Identically dressed, and with sibling-like resemblance, performance artists Trevor Martin and Kym Olsen shift between spoken word and athletic dance choreography in a collection of 29 scenes. Set in various locations--including a gymnasium, an abandoned hospital, and a trailer park circus--Martin and Olsen slip between a ventriloquist and his dummy, a seducer and his surrogate, a doctor and his patient, and synchronized dance partners. The film examines a complex social psychology--questioning the colonization of the human body for various political, medical and religious agendas.

Identically dressed, and with sibling-like resemblance, performance artists Trevor Martin and Kym Olsen shift between spoken word and athletic dance choreography in a collection of 29 scenes. Set in various locations--including a gymnasium, an abandoned hospital, and a trailer park circus--Martin and Olsen slip between a ventriloquist and his dummy, a seducer and his surrogate, a doctor and his patient, and synchronized dance partners. The film examines a complex social psychology--questioning the colonization of the human body for various political, medical and religious agendas.

Identically dressed, and with sibling-like resemblance, performance artists Trevor Martin and Kym Olsen shift between spoken word and athletic dance choreography in a collection of 29 scenes. Set in various locations--including a gymnasium, an abandoned hospital, and a trailer park circus--Martin and Olsen slip between a ventriloquist and his dummy, a seducer and his surrogate, a doctor and his patient, and synchronized dance partners. The film examines a complex social psychology--questioning the colonization of the human body for various political, medical and religious agendas.

Each year, crowds of Turkish, Australian and New Zealander tourists travel to Gallipoli, Turkey for a modern day pilgrimage. They honor their fallen soldiers who lost their lives in the Gallipoli/Çanakkale Campaign—one of the bloodiest conflicts of World War One—, which is considered as a defining moment in the establishment of the Turkish nation state as well as the beginning of national consciousness in Australia and New Zealand. With heightened emotions, they move around the historical battlefields, graves and war monuments with the help of guided tours tailored for each community.

In this cooking demonstration/performance, Sobell wears a chicken carcass over her face while dressing (literally, in baby clothes) a chicken to be cooked for dinner. Cooing and breast feeding the chicken as she would an infant, Sobell brings two stereotypical female roles—that of care giver and that of cook—psychotically close, emphasizing the potential dark side of women’s intimate association with food in a way similar to Suzanne Lacy’s Learn Where the Meat Comes From.

Welcome to The History of the Future: A Franklin Furnace View of Performance Art.  This disc set is based upon a live event that took place at the Abrons Art Center in New York City on April 27, 2007.  Within this box set, you'll find performances from that event as well as historical videos that capture the thrills and chills of performance art during the last 30 years.

Based on his ever-changing performance Indian Tails, this video features Luna sitting alone in his darkened room in front of the TV on Christmas Eve. As he sits, he calls friends, family and ex-lovers, excusing himself from all their celebrations. Luna tells us, "In the work there is a thin line between what is fictional and what is non-fiction, and what is real emotion and what is art. … There is a cultural element where I let (or seem to let) people in on American Indian cultures.

Hokey Sapp Does SPEW features Kate Schechter performing her invented media personality Hokey Sapp interviewing some of the luminaries at SPEW: The Homographic Convergence, a queer zine convention hosted by Randolph Street Gallery in Chicago in May, 1991. SPEW brought together artists, writers, editors of zines, performers, video-makers, activists, and bands from throughout the US and Canada, and marked the explosion of queercore subcultures through unabashed fashion, outrageous politics, humor, and joy.

Parnes moves further into her interrogation of horror genres and the art world, with their sometimes over-lapping cults of personality. Grappling with the danger of beauty without criticality, Hollywood Inferno takes the viewer through the alienating world of a teenager named Sandy, a modern-day Dante, and follows where her aspirations toward stardom lead her.

Klaus Nomi (born Klaus Sperber) was an underground superstar in the East Village arts scene in the 1970s and early 1980s. Known for his dramatic attire and make-up, and his theatrical stage presence, Nomi was a countertenor and could achieve a wide vocal range, allowing him to include operatic embellishments to his musical numbers. He died in 1983 and was one of the earliest artists to die from AIDS.

In Home Tape Revised, Benglis took a portable tape recorder with her when she visited her family in Louisiana. She saw most of the experience through the video camera, thus giving her a distance from an emotionally involving situation. The tapes were replayed and re-shot off a monitor and commented about by Benglis... It is a deeply personal tape about an emotionally involving situation, but it is precisely controlled.

