining photos, mobile phone videos, sound design and music composition based on my impressions, thoughts and projections as a first-time visitor to NYC trying to grasp the mythical image of New York. The image of hands is central as it not only represents a tool for discovery, feeling, and integration, but also a channel of appropriation, imagination, and re-creation.
Wago Kreider, United States
Gaza Book of Longing, 2003. Stereo, 3:00
The landscape of a botanical conservatory drives the memory of dispossession as a woman yearns for the climate of her homeland. Her search and discovery of a solitary olive tree in the metropolis reveals a longing that cannot be bounded by artificial constructions. The tree and the woman struggle within the space of captivity to reconcile the reciprocal relationship between support and display as they find themselves lost in a land of others‚ far away from home. Gaza Book of Longing is a video that addresses the experience of missing home and of missing homelands. Especially in New York City, feelings of displacement and loss can be diminished by the spectacle and energy of the city. In this film, we wanted to go back to the root of memory and sweep aside everything but the very personal experience of missing one’s homeland. We use an olive tree in a conservatory as a metaphor for an individual’s statelessness and how unbearable that can be, in spite of artificial support and a simulated home.
Ulf Kristiansen, Norway
The Caring Bears, 2010. Stereo, 03:01
The Caring Bears are a group of adorable, furry friends each with a special caring mission. In their cloud-land world they help teach bears of their own breed how to take care of their race. How sweetly those bears blind themselves to their own prejudice and privilege thus lighting the fire that will end the world.
Jacqui Kuraj, Brazil
In the Year of Blame, 2008. Stereo, 3:56
Everybody seeks power. Raw powerlessness as power; this links with the “animist roots” Kuraj speaks about.The enslaved concubines of China tortured their feet to gain primacy. Kuraj pushes relentlessly. From this dissonant clash we have to take heed. To start anew, somehow differently and within us has to change in an unprecedented way. Saints bleed. Kuraj’s realm is the sacrificial landscape.
Yuliya Lanina, Russia
Birds and Bees, 2010. Stereo, 2:50
Birds and Bees is a stop motion animation featuring a whimsical cast of characters drawn from Lanina’s paintings. It is about the mystery of birth and the duality of existence. Life affirms itself through both merriment and suffering, as malformed and interbred creatures dance in celebration of Nature, sexuality, and fertility. Original music by Yevgeniy Sharlat.
J.W. Lee, Korea
A Day in Shanghai, 2007. Mute, 1:06
For the series “A day in Shanghai” JW Lee placed translucent sihouettes of skyscrapers from across the globe on the windows of a new building in the fast-growing Chinese city of Shanghai. Contrasting the real exterior view with the added silhouettes, Lee creates a new urban landscape of overlapping scenes which serve as a metaphor for the city’s own growth.
Vivian Lee, Singapore
The Island of Sentosa: Pulau Blakang Mati, 2010. Stereo, 6:11
Sentosa is a small island south of Singapore that was previously called, “Pulau Blakang Mati,” Malay for “The Back Island of Death.” It was developed to be a tourist resort because of it’s ‘natural beauty of undulating terrain and greenery.’ Renamed “Sentosa” in 1972, the island has been transformed from a natural landscape dotted with villages into a modern tourist resort, complete with a golf course and a Universal Studios theme park. This series of constructed video reflects the artificial landscape of Sentosa today, a tourist resort created to look good in a photograph. “Sentosa” in Malay, means “peace and tranquility.”
Brett Leigh, United States
Shadow, 2010. Stereo, 5:00
Shadow is a take on a much remembered classic, Psycho. It explores the depression and anxiety of someone who seems sane but lacks the reality to communicate and string their thoughts together. Used in a now forgotten black and white medium, the creator, “Brett Leigh” wanted to explore what it is like when all elements of film are stripped away and you are left with a single person, some images, and a performance.
