The sixth and last in the series of video festivals initiated and managed by the Electronic Media Arts (Australia) organisation.
[The following material is edited from the Catalogue for the 1991 Australian International Video Festival, directed by Brian Langer, and what appear to be the program notes accompanying many of the screenings. There is an inconsistency between the dating of some events listed in the Festival catalogue and those listed in the program notes. I have adopted the dates given in the sheet described as Screening and Exhibition Programs. I have also concatenated the information contained in both the catalogue and the program sheets where there is extra information provided by either one. This page covers the screenings and other events listings. In some instances there are pointers to slightly more detailed pages referring to the essays and the notes on the installations and presentations - Stephen Jones, compiler]
THE 6th AUSTRALIAN INTERNATIONAL VIDEO FESTIVAL 8-30 NOV 1991
FESTIVAL INTRODUCTION
The Australian International Video Festival is the premier celebration of the electronic arts in Australia. It is also an important opportunity to view diverse representations of stylistic, technological and political concerns of some of the leading video makers from around the world.
For newcomers to the Festival, the AIVF consists of the annual Open Section selections of Australian and overseas work plus specially curated exhibition events. This year these events involve installations, screening programs and presentations by artists. These have been developed with the aim of exploring the media image in relation to televisual culture, including new digital technology. Festival guests this year are Dara Birnbaum (USA), Peter Callas (AUS), Carole Ann Klonarides (USA), Synya Katho (Japan), Robyn Stacey (AUS) and Geoffrey Weary (AUS). The Festival is also very pleased to be presenting programs from New York media art organizations Electronic Arts Intermix and The Kitchen, as they celebrate their respective twenty years of activity in the field. I am certain that these Festival events will be found to be stimulating to all those interested in moving image culture. I wish to thank the guest artists for their participation and also the following individuals and or organizations for their support of the specially curated programs:
Michael Maziere (London Video Access), Ralf Suasmikat (European Media Art Festival); Sebastien Nahon (Ex Nihilo); Steve Gallagher (The Kitchen); Eddie Berg (Video Positive); Stephen Vitello (Electronic Arts Intermix); and Carl Eugene Loeffler (Art Com).
Following the exclusion of a videotheque for 1991, the Open Section is operating within a tighter schedule. This has meant that the titles selected have been programmed within a distinctive range of specific genre categories and time constraints. As a result many longer works (45-60 mins. long) have been withheld for possible screening in the future. However, this situation although complex from an organizational point of view has not prevented the selection of an exciting range of new videos, and we look forward to a successful 1991 Open Section screening event at the AFI Cinema.
Since its inception in 1986, the the EMA Board for their assistance AIVF has continued to receive funding support from the Australian Film Commission, the Australia Council and the New South Wales Film and Television Office. This support has been essential for the ongoing survival and development of the Festival as a major exhibition event of national and international importance. This year the Festival has also been assisted by the collaborative support of the Art Gallery of New South Wales and the Ivan Dougherty Gallery, the Australian Film Institute, Sydney College of the Arts and The College of Fine Arts. These organizations have provided EMA and the Festival with office space, exhibition venue support, equipment support and for the first time, accommodation for an educational and residency project. We hope to continue these collaborative associations in the future. We are also very grateful to the Japan Foundation for their travel assistance for Mr Katho.
Thank you to our sponsors, Eat Carpet / SBS Television, Public Radio 2SER.FM, Ampex (Australia), Canon (Australia), Fairlight ESP, Radio Rentals, Tooheys Ltd., and Caldbeck Wines and Spirits Pty Ltd. for their generous and valued contributions.
Finally, I would also like to thank the EMA Board for their assistance and my colleagues behind the scenes for their tireless support to get the Festival up and running; members of the jury panels; all the 1991 Festival entrants; and the many other people. who have contributed their talents, energy and time to ensure that this year's Festival will be a great success.
Brian Langer
Director
November 1991
SCREENING PROGRAMS
AFI CINEMA - cnr Oxford St. and Oatley Rd., Paddington
presented in association with the Australian Film Institute
OPEN SECTION
Fri 8 Nov. 7.45pm:
Opening Night:
Includes 6th AIVF Award Announcements and the Australian premiere screening of The Orchestra, a new work by Polish-American video maker Zbigniew Rybczynski.
Friday, 8 Nov. 8:00pm
The Orchestra, Zbigniew Rybczyriski, USA, 60:00 min, Colour.
“Polish/American video-maker Zbigniew Rybczynski is widely recognised as a virtuoso artist in the sphere of electronic effects. Over the last seven or eight years, in a succession of innovative music based pieces, he has evolved a uniquely elaborate, illusionistic style in which all manner of precisely choreographed feats of technology offer a spectacular accompaniment to the sound track. This 60 minute tour-de-force, shot in high definition video and set to pieces by Mozart, Chopin, Schubert, Rossini, Albinoni and Ravel, is his most lavish production so far, employing seamlessly integrated digital effects and wonderfully atmospheric locations to create a multi-layered visual symphony that makes most other examples of music video seem simplistic by comparison. Brilliantly executed and hugely entertaining, The Orchestra is state-of-the-art video at its most original and operatic.” [Steven Bode, courtesy of London Film Festival]
Sat 9 Nov. 6.30pm:
Video Dance:
Abraxas, Thomas Poeschel, Germany, (1991), 21:40, Colour.