A HalfLifers journey to a lush interior landscape where some domestic chores and an unexpected encounter provoke a crisis at Mission Control, paving the way for a seasonal reflection upon the meaning of "home."

This title is also available on HalfLifers: The Complete History.

This real-time video-meets-digital-animation trilogy of shorts features the highly excited and mildly delusional Joe Gibbons. As the phony, Gibbons recounts his influence among rock legends Iggy Pop and Brian Wilson. Brilliant superimposed computer animation by Emily Breer provides an additional layer of biting commentary.  

Ana Mendieta performs a kiss in Old Man's Creek with another performer.

There is a crudeness to How's Tricks, Benglis's first venture into narrative fiction. No attempt is made to hide the mechanics of making the tape. At one point, while Benglis and [Stanton] Kaye argue about the tape they are making of [Bobby] Reynolds (a real-life carny who also appears in The Amazing Bow-Wow), Kaye is seen reaching over to turn off the video recorder — and thus the scene ends...

There is a crudeness to How's Tricks, Benglis's first venture into narrative fiction. No attempt is made to hide the mechanics of making the tape. At one point, while Benglis and [Stanton] Kaye argue about the tape they are making of [Bobby] Reynolds (a real-life carny who also appears in The Amazing Bow-Wow), Kaye is seen reaching over to turn off the video recorder — and thus the scene ends...

Having collaborated with videographers for previous media works, Eiko & Koma decided to work alone in creating Husk. Koma adopted the role of cameraman to film Eiko's solo piece. Eiko & Koma used the playback function of the video camera to create choreography for body and camera as one long take. This media dance is presented with no editing done in post-production. Sound design by Eiko. Filmed May, 1987 at the Kampo Cultural Center, New York, NY.

The performer interprets a video demonstration of a series of poses with mirrors, not unlike Breder's Bod/Sculpture photo series, but this time in a studio. This performance was later staged several times with Breder directing from off-camera.

Performed by Georgeanne Higgins.

A wonderfully witty work about nostalgia and desperation. Anne McGuire portrays a Kennedy-era singer performing in the space where theatre meets television. McGuire's Garland-esque gestures provide both a sense of tragedy and humor. I Am Crazy And You’re Not Wrong weaves narrative, performance, memory and history into an ironic and haunting work of singular proportions.

“A good example of Baldessari’s deadpan irreverence is the 1971 black-and-white video entitled I Am Making Art, in which he moves different parts of his body slightly while saying, after each move, ‘I am making art.’ The statement, he says, ‘hovers between assertion and belief.’ On one level, the piece spoofs the work of artists who, in the late 1960s and early 1970s, explored the use of their own bodies and gestures as an art medium.

Steve Seid of Pacific Film Archive calls it, “An episodic adventure about extra-evolutionary transformation. Organized as 'lesson plans’, this unique work is an ambitious tutorial for the neo-nauts of inner space."

This title is only available on Soft Science.

Steve Seid of Pacific Film Archive calls it, “An episodic adventure about extra-evolutionary transformation. Organized as 'lesson plans’, this unique work is an ambitious tutorial for the neo-nauts of inner space."

This title is only available on Soft Science.

In i am wise enough to die things go (2023), Syms explores the idea of psychosis through an unnamed protagonist reciting a monologue. Responding to the work of iconic animator Chuck Jones, Syms transfers the form and narrative structure of an animated short into live-action. Working with the inherent challenges and restrictions brought about by this sort of translation, she delves into both the breaking up of images and the breakdown of the psyche.

Eiko Otake’s I Invited Myself is a multi-volume installation which features choreography of place, movements of both performer and viewers, along with projections of selected video and film works created by Eiko over the last 40 years.

Unlike audiences to cinema, literature, music, and visual art works, the audience to contemporary performance work often experiences one newly created evening-length piece. Those audiences who saw the artist’s earlier works have an understanding of her trajectory, but younger or new audiences might not.  

The title gives a bitter meaning to the uneasy image of a woman who is brushing her hair over her face with fierce movements. Mostly the face remains impersonally hidden under her hair; when it is uncovered, we see how the rough scratches of the brush against the skin have smeared her lipstick.

This title is also available on Hester Scheurwater Videoworks: Volume 1.