Dan Levenson United States
Swiss Artists, 2008. Mono, 16:45
The video is an aspect of my ongoing project called Little Switzerland. The project traces the history of Little Switzerland, an art gallery which was started by an idealistic group of recent art school graduates in Zurich in 1995. It moves to Berlin in 1997 as a more ambitious commercial venture and eventually closes in 1999. The video shows the Gallery Director typing a list of the names of possible gallery artists. The time stamp on the video places its creation in the summer before the gallery’s opening in Berlin’s Auguststrasse in September of 1997. The list of names is in random order, and they are mainly of Swiss-German ethnicity.
Eliane Lima, Brazil
KRYSTAL, 2009. Stereo, 04:15
Super 8 reversible film inspired by three experimental filmmakers Maya Deren, Jeanne Liotta and Ernie Gehr, with Jessica Zenou and Kristen Cadacio. Music Edu Martins. © Eliane Lima 2009.
Basim Magdy, Egypt
A Film About the Way Things Are, 2010. Stereo, 4:3
At first glance, A Film About The Way Things Are appears to be a film about masquerading of objects and faces. Filmed in Super 8 at a miniature park in Istanbul, a parade in Basel, Switzerland and an island in Italy, the film slowly transforms into the diary of man trying to deal with his incomprehension of the passing of time. He sees himself through his father’s experiences, for whom also “time has started looking like a stranger wearing his father’s face as a mask” The absurdity of the seemingly unrelated but subtly connected footage and spoken narrative creates a poetic sense of confusion and melancholy.
Lucy McKenna, Ireland
Fish Freezing Factory, 2009. Stereo, 1:12
Fish Freezing Plant was created during an artist’s residency I undertook in 2009, in Northern Iceland, sponsored by the Irish Arts Council. The residency took place in a small fishing village called Skagastrond, situated on a northerly peninsula close to the Arctic Circle. I have projected images of my work onto an abandoned fishing plant at night. The village has many derelict buildings and factories due to the disappearance of the fish shoals during the 1980s. This piece was made in response to my residency in Skagastrond, and is heavily influenced by Icelandic mythology and the Northern Lights. The audio contains sounds I recorded in Iceland and also features a sample from Icelandic band Múm.
Tamar Meir, Israel
You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet, 2010. Mute, 2:17
The film is part of an installation that includes a video projected onto a screen and two letters hanged on a wall. The first letter, from Dr. Lytle Adams to President Roosvelt, written in 1942, depicts Adams’ idea to win the Japanese by using millions of bats with little time bombs that ignite once in the Japanese houses. Written in the midst of increasing revenge environment towards the Japanese in the US, in the period following Pearl Harbor, the letter sound more like a plan for a horror film. The second letter, is by FDR, in response to Dr. Adams’ letter. It is a brief memo approving the plan which starts with the sentence -” This Man is Not a Nut.” As the title implies, as cruel and horrific as this plan sounds, at the end, the weapon that was used to win the war was much more horrific.
Andrea Monti, Italy
The Bacon Era, 2009. Stereo, 1:00
The video distortion, so typical of the present era of transition between analog and digital, reminds me of Francis Bacon’s painting.
Marina Naprushkina, Belarus
Patriot II, 2007. Stereo, 7:00
The video documents an intervention in public life: Marina Naprushkina buys a portrait of President Alexander Lukashenko in a bookshop in Minsk, the capital of Belarus. Following that Naprushkina crosses Minsk with the president’s portrait, as she strolls through the biggest streets and over the most important squares of the city; the walk lasts from morning into evening. Back at home the portrait is attached to the wall. The national anthem is played, the artist is standing at attention.
Nassrin Nasser, Iran
Exile Paranoia, 2009. Stereo, 10:00
The consequences of geopolitical conflicts can alter our personal life and restrict our choices. As an Iranian, I found myself highly bound by immigration restrictions due to political issues between Iran and the Super Powers. This project represents my personal perception of these consequences. The metaphorical story addresses the obstacles an immigrant confronts through out her journey. The events are illustrated from her emotional perspective; her sense of security is tied with the possession of her passport which is a fragile situation frequently threatened by official and non-official types of authority. Her journey resembles a continual nightmare, a fusion between dream and reality. The composition scenes are inspired by old Persian miniatures, and also the old man’s character is recognizable for Persian readers from Sadeq Hedayat novel The Blind Owl.
