"The Story of VJing and Live Video Art"
Brief history of the video artist and the history of the video
Social & External
Self
Experimental video art shot in the Wallingford neighborhood of Seattle
A memorial mourns as time passes
Jim Moir (aka Vic Reeves) explores Video Art, revealing how different generations ‘hacked’ the tools of television to pioneer new ways of creating art that can be beautiful, bewildering and wildly experimental.
A ritual of grids, reflections and chasms; a complete state of entropy; a space that devours itself; a vertigo that destroys the gravity of the Earth; a trap that captures us inside the voids of the screen of light: «That blank arena wherein converge at once the hundred spaces» (Hollis Frampton).
The innovative and influential British filmmaker Derek Jarman was invited to direct the Pet Shop Boys' 1989 tour. This film is a series of iconoclastic images he created for the background projections. Stunning, specially shot sequences (featuring actors, the Pet Shop Boys, and friends of Jarman) contrast with documentary montages of nature, all skillfully edited to music tracks.
IDFA and Canadian filmmaker Peter Wintonick had a close relationship for decades. He was a hard worker and often far from home, visiting festivals around the world. In 2013, he died after a short illness. His daughter Mira was left behind with a whole lot of questions, and a box full of videotapes that Wintonick shot for his Utopia project. She resolved to investigate what sort of film he envisaged, and to complete it for him.
Today, analogue video is attractive primarily thanks to the distinctive aesthetic quality of its pixelated image and raster errors. But for Czech artists who first explored the possibilities offered by video art in the late 1980s, this medium represented a path towards freedom. Through a portrait of her grandfather Radek Pilař, one of the pioneers of Czech video art, the director explores her own legacy of imperative creative fascination. Her film’s main story, i.e., the process of reconstructing the 1989 exhibition Video Day, contrasts this enchantment with life in the final days of the totalitarian regime, which different sharply with the adventures of those who decided to emigrate – whom the filmmaker also visits in order to discover forgotten works, get to know their creators, and re-establish broken ties.
Someone born in the 1990s, who never actually lived in 1990s Istanbul, can only long for what they’ve seen in old videos. But how do you yearn for moments you never experienced... or why do you? In this nostalgic Istanbul we don’t remember, a digital passage unfolds from the European side to the Asian side, told only through the footage recorded on the cameras of those who once lived it.
After concluding the now-legendary public access TV series, The Pain Factory, Michael Nine embarked on a new and more subversive public access endeavor: a collaboration with Scott Arford called Fuck TV. Whereas The Pain Factory predominantly revolved around experimental music performances, Fuck TV was a comprehensive and experiential audio-visual presentation. Aired to a passive and unsuspecting audience on San Francisco’s public access channel from 1997 to 1998, each episode of Fuck TV was dedicated to a specific topic, combining video collage and cut-up techniques set to a harsh electronic soundtrack. The resultant overload of processed imagery and visceral sound was unlike anything presented on television before or since. EPISODES: Yule Bible, Cults, Riots, Animals, Executions, Static, Media, Haterella (edited version), Self Annihilation Live, Electricity.
In his book "1984", George Orwell saw the television of the future as a control instrument in the hands of Big Brother. Right at the start of the much-anticipated Orwellian year, Paik and Co. were keen to demonstrate satellite TV's ability to serve positive ends-- Namely, the intercontinental exchange of culture, combining both highbrow and entertainment elements. A live broadcast shared between WNET TV in New York and the Centre Pompidou in Paris, linked up with broadcasters in Germany and South Korea, reached a worldwide audience of over 10 or even 25 million (including the later repeat transmissions).
An auto-documentary about a disenfranchised Everyman and his struggle to re-integrate himself into society. He fails and turns to crime.
A continuously running installation of two video monitors on pedestals, overlooked by a green Kit-Cat clock. A 9" and a 13" CRT display two different video collages of footage from the Emerald Square Mall and the strike during its 1989 construction with remixed interferences of Channel J's Emerald City TV (1976-1979): the self-proclaimed "world’s first television show for gay men and women", Huge Video's Heat in the Night (1989), Genet's Un Chant D'Amour (1950), various cigarette commercials, The Wizard of Oz (1939), and a performance of a mylar-clad entity wrapping up one of the televisions in videotape.
The quixotic journey of Nam June Paik, one of the most famous Asian artists of the 20th century, who revolutionized the use of technology as an artistic canvas and prophesied both the fascist tendencies and intercultural understanding that would arise from the interconnected metaverse of today's world.
A compilation of avant-garde artwork and talent of the mid to late 20th century hosted by Ryuichi Sakamoto.
A film exploration of the work and aesthetic concepts of Yayoi Kusama, painter, sculptor, and environmentalist, conceived in terms of an intense emotional experience with metaphysical overtones, an extension of my ultimate interest in a total fusion of the arts in a spirit of mutual collaboration. —Jud Yalkut
The Karikpo masquerade - a traditional dance of the Ogoni tribe - is transposed onto the remnants of a faded oil industry programme in the Niger delta.
Guy Ben-Ner, one of Israel's foremost video artists, gained international recognition with a series of low-tech films, starring his family in absurdist settings carved out of their intimate spaces and their everyday surroundings. Many of his videos are inspired by screenplays for films, folktales and novels. Analyzing these literary and cinematographic passages allows him to exploit the conventions of film narrative: how to tell a story, captivate an audience through a tale, sustain a degree of tension and entertainment, and so on. At the same time, he corrupts the magic of fiction by openly showing us the entrails of everything he records, without worrying about revealing the tricks of the trade. A large part of his filmic oeuvre features a conglomeration of cinematic and literary references which the artist quotes, adapts or interprets. Ben-Ner self-referentially links the great themes and their literary, cinematic and artistic realization.
