Humor

Frozen in time and place, yet celebrating birthdays left and right, I ponder the technology that sends me out into the world via magnetism—a magnetism that not only attracts images and sound but also the particles of nothing that become something when activated by a dust mop. A meditation on white spots and black holes that suck and purr when plugged in or turned on.

Clouds abound in this short meditation on vaporous masses that flow across the borders of our windowpanes, leaving in their wake the wreckage of discarded diets and sugar coated emptiness. Into those holes that surround us with the sweetness of puffy dough we plunge into a landscape of desolation and rebirth, never again to deny the terror that piles up in the sky like a malignant mound of virgin pudding. A mass of revolving turbulence hell-bent on defying gravity in the name of vertical instability and electrical insanity. A supercell for the supersized who flee its windy wrath.

A bird of paradise is pruned for the lens of a Bolex camera as my Sony camcorder documents the film and video scene out here in fog-bound Frisco. A look behind the haze that blocks from view new and old faces as they frame within the medium of choice the tidbits we eventually devour with our eyes.

A Day for Cake and Accidents features a cast of animal characters — each of a different, though often indeterminate, species — who struggle with impending astrological despair and engage in absurdist dialogs, confessing various melancholic desires and transgressive secrets in poetic cartoon abjection.

A Day for Cake and Accidents is the third in a series of short collaborative animations.

In this attempt to resolve the on-going crisis, Burns and Discenza find themselves in, variously, a childrens adventure playground, a garage and a yard. They utilize a mechanical digger to dig the soil, they toil at skipping and pogo-ing, they vacuum each other. Eventually a type of surgery is performed.

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

A young communist girl named Sharambaba resists her suitor in a carriage. She speaks of what he calls her "fantasy world". All of the dialogue is played backwards with accommodating subtitles.

This title is also available on Jim Finn Videoworks: Volume 1.

An intrepid academic travels the world, asking people if it is OK for someone to stab a friend in order to test the sharpness of a knife. If one person says it's OK and another says it's not OK, can both respondents be right? This video is an illustration of a multi-layered experiment designed to test the claims of several traditional philosophers that non-experts (folk) tend to hold rigidly absolutist views of morality.

Originally made during 1976-77 and re-mastered in March 2005, this selection contains a mix of visual jokes, conceptual humor and performance. Wegman "dialogs" with himself, close-ups of his mouth and teeth taking on different characteristics and voices; remakes of earlier black and white performances; and man and dog in focus, including a failed attempt to induce Man Ray to smoke.

Alarm Clock, 0:30

Doctor Patient, 2:20

Bad Movies, 2:00

Drop, 0:43

Fruit, 0:25

Smoking, 1:55

Horseshoes, 1:10

Fast, 0:15

Concerto, 1:20

With wit and humor, seven-year-old Kendra portrays ten female stereotypes, including an ingratiating Southern belle, a motorcycle-riding tough chick, and a simpering housewife. Under the rubric of playing dress-up, the video illustrates the pervasive, prescribed personalities available to women, and the early age at which girls recognize these choices. But, as outtakes reveal, spirited Kendra’s is infinitely more complex than the cardboard cut-outs she depicts.

In this humorous short, Astrid Hadad, dressed in traditional folkloric costumes and religious garments, sings and performs to a Chilean love ballad before a painterly background of fantastic landscapes. Her hyperbolic posturings enact the song’s tale of a woman’s heartbreak. This satirical presentation of femininity references pathos and the role of the victim. Cuevas’s use of animation and video montage adds a playful tone to the heartfelt melodrama of love songs, familiar touchstones in all cultures.

A love letter to the Internet from a feral cat in Brooklyn.

Anonymously published to the web in 2006, Valentine for Perfect Strangers was an early example of an art video that "went viral," amassing over a half-million views and landing on the front page of YouTube.

Summer and smoke (from pork chops) filters into every rip in my tee-shirt as legs and souls are bared for the infra-red-hot digital camera that's ON THE PROWL!

"I don't put myself into my movies because that would be too much--my pictures reflect my own feelings.  So hopefully it's entertaining.  Otherwise I can't bear looking at them, ha ha!"
–– Mike Kuchar

In this dream-portrait of Mike Kuchar, he floats through his memories as the sea, space and sky drift past. Wrapped in odd costumes, he frolics with the imaginary creatures surrounding him, and recalls the creatures of his own imagination.

This black and white drama of romance, adventure and outer space intervention was mounted at the San Francisco Art Institute. The plot concerns two groups of missionaries who depart for a tropical island inhabited by a population of attractive denizens who are ruled by a libido-fueled queen. She in turn is guided by the Star People who have their own carnal urges and the result is volcanic. The $400 budget guarantees cheap thrills and makes an explosive vehicle for the queen of these dime store dynamos: Linda Martinez (our Sharon Stone).

A month-long video workshop at the University of Wisconsin in Milwaukee results in a loud and action-packed drama. Layers of subplots revolve around the central theme of the violent and emotional body climax in redemption.

A photographer comes to my home to take pictures and gets a lensful. His mouth and his shutter snap away as I aim my finest attributes at his cold and hard equipment.

Take a joyride through comfortable suburbia—a landscape molded by seductive television and corporate America (and keep in mind: disaster is another logo for your consumption...). This is the age of the "culture jammed" consumer preened with Friends hair, Survivor courage, and CNN awareness. A generation emptying their wallets for the most important corporate product of all: lifestyle. The psychological road trip across a slightly battered America travels at One Mile per Minute.

Frisco anxiously awaits the pyrotechnic birth of a New Year while the remnants of holiday greenery still burn bright in all the right places. One of those places gives shelter to an Abyssinian animal of lethargic nature, while all about her the rumblings of tummies in turmoil foreshadow the gluttony of her bipedal guardian.

The Badger Series has issues and attempts, each episode, to resolve them. Recasting a glove puppet show through his own present day sensibilities, Paul assumes the role of kindly uncle mentor to a household of capersome woodland creatures. Mortality, self-sacrfice, depression, altered states of consciousness and transgressive art practices are all explored as part of their everyday lives together.