On the 6th of June 1948 the ballet Abraxas was premiered in Munich, Bavaria. It is based on the Germany libretto Dr. Faust by Heinrich Heine. Choreographed by Marcel Luipart, this version of Abraxas was banned after only 6 performances for "celebrating Black mass on stage" and has never been adequately performed since. This video documentary uses original black and white photographs to reconstruct the ballet.
Teile dich Nacht, Jean de Boysson, USA, (1991), 12:30, Colour.
An experimental dance video directed by Jean de Jean de Boysson in collaboration with choreographer Hyonok Kim, based upon a contemporary work by Korean-born composer Isang Yun. The text for the composition is taken from three poems from Teile dich Nacht. Die letzten Gedichte by Nelly Sachs. The video explores through movement and visual juxtaposition the uneasiness of the soul bound to the body and the relationship between the instinct for survival and the desire for release and liberation.
Techno/Dumb/Show, John Gillies & The Sydney Front, Aust, (1991), 20:35, Colour.
A visually elaborate and extraordinarily sensual piece which focuses on the formal aspects of performance in a way which rescinds narrative. Yet, in a paradoxical way it is in this act of cancellation, that questions about the conditions for and functions of narrative can be asked anew; and it is to the bodies of the performers to which we are referred for possible answers.
"Ultimately the work is about excess about a gesturing that goes far beyond that necessary for any 'reasonable' discourse. It is an excess of utter waste but expending only the performers' bodies." [Jobn Bayliss, The Sydney Front, Perspecta Program Notes]
Baguette, Volker Anding, Germany, (1991), 5:45, Colour.
The video shows a dance piece of two women and bread. Bread is everything a ghetto-blaster, a camera, etc...
State of Changes, Michal Caban, CSFR, (1990), 12:00, Colour.
A stunning video dance work drawing on abstract visions of art and history.
Video Art 1:
Distance, Van McElwee, USA, (1990), 6:12, Colour.
I'm interested in exploring areas where notions of space and time, order and disorder, become artificial categories. In my tapes video and sound operate as two aspects of one form. Because of this emphasis on form the work is similar to music and also to architecture. The viewer is the subject of the tapes. There are no stories being told no points being made.
This piece is structured by the sound of a woman humming to herself mixed with an expansive drone. This intimate space is visually extended by patterned images moving in and out of a white field. Photocopies have been used to further distance the image, to create a type of space between its world and the viewer.
The Houses That Are Left, Shelley Silver, USA, (1991), 51:00, Colour.
This is a story of mortality, murder, market research, revenge television and the supernatural, as two friends come together to try and figure out how to live, while being besieged by malignant messages from the dead. This video takes an approach to narrative in which the task of sorting out truth from fiction, documentary from situation comedy, leads to an expanded form in which the dead can speak to the living and people on the street can talk to fictional characters. Because, to tell a story, any story, one always bumps into other stories and information along the way, and how can one make any kind of a truthful document while wilfully ignoring them?
Sat 9 Nov. 9.00pm:
Video Animation and Digital Effects
Continental Drift, Jill Scott, Aust, (1991), 12:00, Colour.
Explores the artist's personal experiences with breast cancer.
Vision Infogothique, Eric Mattson / Alain Mongean, Canada, (1990), 8:17, Colour.
A trip through the essence of image processing. First, the eye penetrates the virtual thickness of the digital images; then, it sets to wander through the thematic universe created by religious images pertaining to our common encyclopedia.
MCA Tape, Peter Callas, Aust, (1991), 4:30, Colour.
A promotional video mixing contemporary art and computer animation.
Amoebic Virus, Cyber Dada, Aust, (1991), 1:00, Colour.
Fully rendered texture mapped images being created on a Sun 2820 computer workstation with phony [Phong] shading are corrupted by a sudden attack by an amoebic virus. The fascist Swirltime Corp. sees the opportunity while the system is down and corrupts the data. 3D images spew everywhere.
Color Study #7, Brian Evans, USA, (1990), 2:15, Colour.
An abstract vision of time and (screen) space.
Maxwell's Demon, James Deusing, USA, (1991), 8:00, Colour.
In a world that has shifted to being information and service-based, industrialists are corralled on a reservation named Lorado to sell plastic things as remnants of their past culture. The reservation is built on a polluted lake which is a tourist attraction. In Lorado there are many forms of love and everyone keeps a pet. The story turns on the suicide of Fashionette's fish because of bad water conditions and ends with a large scale chemical fire.
A Bedful of Strangers, Cathy Vogan, France, (1991), 9:00, Colour.
I scream to the quicksand and the walls relax.
Big Car - Retread, Severed Heads, Aust, (1991), 6:00, Colour.
Amiga graphics with butoh hamburger ritual. Hold the onions and extra relish.
Star Life, Philipe Andrevon, France, (1990), 5:00, Colour.
An outrageous and very funny video about Hollywood filmstars from the past 60 years recycled into five, one minute animated scenes featuring: The Beach, The Bus Stop, The Bar, The Supermarket and The Party.
Grinning Evil Death, Mike McKenna & Bob Sabiston, USA, (1991), 6:50, Colour.