Damir Nikšic; Bosnia and Herzegovina
Political Sacrilege, 2010. Stereo, 7:36
I sing various national anthems using just one word, one proper name: Muhammad. Is it about Prophet Muhammad or is it about an immigrant Muhammad? Is it insulting for nationalists, or is it insulting for Islamists? Is it a problem or a solution, is it pro or contra? I don’t know. I know it is breaking certain taboos. I am not protesting, I am not setting flags on fire, I am not mocking anybody, I am merging, combining, mixing, integrating, assimilating one into another, blending, adding, making things compatible…
Mani Nilchiani, Iran
The Nightly City, 2009. Mono, 7:44
This video combined lines written by Bertolt Brecht and me, with scenes from night in the urban space of Tehran. On one side of the screen, there is the short clip, and on the other side, motion typography of the lines. The music is composed by Brian Eno and J. Peter Schwalm. This video combines lines written by “Bertolt Brecht” and me, with scenes from night in the urban space of Tehran. On one side of the screen, there is the short clip, and on the other side, motion typography of the lines.
Eva Nikolova, Bulgaria
Zemya Zamya, 2008. Stereo, 2:57
Zemya Zamya ia a frame-by-frame, cameraless animation constructed entirely out of scanned ink and charcoal drawings and scanned objects (feathers and a dead baby pigeon found outside my NYC apartment). It is a humorous, if pessimistic meditation on geopolitics that eschews didacticism and a univocal reading through the use of a wordless, free-associative narrative and a highly individual visual aesthetic. Employing the characteristic form of the Orthodox Christian Church – an image which at no point conveys a static metaphor, evoking narratives of nationalism, history, power and tradition in a region ever at the mercy of larger geopolitical forces – the animation suggests the history of the Balkans. But while the images may evoke regional specificity, the narrative offers a framework open for interpretation and association that may hint at the power play of geopolitics on a global level.
The title Zemya Zamya is a double reiteration of the Bulgarian word for Earth /Land /Ground. The doubling referring to the signage on rockets designating the missile type – Ground to Ground /Surface to Surface.
Romy & Maxim Northover, UK
My Expensive Baby, 2008. Mono, 2:00
The video My Expensive Baby parodies luxury branding, and the commercialisation of the body, that perpetuates false aspirations and desires for an exorbitant lifestyle. These forms of simulated satisfaction and appropriated allure manifest as absurd by the end of the video; opening a critique of images designed to entice consumers with symbols of wealth and sexuality. Romy and Maxim NORTHOVER investigate the concept of ‘seduction by artifice’ and the conformity of human nature. Their work features highly fetishized desirable objects, and appropriations of luxurious façades. Through the video they pastiche scenarios present in media culture. They create series of fictional vignettes that render expected roles as implausible.
Glexis Novoa, Cuba
Honorary Guest, 2007. Mono, 5:25
An encounter between Fidel Castro Ruz and Glexis Novoa during a visit to Killing Time, a Cuban art exhibition at Exit Art, New York, on June 11, 2007.
Kean Obrien, United States
FTM F*k Fest And Emotional Developmental Complexity, 2010. Mono, 18.00
FTM F*k Fest is also a study of the linkage between new media and ftm trans spaces, and how complementary their parallel emergence is. New media allows otherwise marginal communities to have dialogue in a manner that is historically unprecedented. My documentary repurposes these original videos on YouTube for an audience that is different than the one for which they were made. I am mindful of the political agency and ethical consequences of “outing” these exchanges from the nascent community in which they now exist. I am interested in the difference between intimate disclosure of the videos and the public act of witnessing a social phenomenon as it emerges.
Freya Olafson, Canada
CVS (Computer Vision Syndrome), 2010. Stereo, 5:00
CVS (Computer Vision Syndrome) is part of my AVATAR series exploring methods of creating, validating and disseminating one’s identity through the use of technology and the Internet. The series is inspired by the mantra “I post therefore I am”, whereby Internet users legitimize their existence by documenting their lives and uploading this media to personal webpages and blogs. The work in this series facilitates an inquiry into our desire to share and publicize our lives. CVS (Computer Vision Syndrome) layers composited screen captures of rapid web searches, desktop strippers and amorphous dancers seductively drawing you into the screen.