The Machine That Killed Bad People is about the cultural and political history of the Philippines leading up to the overthrow of President Ferdinand Marcos in 1986. It also addresses the role of electronic media in the struggle for power, and more broadly, American intervention in the Third World. Using a structure that emulates the way television news programs construct meaning through fragmentation, the tape interweaves clips of Filipino activists and reporters, a fictional television anchorwoman and correspondent, commentary by independent filmmaker Trinh T. Minh-ha, Fagin's off-camera voice and script, and anonymous excerpts from commercial television.
Commissioned for the Irish representation at the 55th Venice Biennale in 2013, The Enclave is an immersive, six-screen video art installation by Irish contemporary artist Richard Mosse. Partly inspired by Joseph Conrad’s modernist literary masterpiece Heart of Darkness, the visceral and moving work was filmed in the Democratic Republic of Congo using 16mm colour infra-red film, which captures otherwise invisible parts of the spectrum. The resulting imagery in Mosse’s work is hallucinatory and dream-like with the usual greens of jungle and forest replaced by shimmering violet. The Enclave depicts a complicated, strife-ridden place in a way that reflects its complexity, using a strategy of beauty and transfixion to combat the wider invisibility of a conflict that has claimed so many.
Poet and artist Vito Acconci points his finger towards the camera and his own reflection in an offscreen video monitor.
The life and career of an actor, artist, and icon. His own journey through his own camera.
Al Pacino's deeply-felt rumination on Shakespeare's significance and relevance to the modern world through interviews and an in-depth analysis of "Richard III."
A documentary that explores the downloading revolution; the kids that created it, the bands and the businesses that were affected by it, and its impact on the world at large.
Experience the iconic rock band's legacy in the first major documentary to tell their story. Directed with the era’s avant-garde spirit by Todd Haynes, this kaleidoscopic oral history combines exclusive interviews with dazzling archival footage.
Cameramen and women discuss the craft and art of cinematography and of the "DP" (the director of photography), illustrating their points with clips from 100 films, from Birth of a Nation to Do the Right Thing. Themes: the DP tells people where to look; changes in movies (the arrival of sound, color, and wide screens) required creative responses from DPs; and, these artisans constantly invent new equipment and try new things, with wonderful results. The narration takes us through the identifiable studio styles of the 30s, the emergence of noir, the New York look, and the impact of Europeans. Citizen Kane, The Conformist, and Gordon Willis get special attention.
SEDUCED AND ABANDONED combines acting legend Alec Baldwin with director James Toback as they lead us on a troublesome and often hilarious journey of raising financing for their next feature film. Moving from director to financier to star actor, the two players provide us with a unique look behind the curtain at the world's biggest and most glamourous film festival, shining a light on the bitter-sweet relationship filmmakers have with Cannes and the film business. Featuring insights from directors Martin Scorsese, 'Bernando Bertolucci' and Roman Polanski; actors Ryan Gosling and Jessica Chastain and a host of film distribution luminaries.
A documentary on legendary movie-poster artist Drew Struzan.
The life and career of one of comedy's most inimitable modern voices, Mr. Gilbert Gottfried.
A visual montage portrait of our contemporary world dominated by globalized technology and violence.
From a prolific career in film and television, Anton Yelchin left an indelible legacy as an actor. Through his journals and other writings, his photography, the original music he wrote, and interviews with his family, friends, and colleagues, this film looks not just at Anton's impressive career, but at a broader portrait of the man.
Brilliant, long in-the-works story of the life and art of the world's greatest comedian and the cinema's first genius, Charlie Chaplin. Produced, written and directed by renowned film critic Richard Schickel.
Daniel Craig candidly reflects on his 15 year adventure as James Bond. Including never-before-seen archival footage from Casino Royale to the upcoming 25th film No Time To Die, Craig shares his personal memories in conversation with 007 producers, Michael G Wilson and Barbara Broccoli.
Artists in LA discover the work of forgotten Polish sculptor Stanislav Szukalski, a mad genius whose true story unfolds chapter by astounding chapter.
An account of the life and work of legendary Japanese actor Toshirō Mifune (1920-97), the most prominent actor of the Golden Age of Japanese cinema.
The history of cinematic sound, told by legendary sound designers and visionary filmmakers.
A detailing of the rise to prominence and global sporting superstardom of six supremely talented young Manchester United football players (David Beckham, Nicky Butt, Ryan Giggs, Paul Scholes, Phil and Gary Neville). The film covers the period 1992-1999, culminating in Manchester United's European Cup triumph.
From the heights of her modeling fame to her tragic death, this documentary reveals Anna Nicole Smith through the eyes of the people closest to her.
A documentary about the making of David Fincher's 2008 film THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON. Virtually every element in the evolution of the Fincher's film is documented here, from the project's attachment to numerous other directors during the 1990s, to its shoot in 2006 and 2007 in New Orleans, to its complex, CGI-intensive postproduction process.
The life of Mr. Spock, as well as that of Leonard Nimoy, the actor who played him for almost fifty years, written and directed by his son: Adam.
Drawn from a never before seen cache of personal footage spanning decades, this is an intimate portrait of the Sri Lankan artist and musician who continues to shatter conventions.
