The works in this show can present an argument about the conscious nature of narrativity in relation to a subject proper (as in the difference between “we are the people” and “we are a people”). Here, the unifying word I will choose to name these subjects is “Queer.” The Queer subject doesn’t necessarily have to have anything to do with sexual predilection; “Queer,” here, can simply mean a subject with the experience of being outside of banal normality and passivity and endless deferment. “The singulier universel is a group that, although without any fixed place in the social edifice (or, at best, occupying a subordinated place), not only demands to be heard on equal footing with the ruling oligarchy or aristocracy (that is, to be recognized as a partner in political dialogue and the exercise of power) but, even more, presents itself as the immediate embodiment of society as such, in its universality, against the particular power interests of aristocracy or oligarchy…” --Slavoj Zizek, “A Leftist Plea for ‘Euro-centrism,’” Critical Inquiry, 1998. The Queer (ad)vantage is circular, wide open; it is in the looking awry, in the enjoyment that occurs when you are either horrified or you laugh knowingly at subtextual information that for most everyone else in the theater, unless they too have perspective, remains and must remain (for their egos to remain solid) hidden; it is in the constructing and recycling and molding of our own cultural comprehension. We have had to encode/decode media and meanings in order to be able to enjoy ourselves through the bogs of our cultural “common denominator” and create images of ourselves, those who are compelled to live for ourselves. “[Our] inner sky may remain autonomous and depend only upon itself, but on condition that by means of [our] wisdom, which is also knowledge, [we come] to resemble the order of the world, take it back onto [ourselves] and thus recreate in [our] inner firmament the sway of that other firmament in which [we] see the flitter of the visible stars. If [we do] this, then the wisdom of the mirror will in turn be reflected back to envelop the world in which it has been placed; its great ring will spin out into the depths of the heavens, and beyond; [we] will discover that [we] contain ‘the stars within [ourselves]…’“ – Michel Foucault, The Order of Things,” 1970. We are the people. |
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| Synesthesia (excerpt) Tony Oursler, 2002, USA, video, color, stereo, 3 min. An excerpt from Tony Oursler’s Synesthesia compendium, this section features Tony Conrad discussing television and the idea of creating one’s own entertainment. |
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| Wayne’s World Ryan Trecartin, 2003, video, color, stereo, 8 min. Trecartin and his collaborator/co-star Lizzie Fitch ponder the messages delivered by the most banal forms of mass media and pop culture in their own unique version of a music video. They voice questions in song and dance segments that feature a deliberately ill-fitting pastiche of discarded fashions of the past two decades and recycled pop-music clichés. |
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| Over My Dead Body Dale Hoyt, 1983, video, color, mono, 15 min. Hoyt visits a neighborhood, insinuating himself and his party as a news crew, to interview its residents about a horrible series of murders recently committed (when in fact no murders had been committed and the entire event has been fabricated). |
| Protest Rushes Artist, 2008, S8/video, color, mono, 3 min. Super-8 rushes of a lone man protesting the ugly intrusion of capitalism in idiosyncratic NYC locations; an homage to Super-8 protest films. |
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| The Drama of the Gifted Child Cecilia Dougherty, 1992, video, black & white, stereo, 6 min. This tape is about the idea of narcissistic transference, sexual dependency, and the failure to distinguish between the self and the loved one. It is also about using love to create a border between oneself and political and psychological oppression. |
| Lover Come Back (excerpt) Delbert Mann, 1961, 35mm/video, color, stereo, 10 min. This sex comedy starring Rock Hudson and Doris Day uses subtext and innuendo to comment upon the artifice of the romance and the hidden real. |
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| Awakening of Desire Simon Hughes, 1997, Canada, video, color, stereo, 4 min. “We, the viewers, [have to choose] which scenario we prefer: the mechanical, monotonous, morbid melancholy evoked by the figurines or the sudden erection of fluid-filled extremities in need of release; at least the latter is capable of sweeping us off our feet, into deeper dimensions of black holes.” –George Kuchar, Magnetic North, 2000. |
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| Love Comix Barry Shils, 1982, video, color, mono, 8 min. A campy re-enactment, starring Ann Magnuson, of a comic book about a woman whose life is changed drastically when she gets married and must begin to negotiate her new hetero-normative existence with her history of transgression and reluctance to give it up. |
| What is Genius? Sarah McKiel, 2008, video, color, stereo, 2 min. McKiel, this time around, watches a reality show about cutting hair…McKiel’s interactions with the TV she is watching creates a visible schism between what is broadcasted and what is seen. |
| Cat Zoom Brett Levin, 2007, Youtube video, color, silent, 1 min. The Infinite Cat Project is a website dedicated to the phenomenon of cats watching other cats watching cats watching other cats over the internet, revealing a kind of feline-o-morphized allegory of what it is to post our lives on Youtube—Shröedinger’s Mandelbrot feedback loop; cats consuming cats, cats in a box, cats who are both alive and dead at the same time, for infinity. |
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| The Speech Doug Hall, 1982, video, color, mono, 4 min. “This tape grew out of my fascination with Ronald Reagan and his uncanny ability to demonstrate what I called the ‘Signifiers of Americanism’. Through gesture and intonation, he seemed to suggest many of the virtues that Americans hold dear. Although not directly about Reagan, The Speech suggests some of these issues, while remaining purposely ambiguous. The tape is really a speech about speeches.” —Doug Hall |
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| New Report Unknown Artist K8 Hardy & Wynne Greenwood, 2008, video, color, stereo, 12 min. Newscasters Henry Stein-Acker-Hill and Henry Irigaray, “pregnant with information,” present this special in-depth news analysis of an occurrence where a female artist has allegedly thrown away her paintings into the trash. New Report analyzes and responds to the role of female identity in the art world and the lack of support for women artists today. |
| Off (excerpt) Tony Oursler, 1999, video, color, stereo, 2 min. An excerpt from Oursler’s compendium of 1990s cable access programming featuring a self-help guru who likes to position her camera in a way that reflects the way she may position herself in life. |