Min Kim Park, South Korea
Zummarella, 2010. Stereo, 9:00
This video piece, Zummarella, is a caricature of the absurdity and arbitrariness of the relation between the authority and the subordinate. It also explores subordination, bodily imposition, and power struggle, assumed position of authority and social hierarchy. I employed makeshift of props and costumes, a fragmented, episodic poetic narrative are played out between three women who pantomime acts of heeling through erotic subjugation, maternal scolding, blurring the line between aggressors and victims, depicting a inescapable societal hierarchy.
Sharon Paz, Israel
Is This a Good Day to Start a War, 2009. Stereo, 10:30
The video is created from silhouette images of actors who are placed in a virtual environment. The work is inspired by both realities and cyberspace; the flat icons are created inside a flat but layered landscape, the figures are shadows of an action. My interest is in the moment before a fight begins, the time for exercising, building up and imitating an imaginary battle scenario, the simulation of a war that might happen. Pretending to be injured and rescued, practicing in hiding and attacking, watching, building shelters.
Ramiken Crucible, United States
Hi, what? 2009. Stereo, 19:00
Hi, what? is a 19 minute video interview of an unidentified artist. The video is a piece authored by the organization known as Ramiken Crucible. Ramiken Crucible currently functions as a contemporary art gallery in the Chinatown neighborhood of New York City. The artwork “Hi, what?” is a specific exploration of the social position of young artists. Faced with a series of friendly questions, the supposed “artist” in the video fires back with defensive answers and evasive posturing that is both hilarious and pathetic. Designed to hit on the nerves and irk artists, curators, gallerists, and professors, the video functions as an airing of dirty laundry. However, the video is light-hearted, and is intended not as an indictment but as a catharsis. Following in the tradition of self critique practiced by artists such as Michael Smith (American, b. 1951) and Tammy Ben-Tor (Israeli, b.1975), Mike Egan acts and directs (for Ramiken Crucible) this pointed spoof of a young, lost artist trying hard to not make the “wrong” moves. Mike Egan is the founder and director of Ramiken Crucible. Ted Riederer, an artist, acts as the interviewer.
Carolina Redondo, Chile
In a NETmare, 2010. Mute, 4:54
A slow camera movement glides above an undefinable space of white horizontal lines – a place with ambiguous depth through which a white body slides and slips upon white ribbons. The body melds with the surrounding and disappears in an unstructured flickering ocean. In a NETmare is a video performance filmed on 16 mm that is a representation of social structures and a graphic visualization of this network. The piece is a metaphor about the complexity of relations and human communications in an epoch of juxtaposition, crossing the connections and intersections of our existence. The self presence is explored in relation to intangible codes in time and space.
Chris Revelle, United States
Underwrite, 2010. Stereo, 33:29
In December of 2009, President Barack Obama spoke to West Point soldiers, the Nation, and the world about the Untied States continued need for the involvement in Afghanistan. The President called for 30,000 more troops to be deployed to Afghanistan to help bring stability to the war torn country. The deployment also made clear that the President would continue the tradition of his predecessors, a tradition of war with an ever increasing defense budget. The video is of the speech given at West Point, but shot through a glass of champagne. The champagne represents the celebration of war in the American culture, but while the speech continues the champagne slowly dies out.
Mauricio Rodriguez (Said Dokins) Mexico
REBIRTH, 2010. Dolby, 1:30
Video sonorous art, through art Light graffiti about Heraclitus fragment: “Each day the sun, but always the same.” An animation begins from the light photograph, with video programming and particles creation. Using the light as actor of change and permanence, its about a Heraclitus fragment: “Each day the sun, but always the same.” We made an analogy using the light as the sun. The light is the conceptual source and the main material of work, as well the vital energy that we took all, it’s changes, mutant, contradictory like the problem of “identity and difference” raised in logic. The attempt to synthesize and to recreate hybridization process gives the possibility us of playing whith diverse elements; from the urban thing, the graph and the technological. In this case luminance energy like malleable element in use.
