Mirror Machine: Video and Identity
Toronto: YYZ Books, 1996
ISBN 0920397131
Mirror Machine: Video and Identity, edited by Janine Marchessault, includes essays that critically examine video art in Canada. The featured authors discuss how video is employed as a tool for accessible representation, but is also often used to privilege desirable narratives. The authors cite examples that demonstrate instances where video has been used to promote cultural assimilation and a facade of national unity. Mirror Machine presents a history of video art in Canada that ranges from institutionally driven initiatives to emblems of resistance.
Contents:
Preface by Janine Marchessault;
Amateur Video and the Challenge for Change by Janine Marchessault;
Cultural Democracy and Institutionalized Difference: Intermedia, Metro Media by Nancy Shaw;
Interstitial Aesthetics and the Politics of Video at the Canada Council by Kevin Dowler;
A History in Four Moments by Peggy Gale;
The Body-That-Disappears-Into-Thin-Air: Vera Frenkel's Video Art by Kay Armatage;
How to Search for Signs of (East) Asian Life in the Video World by Monika Kin Gagnon;
Mirroring Identities: Two Decades of Video Art in English Canada by Dot Tuer;
The Lamented Moments/Desired Objects of Video Art: Towards an Aesthetics of Discrepancy by Christine Ross;
Video Space/Video Time: The Electronic Image and Portable Video by Ron Burnett;
Subjects on the Threshold: Problems with the Pronouns by Renee Baert;
Process Video: Self-Reference and Social Change by Jennifer Kawaja;
Aboriginal Voices: Entitlement through Storytelling by Marjorie Beaucage;
Deregulating Identity: Video and AIDS Activism by Tom Folland;
Contributors.
ITEM 1995.166 – available for viewing in the Research Centre
Videos, Artworks and Artists Cited
A Saint-Henri le cinq septembre – Hubert Aquin
TV Monodramas – Stan Douglas
You Taste American – John Greyson
The Things I Cannot Change – Tanya Ballantyne
Corral – Colin Low
India Hearts Beat – Leila Sujir
Laws and Skin – Chris Martin
My Body is a Metaphor – Stasie Friedrick
Spectral Bodies – Catherine Richards'
Itam Hakim Hopiit – Victor Masayesva
Fill – David Askevold
Sackville, I'm Yours – Colin Campbell
The Learning Path – Loretta Todd
Insertion by Mouth – Eric Cameron
My Five Years in a Nutshell – Vincent Trasov
Pilot – General Idea
Two-Way Mirror – John Watt
Facing South – Lisa Steele
Waiting for Lancelot – Lisa Steele
The Woman for Malibu – Colin Campbell
Delicate Issue – Kate Craig
Crime Time Comix Presents Steel and Flesh – Eric Metcalfe
Out of Control – Noel Harding
Hygiene – Jorge Lozano and Andrew James Patterson
Tristesse modèle réduit – Robert Morin and Lorraine Dufour
Quartet for Deafblind – Norman Cohn
Scars – Lorna Boschman
Ten Dollars or Nothing – Sara Diamond
Ordinary Shows, Chinese Shade – Paul Wong
The Way to My Father's Village – Richard Fung
Nunaqpa (Going Inland) – Zacharias Kunuk
Legal Memory – Lisa Steele and Kim Tomczak
Qu'est-ce qu'on a fait au bon Dieu – Yves Chaput
Continuons le combat – Pierre Farlardeau
Le temps d'une priere – Jacques Benoît and Jean-Claude Germain
Hitch Hiking – Frank Vitale
Chaperons rouges – Hélène Bourgault and Helen Doyle
Joe – Norman Thibault
Réaction 26 – Claude Binamé
Distance – Luc Bourdon and Francois Girard
Tango Tango – Francois Girard
Introduction to Some of the Players – Vera Frenkel
No Solution-A Suspense Trailer – Vera Frenkel
Thriller – Sally Potter
Her Room in Paris – Vera Frenkel
Boomerang – Richard Serra
Me$$age to China – Susan Britton
Fighting Chance – Richard Fung
Spawning Sockeyes – Tomiyo Sasaki
Air – Ken Lum
Akuma – Fumiko Kiyooka
The Blue Mule Tapes – Ken Kuramoto
Family Viewing – Atom Egoyan
Videodrome – David Cronenberg
I've Heard the Mermaids Singing – Patricia Rozema
Life Classes – David MacGillivray
Happy Birthday – Gerry Gilbert and Carole Itter
Concerned Aboriginal Women – Amelia Productions
Janus – Colin Campbell
Birthday Suit with Scars and Defects – Lisa Steele
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
Test Tube – General Idea
Shut the fuck Up – General Idea
Rune – Randy & Berenicci
The Fourth Corner of the World – Randy & Berenicci
ART vs ART – The Hummer Sisters
White Dawn – Lisa Steele and Kim Tomczak
Working the Double Shift – Lisa Steele and Kim Tomczak
Delicate Issue – Kate Craig
No Small Change – Marusia Bociurkiw
Struggle for Choice – Nancy Nicol
The Gloria Tapes – Lisa Steele
Call Roger – Rodney Werden
Money Talks, Bullshit Walks – Rodney Werden
Confused Views – Paul Wong
You Taste American – John Greyson
Survival of the Delirious – Michael Balser and Andy Fabo
Canadian Diamonds – Gary Kibbins
The Last Screening: A Valentine – Zachery Longboy and Donna James
Influences of My Mother – Sara Diamond
It Depends – Paulette Philips
Here in the Southwest – Joyan Saunder's
My Mother is a Dangerous Woman – b.h. Yael
Whitewash – Jan Peacock
Baby Eyes – Liz Vander Zaag
The Lament of BUshman – Rhonda Abram
Within Dialogue (Silence) – Susan Rynard
Oh Nothing – Dennis Day
The Flow of Apearances – Tess Payne
Incidence of Storage Space – Robert Lee
The Looking Glass – Juan Downey
Mosaic for the Kali Yuga – Daniel Reeves
Lamented Moments/ Desired Objects – Vern Hume
The Reflecting Pool – Bill Viola
I Can't Get Over What I Saw – Elizabeth Schroder
Absence – Su Rynard