A blood-spattered tale of modern-day pest control. The animation tells a tale of breakfast, blood, superheros, and roaches. A kid munching cereal and watching TV learns that an alien space pod is bound for Earth. The pod crashes into the kid's city and a giant cybernetic roach emerges. The roach proceeds to wreak havoc in the city. Donning the powerful Ring of Sarcasm from his cereal box, the kid leaps from his window to do battle with the Roach.
Les Xons, Cecile Babiole, France, (1991), 1:40, Colour.
The Xons are a tribe of small skeletons that have bizarre and hilarious shapes. They spend their lives wriggling wildly in the flames of Hell and playing practical jokes on each other.
There are a lot of Xons: Lord One-Arm, the rib-Woman, Bull-totem, Homo-Longus, Baby-Boom, the Spider Bibendame, the germs Minus and Virus, and the Simplus cousins. Already an active bunch, the family is constantly growing as the Xons reproduce in various unorthodox ways.
Reportage 1:
Play it Again, Nam, Jean-Paul Fargier, France, (1990), 26:00
Portrait of the Almighty of Video, from his musical and visual experiments to his recent sculptures of France 1990 robots.
Cyberdelia, Cyberdelia Productions (Steve Spangaro - Director), Aust, (1991), 28:00, Colour.
Cyberdelia turns the topic 'video as an artform' in upon itself and allows the user to interface with the works and thoughts of artists at the cutting edge of the cyberdelic movement.
Wed 13 Nov. 8.15pm:
Political Issues 1:
Battle of Trafalgar, DESPITE TV, England, (1990) 60:00, Colour.
An account of the anti-Poll Tax demonstration on 31 March 1990, one that is radically different from that presented by TV news. Shunning the conventional 'talking heads' approach, eyewitnesses tell their stories against a backdrop of video footage showing the day's events as they unfolded. Demonstrators' testimonies raise some uncomfortable questions: questions about public order policing, the independence and accountability of the media, and the right to demonstrate.
Who stands to gain from the spectacle of a demonstration degenerating into full scale riot?
Student Video:
Boundaries, Catherine Wilson, Aust, (1991), 4:35, B&W.
A dance/movement video performance which attempts to explore the human experience of the boundary mainly in relation to personal parameters of space and encounter.
Waymark, Mazz Appleton, Aust, (1991), 12:20, Colour.
Staging a collection of remembered images and events through dance, music, and dramatic action.
Hang, Jane Polkinghorne, Aust, (1991), 5:30, Colour.
Why would anybody support capital punishment?
Why, would people want capital punishment?
Why would people want to see capital punishment televised?
Why would I be fascinated by footage of capital punishment?
First End, Paul Borderi, Aust, (1991) 2:35, Colour.
Concerned with exploring systems of order mediators through spoken and written text. Bodies which hold and release information. Bodies being human, the written word or an electrical signal.
Forever Now, Stephen MacKerras / Randall Wood, Aust, (1991), 11:00, Colour
Journey of images reflecting and aiming to change perceptions about life on earth. Portrays various cycles of life whilst addressing the impact of human adaptation of the environment.
Music by French composer, Rodolphe Blois, with emphasis on use of traditional Aboriginal instruments.
The Fall, Michael Strum, Aust, (1990), 4:00, Colour.
A short piece about the Abyss, a falling angel, and the flight of Icarus. (Or what happens when one gets too close to the sun). Music by Ornette Coleman.
Alabaster Lions, Angelo Buttera, Aust, (1990), 22:00, Colour.
A 'lion-hearted tale' about the foibles of love and the relationship between Italian men and their mums.
Thur 14 Nov. 6.30pm:
Drama/Narrative:
Knives, Serge Ou / Michael Tear, Aust, (1991), 23:30, Colour
Set in a mythical fishing village sometime in the past, this fable about greed and freedom explores themes of love, honour and betrayal.
The Milkman, Elisa Trunzo, Aust, (1990/91), 13:27, Colour.
A woman is attcked by a rapist in an alleyway but manages to overcome him. This piece shows the psychological impact that the fear and intimidation of rape has on a woman. Through the focus on the issue of rape it also examines the essence of power in our society.
Reportage 2:
Deadly Deception, Debra Chasnoff, USA (1991), 29:00, Colour.
Sub-titled "General Electric, Nuclear Weapons and our Environment", Deadly Deception is the inspiring story of victims of GE, (including former weapons plant workers) who have all experienced tragedy as a direct result of GE's leadership role in the nuclear weapons industry.
U ME & HIV, Heuristic Video Pty Ltd [Wendy Spencer}, for the Aboriginal Medical Service, Aust, (1991), 20:00, Colour
An inventive video looking at the risks of HIV through song, dance and theatre.
Tattoos Are Forever, Rebecca Halas, USA, (1990), 32:00, Colour.
This video documentary was shot in a cinema-verite interview style. The director interviews tattoo artists and enthusiasts on their views and concerns of the art form. She also is seen getting a tattoo.
This video includes original montage artwork by the producer, Marge Hanson. These images are created on a computer using flat art video scans and photographs. The montage imagery complements the tattoo designs in a surreal dreamlike visual world.
Thur 14 Nov. 9.00pm:
Political Issues 2:
Exodus, Can Candan, USA, (1991), 28:00, Colour.