Timo Ryhänen, Finland
The Day She Left, 2010. Stereo, 04:13
The work deals with psychological space and emotions that one has to deal with after a failed relationship.
Carol Saft, United States
Ghillie, 2008. Mono, 09:14
This video is one in a series of projects that document my brother Todd’s obsession with safety. A ghillie suit is a covering that conceals sniper sharpe-shooters deployed in military operations to capture or attack enemy combatants. In this video, Todd’s “Ghillie” enacts a military exercise in a public park that leads to an unexpected domestic disturbance.
Hamed Sahihi, Iran
Stone, 2009. Stereo, 02:24
It’s as if mountains have always stood still and did not move. Mountains fall, rocks get fractured and bigger rocks make the small stones. From one generation to another. What never changes is the soil.
Kiyomitsu Saito, Japan
Laughing Man, 2008. Stereo, 1:05
I am interested in a silly art. Why? Because I have discovered my own self who was excited and amused the most. What on earth is this? Perhaps, it reflects an adult’s unexpected silliness.
Ursula Scherrer, Switzerland
A Dream Within A Dream, 2009. Stereo, 9:47
A Dream Within A Dream explores the inner vision of ourselves, our inner being turned inside out. The images and sounds are ephemeral, what is important is rather the feeling they leave behind than about the sounds and images themselves – a fragile web of stillness, energies and emotions. Music by Kato Hideki.
Gregory Sholette, Antarctica
Recipe, 2006. Stereo, 0:53
A how to guide for transforming the Middle East into expanded NYC real estate futures.
Marinella Senatore, Italy
How Do U Kill the Chemist, 2009. Stereo, 8:00
60 people took part in this project, recreating a succession of events which they had not witnessed. Amongst the participants were a group of rappers from Harlem who took part as actors and screenwriters. The video It portrays a series of real events that happened in the 1950′s in the Hudson valley, New York. The chemist Adrian Ghole, was murdered by his assistant Bassil who hoped to steal the chemical formula for a new type of pneumatic tire, believing that this would earn him a million dollars. His apparently foolproof plan proceeded as expected until the killer was crossing the Hudson Bridge where police, photographers, the press and even a firework display awaited the one-millionth driver to cross the bridge. By coincidence, the American Freeway Society was to award a million dollars to the lucky driver! The only problem was that the car belonged to Adrian Ghole, whose corpse was stowed in the boot; Bassil reacted hastily by leaping from the car and throwing himself into the Hudson.
Guli Silberstein, United Kingdom
Being Shot, 2010. Stereo, 5:00
A video shot through a window captures a violent event involving a detained blindfolded man on the street. On a rocky beach in Normandy. France, a video camera is traveling over abstract primeval forms. The conflicting images are synthesized by a continuity of intensified and fragmented video imagery and sound, creating confusion and linkage between the captivating abstract images and the documented violent event. The gaze here is a source of power, and there are different manifestations of this idea in various elements of the work. The main questions arise, Who are using their sight but are shutting their eyes? Who is not allowed to see and how it may feel?
Megan Smith, United Kingdom
As I Become an Avatar and Edwige Becomes Me, 2010. Mono, 5:34
As I try to be an avatar & Edwige tries to be me is a short video piece that documents the experiences of becoming Edwige. It demonstrates my self-analyzed inability to be either a sophisticated avatar in Second Life or to adopt a role other than my disguised self. However, when in character I was recognized as an avatar and in particular, during the performance outside the MoMA, I attracted a crowd of onlookers with one mother telling her son: “Look! it’s performance art!” and other people stopping me in the street to say “I know who you are.” Which in itself left me baffled. Who could they identify me with, other than a generic contemporary character?
Nyugen E. Smith, United States
Elemental, 2008. Stereo, 4:35
The video titled Elemental was created to explore the idea of reclaiming elements of the Earth that have been commodified and abused and a reversal of the harm caused by tools once used to farm the Earth now used as tools of oppression and genocide. The artist explores these concepts and offers solutions to the problems. The video titled Elemental was created to explore the idea of reclaiming elements of the Earth that have been commodified and abused and a reversal of the harm caused by tools once used to farm the Earth now used as tools of oppression and genocide. The artist explores these concepts and offers solutions to the problems.
