Mirror Machine: Video and Identity
YYZ Books, McGill University, 1995
This chapter chronicles and contextualizes significant Canadian video works from the 1970s until the 1990s. Discussed are works that use the video apparatus to problematize the narrative structures of cinema, but also counteract the codification and ideologies perpetuated by television itself, and critically assess Canada’s schizophrenic relationship to technological developments at large. Whereas a proclamation of the body’s presence largely dominated the 1970s video art scene, in the 1980s this shifted more so to an investigation of its traces as a cultural memory. Specific attention is also devoted to underrepresented voices and narratives, as the author claims video as “a place from which silenced voices speak, and video art as an index of resistance to dominant culture.”
ITEM 1995.159 – available for viewing in the Research Centre
Videos, Artworks and Artists Cited
Family Viewing – Atom Egoyan
Happy Birthday – Gerry Gilbert
Happy Birthday – Carole Itter
Janus – Colin Campbell
My Recall of an Imprint from a Hypothetical Jungle – David Askevold
String Games: Improvisations for Inter-City Video – Vera Frenkel
Envisioner – Tom Sherman
Exclusive Memory – Tom Sherman
Come on Touch It – Ian Murray
Hell – Ardele Lister
Pilot – General Idea
Test tube – General Idea
Shut the Fuck Up – General Idea
Fourth Corner of the World – Randy
Fourth Corner of the World – Berenicci
Rune – Randy
Rune – Berenicci
ART vs ART – The Hummer Sisters
Delicate Issue – Kate Craig
No Small Change – Marusia Bociurkiw
Struggle for Choice – Nancy Nicol
The Gloria Tapes – Lisa Steele
Woman From Malibu – Colin Campbell
Modern Love – Colin Campbell
Bad Girls – Colin Campbell
No Voice Over – Colin Campbell
Hygiene – Andrew Patterson
Hygiene – Jorge Lozano
Of Woman Born – Adrienne Rich
Call Roger – Rodney Werden
Pauli Schell – Rodney Werden
Baby Dolls – Rodney Werden
Story of Red – Rodney Werden
Blue Moon – Rodney Werden
Money Talks – Rodney Werden
Bullshit walks – Rodney Werden
The Last Screening Room – Vera Frenkel
Canadian Diamonds – Gary Kibbins
Prime Cuts – Paul Wong
Body Fluid – Paul Wong
Confused views – Paul Wong
Frankly Shirley – Margaret Moores
Ordinary Shadows, Chinese Shade – Paul Wong
Kipling Meets the Cowboys – John Greyson
The Jungle Boy – John Greyson
You Taste American – John Greyson
Nunaqpa – Zacharias Kunuk
From Another Time Comes One – Donna James
And the Word Was God – Ruby Truly
Maigre Dog – Donna James
Influences of my Mother – Sara Diamond
The Lament of the Bushman – Rhonda Abrams
Within Dialogue – Su Rynard
Oh Nothing – Dennis Day