An experimental documentary about the mass exodus of ethnic Bulgarian Turks from Bulgaria to Turkey in the summer of 1989 and its impact on the people. As the interviews with the ethnic Turks give an account of the exodus as its happening, the videomaker's own subjective and descriptive narration illuminates the plight of the people and their desire to maintain their cultural identity in the face of government interference. Exodus shows some of the inadequacies in any representation of the "other" and implicates the exclusive nature of nationalism.
It's A Proud Day For America, Norman Cowie, USA, (1991), 2:05, Colour.
A short sharp look at the Gulf War using text and voice over techniques.
Political Issues 3:
Frame Or The Fortune's Wheel, Julian Alvarez, Spain, (1990), 6:00, Colour.
Frame Or The Fortune's Wheel presents the fascinating adventure of a film's frame as it burns out on a TV screen. The 'present-as-television' is situated within this 'landscape' which also serves as reference as the 'past-as-cinema' flooding us with image-events which sweep us relentlessly along on the 'wheel of fortune'. Politics combine with religion which combines in turn with ecologist-pacifist movements and sports. This is just an example. Whatever the case humanity today is ruled by the powerful SYMBOLS that are cynically combined like the tumblers in a slot-machine to achieve the 'jackpot' . In this macro-system managed by the MEDIA, I feel like a ridiculous 'voyeur' who sometimes 'wails/cries' over his unhappy state.
Bread and Games, Monika Funke Stern / Sascha Kadyrov, Germany, (1991), 29:00, Colour.
Erotics in Russia? If erotics means to strip, our shops are stripped naked and we are all stripped naked. Very erotic! There is nothing in the shops. Our whole life is erotic!
Intrusive Devices, Francis Miquet, Canada, (1991), 11:10, Colour.
Using fast-paced interviews and video processed imagery, this short video documentary collages a wry look at the recent activities of the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service (C.S.I.S.) following the disclosure that a prominent Canadian periodical (This Magazine) had been the subject of an investigation. In particular the video asks to what degree the state should be permitted to place its citizens under surveillance in the name of national security. Some of the language and rational used to justify this practice is also revealed.
The Lull Before The Storm, Part IV, Sara Diamond, Canada, (1990/91), 48:00, Colour.
An entertaining four part series about family life in British Columbia from the 1930s to the 1950s. The Lull uses drama and documentary techniques to offer insights into the political, economic, and cultural forces shaping Canadian society and the personal lives of working women and men.
Fri 15 Nov. 6.30pm:
Experimental 1:
Vespers (Visperas), Carlos Trilnick, Argentina, (1991), 5:00, Colour.
The flesh has vanished, the theatre of the voices and bones stays.
Video taped at the Museum of Natural Sciences of La Plata Argentina. From the Museum's Series produced with Reinaldo Laddago and Claudio Baroni.
eddie d. presents, eddie d., Holland, (1991), 5:00, Colour.
eddie d. presents: are video/sound compositions in which everyday sounds and images are edited in a rhythmic and melodic structure.
It shows the anger you can feel about things which people regard as normal but there is also beauty in the sounds that are all around you.
DREAM MACHINE Ver 2.0-'Cell', The Brothers Gruchy, Aust, (1991), 12:00, Colour.
A video exploring freedom and relationships through performance and computer graphics.
The Harm Machine, Ian Andrews, Aust, (1991), Colour.
The Conspiracy Theory to end all conspiracy theories: The Harm Machine. A humorous investigation into the pseudo-scientific and philosophical discourse of 1950's 'B` grade science-fiction film.
En Quete, Veronique Legendre, France, (1991), Colour.
Underground capers in Paris.
Sie Mehr Die Andere. Diese Sie Weninger (She the other one more. This one her less), Gesa Marten, Germany, (1990/91), Colour.
The basic material of this self-portrait is a series of shots of myself swimming in the water and a sequence from l'Eclisse (Antonioni). These pictures are processed by three play-in sources without synchronisation - in other words, they are electronically deconstructed. The distortion can be recognised as creation. New pictures have arisen from those previously dismissed as broken. Electronic disturbances are the aesthetic and the sensuality of this videotape. She The Other More. This One Her Less is an experiment about me looking at myself and my narcissism. The picture disturbance is a realistic chance to irritate the spectator and to make them see.
The Works, Sven Harding, England, (1988), Colour.
Old and new technologies collide as a traditional manually operated steel forge in the North of England is captured and manipulated by digital video
Utilising images from the process of beating and moulding steel into shape, The Works, in its virtuoso pacing and keying of image and sampled sound, foregrounds the danger, drudgery, and sheer intensity of conditions faced daily by the workers in the steel industry.
[Commissioned for the 2nd Festival of Electronic Arts, Rennes, France, 1988.]
the violence in fish, Anna Munster, Aust, (1991), Colour.
to slice sashimi you must learn the art of knives the grain of a fish, its lean and fatty areas.
it takes years of apprenticeship at a sushi shop to become this type of surgeon.
there is a kind of sashimi called 'fugu'. to prepare this for eating, a sack of poison must be removed from the fish. toxic traces sometimes remain in the veins. 'fugu' poisoning begins with a slight numbing of the lips. followed by death.
there is a taboo against women preparing sashimi. that kind of mingling of fish, perhaps ...
don't you think there's a strange violence in all of this.