Sam Smith, Australia
Permutation Set, 2010. Stereo, 8:45
Permutation Set expands a single film moment into a seemingly infinite loop of changing perspectives. The work features a cast of 32 re-staging a 20-second scene from the 1973 film La Nuit Americaine by François Truffaut. Each of the eight shots that make up the sequence was re-shot eight times from different camera angles, adding up to 16,777,216 possible edits. Before each version a permutation number appears on the screen identifying the unique edit.
Terese Svoboda, United States
WELL? 2010. Stereo, 10:00
WELL? is a video essay about an African saline well, terrorism, and marriage that examines the trust between brother and sister, husband and wife, stranger and stranger, revealing how little we understand about our most intimate relationships.
Naho Taruishi, Japan
The Longest Line To Circle , 2010. Mute, 02:11
This text-based video maps a straight line that travels around the world 24401.5 miles in a circle.
Alyssa Taylor Wendt, United States
The Clog and Tap Off! 2007. Stereo, 3:53
This video is an interactive piece called “The Clog-N-Tap Off, part 1!” where I direct volunteers to don footwear from a selection of oversized vintage tap shoes. With my encouragement, prodding and directives on the screen, two people at a time attempt to follow the feet on the screen with great difficulty to little avail. Paralleling challenges in both the art world and life in general, this piece is best viewed as a performative installation, but has an alternate, stand alone version.
Eva Teppe, Germany
The world is everything that is the case, 2003. Stereo, 2:23
The Video work is based on footage from a TV documentation about so-called Castellers, spanish athletic groups that attempt to beat each other in (per)forming the highest human pyramid. The Video contains few seconds from the documentation, namely the moment when the human pyramid collapse. Those seconds were then digitized, the images abstracted by means of digital techniques. A specific sound is assigned to underscore its dramatic moment.
Katharine Tolladay, United Kingdom
Dodo, 2010. 4:3 Stereo, 06:34
Dodo 06:34 2010 4:3 Stereo ‘Dodo’ subverts the language of documentary film-making by using it to create a myth. In doing so, the film questions the ability of history, culture, images and memory to represent truth.
Hong-An Truong, United States
A Measure of Remorse, 2009. Stereo, 10:00
This project was provoked by the life of writer Iris Chang, author of The Rape of Nanking (1998), which brought intense and overdue attention to the Japanese military atrocities committed against the Chinese in WW II. Exploring historical violence and the nature of apology through language, the body, desire, and trauma, the video re-imagines a confrontation on PBS in 1998 between Chang, the Japanese Ambassador to the U.S., and journalist Elizabeth Farnsworth. The video is not a re-enactment of the past, but rather a kind of future made dark and deeply sensual, almost as an effect of Chang’s suicide in 2004. It raises questions about the effect of performative utterances – like an apology – when it comes to historical violence. The three figures acknowledge hurt, even death, and ask us about the claims our memories and voices can make against the past.
May Tveit, United States
Product Placement, 2010. Mono, 1:50
In December I took a series of 36-inch diameter balloons printed with single word text on a series of walks through the woods, dunes, beaches and into the ocean on Cape Cod, Massachusetts. I documented this activity with still photography and video. I see these text balloons as ethereal products as they originally were part of an immersive installation project that investigated a post 9/11 psychology of consumption and shopping as a patriotic act.
Alexia de Ville de Goyet, Belgium
From the Unknown City, 2006. Stereo, 4:55
Monologue of a woman alone, and lost in the world of the images. Today’s society feeds us with hundreds of images every day. They get lost and mixed up in our heads. How can we make a selection? She wonders… This video has been realised in studio so that we are in a kind of no man’s land. We are in the character’s head. It is filled with images. Some of them she chose, some of them she didn’t. She would like to erase, to format these images of her head, to be able to see things with a fresh look, and not be influenced in her choices. In our capitalist society, we are all the time influenced by images, publicity, education, and so on. How is it yet possible to create a next thing? How is it possible to make our own choices? That is the purpose of this film, an it is directly addressed to the viewer as my character often faces the camera while she speaks.