Uranus, Michael T. Hill, Aust, (1990), Colour.
Among other things Uranus rules anything in wave information. Hence radio, television, x-rays, permed hair, the tides, ribbed condoms, oscilloscopes, radium, plutonium, gravity waves, water beds, Mexican waves, the movement of reptiles, information from satellites, corrugated iron, and the Queen's right hand.
Video Art 2:
The Colour Trilogy, Part One - The Inevitability of Colour, Terry Flaxton, England, (1991), 21:00, Colour.
A stunning, mesmeric and philosophical essay on meaning, subjectivity and image based on the Greek myth of Echo and Narcissus. As in Flaxton's other award winning works, The Inevitability of Colour is a beautifully crafted piece using video graphics, voice and music to visually seductive and pleasurable ends. [Michael Maziere, LVA Catalogue 1991]
Hard Times and Culture, Part One, Juan Downey, USA, (1990), 34:30, Colour.
Juan Downey's in progress series on the nexus of cultural creativity and economical, political, and social forces focuses here on the Austro-Hungarian Empire one hundred years ago when its decline interlocked with the emergence of modernism in the arts, literature, and psychoanalysis. This subjective documentary refers by association to contemporary New York.
Rauchnachte (Smoke Nights), RASKIN (Rotraut Pape / Andreas Coerper), Germany, (1990), 10:25, Colour.
Twelve nights, raw nights or smoke nights. The Nights nights between the 25th December and 6th January. This is the time of the spirits, the wild chase and appearance of ghosts who are entertained or repulsed by smoke, noise-making, or the sign of the cross.
Friday, 15 Nov. 9:00pm:
Experimental 2:
Museum of Fire, David Haynes, John Conomos, Christopher Cains, Aust, (1991), Colour.
A three part video examing the labyrintine evocations of fire.
Head, Colleen Cruise, Aust, (1991), Colour.
One solitary journey. The feeling of detachment and serious thought. Head is about War and Love. I'm trying to let the form, shape and colour speak and feel for itself.
The monitor worked on was a large screen trying to create space outside as well as using space within.
In The Wake of The Stars, Scott Robinson, Canada, (1991), Colour.
Timeless cultural images and cultural portraits of people from a forgotten age flow together over a cultural background of hot orange sun rays.
The artist's music and poetry suggests that all humans share the same story and have been walking the same path since time began.
“The story with endless tellers
The journey with endless trekkers.”
Crowdseen, Brad Miller, Aust, (1991), Colour.
A desk-top video of looped sequences of rioting crowds and demonstrations set against a computerised pictorial display of surveillance technology.
RIDE, Ross Harley, Aust, (1991), Colour.
A short roller coaster ride.
Video Art 3:
Kiri no uta (Mist Song), Atsushi Ogata, Japan, (1991), 6:00, Colour.
Through the use of slow motion and a monotonous sound track, Kiri no uta is intended to transform my personal experience into a universal experience that stimulates the viewer's sense, altering their perception of time and providing them with moments for their own reflection...
Twice The Universe, Dominik Barbier, France, (1991), 23:00, Colour.
This is precisely about Australia; about dreaming about Australia.
Red Bus, Patrick McCarthy, England, (1991), 3:00, Colour.
Frank Pork, one of Britain's truly near-great painters, discusses his seminal work Red Bus with its references to Matisse, abstractionism and junk food culture.
The Hidden Treasure, Antonio Heranz, Spain, (1990), 12:00, Colour.
"All languages seem to get closer to the treasure, but this treasure gets shown and taken away all at once as in an enchantment."
Archaos Part 2, Julie Kuzminska, England, (1990/91), 11:00, Colour.
A creative and highly original document of the anarchic and challenging circus ARCHAOS. A celebration of music colour the body and theatre in a dense and accomplished video.
[Winner of the Golden World Graph, Locarno Video Festival]
Comme Un Opera Immobile (Like A Silent Opera), Jean-Baptiste Mathieu, France, (1990), 7:10, Colour.
Creation based on drawings of Gerard Boch.
Light bursts out from the darkness and gives life to this world of paper. It takes time to identify the silhouettes which appear and vanish in continuous motion.
REFIGURING THE MEDIA
Introduction - Brian Langer, November, 1991.
Cyberpunk Dreams up Garage-Tech - Ross Harley
ARTIST'S PRESENTATIONS
Art Gallery of NSW, Domain Theatre, Level 1,
Sun 10 Nov. 1.00pm
Dara Birnbaum
Dara Birnbaum, one of the world's most eminent video artists, discusses and screens selections of her provocative video works which are among the most innovative and influential contributions to the contemporary discourse on art and television. Her primary concerns include the representation of women, and radical media critiques. She applies rigorous tactics of deconstruction and appropriation to dismantle television's codes of representation, "plunging the viewer headlong into the very experience of TV - unveiling TV's stereotypical gestures of power and submission..."
Her works have been widely exhibited in a range of contexts from public sites to MTV.
Works screened:
Technology/Transformation: Wonder Woman (1978)
Kiss The Girls: Make Them Cry (1979)
Pop-Pop Video: General Hospital/Olympic Women Speed Skating (1980)
Pop-Pop Video: Kojak/Wang (1980)
PM Magazine/Acid Rock (1982)
Artbreak (1987)
Canon: Taking to the Street Part One: Princeton University - Take Back the Night, (1990).