Paul Wiersbinski, Germany
Nepal Video Club Live Mixtape, 2010. Stereo, 6:39
The video is a livemix towards the words of Sir Richard Samuel Attenborough and his love for big pictures.
Owen Eric Wood, Canada
Holobomo, 2009. Stereo, 4:40
What happens when the images take over? Every day we are bombarded by images. Our eyes are real estate coveted by the media-driven culture in which we live. Our field of view overflows with visual entertainment and advertisements that have grown to become more important than our own memories and experiences. We become overwhelmed with stimuli that often has no relevance to our lives. Still, we struggle to find meaning in the images we see. Desperate to connect, we find ourselves appropriating this artificially-constructed culture as our own. The stages of our lives segmented into episodic time slots. Our interactions mimicking staged events we’ve seen somewhere before. All we want is to be part of the picture. In the end, we become imitations of life. Owen Eric Wood’s Holobomo looks at the notion of appropriation in relation to life in a society over saturated with images. He struggles to find a personal connection with the images he sees by attempting to place himself inside film footage. Since all of the appropriated material in Holobomo comes from Mike Hoolboom’s “Imitations of Life,” which itself is composed entirely of borrowed or found footage, Wood is in a sense re-appropriating the footage he uses. By doing so, he emphasizes the decomposition of context as meaning is recycled and reinterpreted.
Michiko Yao, Japan
Lily, 2009. Mute, 3:39
This work challenges the socially constructed borderlines between the idea of natural/artificial, subject/object, femininity/masculinity in the media. The work simulates a time-lapse nature film created with an artificial lily. In the video, white lilies slowly open up and release thick baby-color liquid from the cavity of the flower in a film studio setting.
Carlo Zanni, Italy
Iterating My Way Into Oblivion, 2010. Stereo, 9:43
A Server Side generated movie where a guy is listening to a voice reading YouTube Terms of Service. When YouTube changes its Terms of Service, the server behind the movie gets the new text and through a text-to-speech software renders the voice over which is then imported into the filmed sequence. The movies are always different while maintaining their narrative. This project loosely refers to George Orwell’s Animal Farm, speculating on the relationships between creative energies and corporate policies evoking the morphing of enlightened arcana into established powers. This work follows three previous experimental movies done in the past four years for which I coined the neologism “DATA Cinema”, suggesting a new way to approach filmmaking and narrative forms at large based on the use of live Net data, to create ever changing cinematic live environments.
Latham Zearfoss United States
Self Control, 2008. Stereo, 14:00
A short experimental work, shot on video and 16mm film, which examines trust, community, subjectivity and identity through cakes, blood, and 80s pop songstress Laura Branigan.
Biying Zhang, China
China, 2010. Stereo, 4:02
The 16th Asian Games will be held in Guangzhou, China in November 2010. Guangzhou will be the second city in China to host the games after Beijing in 1940. This year will be the largest Asian Games ever. The film documents one day activity of a housewife in the city going through different site of the neighborhood. It explore how the change of Guangzhou city effect its people daily life. The camera goes behind the publicly exposed scenes of this competition, revealing the disruptions and environmental transformations of redevelopment and reconstruction in Guangzhou prior to this important yet short-lived pan-Asian event. The China government value their globe image by their physical appearance of a host city to a very high degree. They want to transform the old city to a modern international Urban city to show their powerful economic status to the world. In fact the world are seeing the humanity issue is getting intense that Chinese local people are not enjoying their lives when they going through physical and mental suffering at their hometown. While the event itself is publicly celebrated as a symbol of harmony within and between the countries of Asia, the spectacle of an esteemed presentation takes propriety over the domain of inhabitants and the security a stable, known urban environment.
Moyi Zhang, China
My Baby, 2010. Stereo, 7:10
A spirit from a virtual world was born in the form of a baby and then came into reality. He observes people’s life from his inexperienced perspective. His intelligence is like a human so he can understand human life. But his fleshless body keeps him from truly becoming involved with his surroundings. His confusions about the world seem to be the same as the confusions of every baby facing life experience.