Wed 16 Nov. 2.30pm
Synya Katho
Synya Katho is a video artist and curator who works as a researcher in the Department of Image-Arts at the Kawasaki City Museum (near Tokyo). The museum consists of three departments: a museum of history and folk culture, an art museum, and a visual centre whose focus is film and video. Its brief is to show the "DNA of all culture", focussing on "great historical things, the present and the future view".
Katho's areas of interest include exchanges between Australian Public TV and Japanese cable TV, new Japanese video art (including computer graphics and low-budget video), and community access and amateur video making in Japan.
Synya Katho's visit bas been assisted by the Japan Foundation.
Works screened:
new video: JAPAN
De-sign 3 Stand & Drift, Visual Brains, (1991)
seigen kyu works 1991, Seigen Kyu, (1991)
Earth Garden, Koichi Tabata, (1991)
Bio-Mimetic, Noriko Shimonichi, (1991)
kei 1991, Hiroshi Yamazaki, (1991)
[see separate entry for more detail]
Sat 16 Nov. 12:30pm
Carole Ann Klonarides
Carole Ann Klonarides is an artist and most recently has been appointed as the Media Arts Curator at The Long Beach Museum of Art in Long Beach, California. She has a Masters degree in Media Studies from The New School For Social Research, NYC (1983). She has been working with Michael Owen as MICA-TV since 1980, producing collaborative videotapes with such artists as Dike Blair, R.M. Fischer, Dan Graham, Richard Prince, Cindy Sherman, Laurie Simmons, and John Torreano. MICA-TV tapes have been shown in the United States and in Europe. Their tape CASCADE / Vertical Landscapes (a collaboration with artists Dan Graham, Dike Blair and Christian Marclay) was commissioned by Channel Four in England and later [shown] on Canal Plus in France.
Klonarides also collaborated with artists Lyn Blumental and Ed Paschke on the tape ARCADE which was exhibited at Documenta 1987, Recent Acquisitions at the Museum of Modern Art, NYC, WNET-TV's New Television, and in various film festivals. She was commissioned by The Whitney Museum of American Art to make a videotape compilation of artists' representation in the media for the exhibition ImageWorld.
In the Summer of 1990, Klonarides co-produced and co-curated The Alternative Voice, two ninety-minute compilations of independent video exhibited on a large screen in Central Park, NYC, as part of the event The Video Drive-In. Her curated video exhibition It's Evening In America, a compilation of videos which served as a meditation on the Reagan Years, was also presented as part of The Video Drive-In in Summer and Fall 1989; at Instituto de Estudios Norteamericanos, in the Plaza de Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain; Ivam Centre Julio Gonzalez, Valencia, Spain; and the Gulbenkian Foundation, Lisbon, Portugal. TV: For Real, a two hour program consisting of the works of thirteen American artists was presented at Laforet Musuem, Harajuku, Tokyo, Japan, for the exhibition Images of American Pop Culture Today III; the Centre for Photography at Woodstock, Woodstock, N.Y. In 1989; and Halle Sud, Genev, Switzerland in 1988.
Works screened:
from: The Open Channels Program at the Long Beach Museum.
Ritual, Lynne Hershman, 15:00.
Gun Talk (Part 1), Eric Saks, 5:00.
Was It Only A Dream?, Sue Kornfield, 15:00.
The Nomadics, Ulysses Jenkins, 15:00.
Other tapes presented:
Vital Signs, Barbara Hammer, (1991) 11:18.
We, Shelly Silver, (1990) 4:00.
Dances In Exile, Howard Silver, (1991) ll:00.
Free Society, Paul Garrin, (1988) 9:47.
[not listed in catalogue but listed in screening program notes]
The Feeling of Power, Robert Beek, (1990) 9:00.
[see separate entry for more detail]
INSTALLATIONS
AGNSW, 15-30 Nov.
An elegant and finely nuanced work of poignancy and enigma, Faraway was photographed at the Imperial Palace in central Tokyo on the day of the death of the Emperor Hirohito on the 7th of January 1989, and one week later, outside the palace grounds before the glass encased casket of the mortal remains of the Emperor. Vast crowds gathered on these days to mourn the passing of a “living god”.
The soundtrack is based on the recording of events in the world media during the period prior to and immediately after the death of the Emperor. These sounds are layered with subtle shortwave signals and the voice of the English tenor, Peter Pears, suffusing the work with an ironic sense of bodily transformation. Geoffrey Weary is a respected artist working with the mediums of photography, video and installation. He recently presented a seminar on his work at the New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York.
[see separate entry for more detail]
Ivan Dougherty Gallery, 16-30 Nov.
Dara Birnbaum - The Damnation of Faust: Trilogy (Evocation, Will-O'-the-Wisp, Charming Landscape)
In the mid 1980s Bimbaum began exploring the metaphorical and expressive potential of video technologies. In The Damnation of Faust trilogy, she re-articulates the Romantic Faustian myth through the female voice to create dreamlike introspections on the duality of the internalised self and the external world, the collusion of personal and collective memory through technology and mediated images. Birnbaum has achieved international recognition for her video work and multi-media installations for which she applies both low- and high-end technology to subvert, critique and deconstruct the power of mass media images and gestures in order to define mythologies of culture, history and memory.
Peter Callas - Our Potential Allies
A three-channel video installation, presented as a reconstructed version of a piece originally produced in 1980 “in the umbra of post McLuhanesque suspicion about the increasingly 'subtopian' aspects of the 'Global Village'”. Awarded the Most Socially Relevant Video Art prize at the Portopia '81 International Festival of Video Art, Kobe, Japan, Our Potential Allies examines the presentation of "truth" and explores the very processes of editing and ultimately concealment which are used in the service of spectacular "revelation" on television.
Peter Callas is one of Australia's most internationally respected video artists who has worked in electronic media for over 17 years. His extensive travels have included several years in Japan, a country whose urban popular culture has greatly informed his work.
[see separate entry for more detail]
Carole Ann Klonarides - Famous For 30 Seconds - artists in the media
For many Kirk Douglas is Vincent van Gogh and Charlton Heston painted the Sistine Chapel. For years the artist served as an easy target for lampooning and the perfect subject to romanticize. The film and television industry evidently felt qualified to rewrite art history and alter the image of the artist. Today the artist wants to have a hand in writing his/her own script. With the help of the publicist and the lure of endorsements, the visual artist has evolved from the Hollywood myth to being hot news on Page Six.
Some of the tapes selected for Famous For 30 Seconds are influenced by established television formats such as the commercial, documentary, and news spot, whereas others directly collaborate with the artist (subject), using their work as a departure point to create a unique work unto itself. This is juxtaposed with actual film and television material. Whether the tapes succeed in exposing the implicit ideology of the medium (prime time) or aim merely to enhance the image of their subject (artist), this series attempts to explore the "created image" of the artist.
Artists include: Andy Warhol, Laurie Anderson, Keith Haring, and Robert Longo, with Johnny Carson, David Letterman and others.
[see separate entry for more detail]
Robyn Stacey - Untitled (1991)
Stacey's most recent work of digital photography, commissioned for the 6th AIVF, is part of a series which deals with technology, nature and the body. It takes as its point of departure Robert D. Romanyshyn's Technology as Symptom and Dream where the technological world is treated as a work of reason, but of reason which reaches deeply into dream. Dreams shadow waking life and what we, individually and culturally, cannot bear in conscious life we dream. To attend to this cultural dream is to attend to the shadows and silences of technology. Technology is deeply rooted in a special kind of vision, linear perspective vision, which developed the modern sense of the self as detached spectator, the world as a measured spectacle, and the body as an observed specimen.
Robyn Stacey is a Sydney based acclaimed photomedia artist who has been working in colour photography since 1980. More recently, Stacey has extended her work with photomontage by using the powerful Quantel graphic paintbox computer to manipulate and digitise series of images originally shot in video. Her work has been both published and exhibited widely in Australia and overseas.
[see separate entry for more detail]
Screenings in the Domain Theatre at the Art Gallery of NSW
Wed 13 Nov. 1:00pm
Video Creation and Television in France
Two programs from Paris, one of the leading European centres for new and creative television.
Advance Sur Image (1988-89), produced by Ex Nihilo, was one of the first programs in France that mixed a television magazine-style production with video art works.
The Empty Set, a compilation program by Fearless, an artists' electronic studio established in 1990, features works by four of its seven founding members: Dorninik Barbier, Cathy Vogan, Robert Cahen and Yann N'Guyen Minh.
Sat 16 Nov. 12.30pm
Carole Ann Klonarides (USA)
Klonarides presents selections from the acclaimed The Open Channel's Program at The Long Beach Museum, Long Beach, California, where she is currently the Media Arts Curator.
The Museum, which maintains one of the most significant collections of video art in the USA, has provided a unique framework for the creation, exhibition and cablecast of new work by emerging and established artists. Includes: Gun Talk (Part 1) by Eric Saks; Ritual by Lynne Hershman; We by Shelly Silver; Free Society by Paul Carrin.
Sat 16 Nov. 2:30pm
Synya Katho presents TV Avantgarde Sat 16 Nov. 2.30pm
In Japan many young media artists have turned to the ever expanding TV industry for support and collaboration, resulting in an exciting mix of mass entertainment and art - a merging of high art and street level aesthetics. The two programs (TV AVANTGARDE Sat 16 Nov. 2.30pm & new video: JAPAN Wed 20 Nov. 1.00pm) presented by Synya Katho, curator and researcher at the Kawasaki City Museum, reflect the present situation.
Sun 17 Nov. 1.00pm
Electronic Arts Intermix: Twenty Years of Artists' Video
Electronic Arts Intermix, a non-profit media arts centre in New York, celebrates its twentieth anniversary as a major international resource for independent video. The works in this program, all produced within the last three years, reflect many of the issues and strategies that have engaged media artists in the late 1980's and early 1990's: cultural diversity and cultural identity, political and social activism, media representation and the writing of histories, individual and community empowerment. Engaged in cultural analysis or poetic allegory, wielding lowtech camcorders or sophisticated computer technologies, speaking with voices that are international and multicultural, these artists use video to articulate profoundly personal, oppositional or idiosyncratic visions of contemporary reality.
Includes Damaged Visions by Shalom Gorewitz, Kepone by Tony Oursler, I Cannot Go to Africa Because I am on Duty by Eder Santos.
Wed 20 Nov. 1.00pm
Synya Katho presents new video: JAPAN
Including work by the group Visual Brains, Seigen Kyu, Koichi-Tabata, and Hiroshi Yamakazi.
Mr. Katho will discuss the present and future developments of the Department of Image-Arts at the Kawasaki City Museum.
Sat 23 Nov. 12.30pm
Video Art and German Television
The situation in Germany in 1991 is still one where artists are mostly forced to produce works autonomously, without any support and assistance from the TV stations, either for production or screening. This program contains videos which were produced for broadcast on German television, as well as works which were made with the assistance of the professional equipment of television studios. A common concern of most of the works is the search for new relations with the daily flood of TV images.
Includes Hommage a' Schwitters by Ernst Jurgens, Eisenkuss (Ironkiss) by Matthias Glatzel, Luck Smith by Gustav Hamos, Steinwelt (Stoneworld) by Angela Zumpe, Geburt der Neuzeit (Birth of the Modern Age) by Smart Cursor Productions.
Sat 23 Nov. 2.30pm
The Kitchen: Twentieth Anniversary Program 1
The Kitchen has gained an international reputation as an innovator in new art presentation. In New York, it remains the city's only multi-disciplinary institution devoted to contemporary art (video and performance programs, producing cable and network television and commissioning major new performance and video works). This program of video art productions includes Speaker Swinging by Gordon Monahan, Home(less) Is Where The Revolution Is by Paul Garrin, and Un Chien Delicieux by Ken FeingoId.
Sun 24 Nov. 1.00pm
This is Not a Television Program: artist's television in the U.K.
British television has given considerable exposure to artists' work through programs such as Ghost In the Machine, White Noise, The Dazzling Image, and Not Necessarily. Interestingly there is now considerably less single-channel work by artists being produced in Britain outside of a television context. Change in funding structures and greater opportunities to make installation and multi-channel works have, to some extent, created this situation. The videoworks in this collection are representative of the diversity, ambition and energy of video artists' television. Includes Luminous Portrait by Judith Goddard. Three Unanswered Questions by Lei Cox, Leisuer Society by John Butler, Superanimism by Jasoson White.
Sat 30 Nov. 12.30pm
The Kitchen: Twentieth Anniversary Program 2
Son of Sam and Delilah by Charles Atlas, (1991), with John Kelly, Hapi Phace, Dancenoise, and cameo by Dee Lite.
An entertaining program of cross-cut scenes that address the life-threatening issues of raging homophobia in New York City.
Plus: Performance Live at the Kitchen 1991 Compilation. Six outstanding examples of current performance works: Eric Bogosian, Dancenoise, The Kipper Kids, Robbie McCauley, Ann Magnuson, Annie Sprinkle / Emilio Cuberio. Excerpts of live performance compiled due to an overwhelming number of requests by theatre and performance educators. The six, eight minute segments serve to present an overview of contemporary performance in New York city.
Sat 30 Nov. 2.30pm
Reimaging the Media, curated by Brian Langer.
Since the development of the portable video recorder in the 1960's, artists have engaged in the 'technological speed' of the image, exploring video, television and computer technology as a point of access and the TV monitor as the place where most of it happens. Video art has become a central concern of the perception of art in the 1980s and the 1990s, as is reflected in this survey of works by video artists whose compelling mix of 'real', 'virtual' and media imagery challenge traditional television perspectives.
The Assignation, George Snow (UK), (1989), 12:00 min, colour.
Pfingston (Whitsun), Norbert Meissner (Germany), (1989), 9:00 min, colour.
The babble of round-the-clock television with Pentecostal speaking-in-tongues.My TV Dictionary: The Helicopter, Hans Breder. (Germany/USA), (1986), 3:00 min, colour.
Incidence of Catastrophe Gary Hill (USA), (1987/88), 43:57 min, colour.
A notion of catastrophe as a micro event contextualised with metaphorical subtexts.Mt. Fuji, Ko Nakajima (Japan), (1984), 16:00 min colour.
Ko Nakajima transforms still photographs of Mt. Fuji into a moving series of digitally processed and manipulated sequences.Hitchcock Trilogy: Vertigo, Psycho, Torn Curtain, Rea Tajiri (USA), (1987), 15 mins, colour.
George Squared (Glasgow 1919-1990), Doug Aubrey (Scotland), (1990), 4:00 min, colour.
Devised for the Global Livingrooms of the 90s - 4 mins of shake Television.René and Georgette Magritte with Their Dog after the War, Joan Loque (USA), (1984), 3:50 min. colour.
Joan Logue directs a scenario with Paul Simon, illustrating his lyrics with sensitivity unusual in today's music video.Mike, Micheal Smith (USA), (1987), 2:43 min, colour.
Mike meets Calvin Klein. In Mike, Smith juxtaposes the real life of his character Mike with his potential commercialization.Death Valley Days : Santa Fe Trail, Gorilla Tapes (UK), (1985) 4:00 min, colour.
Anthem, Bill Viola (USA), (1983) 11:00 min, colour.
Images of desolate industrialized US landscape juxtaposed with shots from nature and intense close-ups of power machinery, surgical procedure on the eye, a beating during open heart surgery.
