Video

This Is Your Messiah Speaking

Vera Frenkel

1990, 09:10 minutes, colour, English

TAPECODE 122.11

Several interlaced modes of narrative and representation, including American Sign Language, are used to trace and disclose the bond between messiahism and consumerism, our two most prevalent romances of rescue, next to Romance itself. This Is Your Messiah Speaking employs language that is both poetic and ironic. This tape is accessible to the deaf.

This Is Your Messiah Speaking is also available as a two channel, video loop, installation. This Is Your Messiah Speaking involves a loop on one channel and a straightforward repeat on the other. In a gallery setting the Spectacolor Board footage (15:00' animation on Piccadilly Circus sign board) is installed on the left, and the narrative version (9:10') with voice over is on the right.

Rental and Sales

Educational Purchase DVD (Bluray +$15)

$360.00

Single Screening Rental

$150.00

5 Year Educational Streaming License, Digital File with DVD Circulation Copy

$550.00

Gallery Exhibition and Installation, complete Media Request form for quote

Institutional Archival Acquisition, complete Media Request form for quote

Curators and programmers, please contact distribution@vtape.org to receive a login and password to preview Vtape titles online.

Screening and exhibition rentals and archival acquisitions include public performance rights; educational purchases or licenses include rights for classroom screenings and library circulation. When placing an order the customer agrees to our general online terms and conditions. Payment (or a purchase order number) and a signed licensing agreement must be received before media can be shipped to the client.

Critical Writing

Vera Frenkel: Protean Sites and Sightings
by Dault Gary Michael. Border Crossings, June 2014, v. 33, no. 2.
Drink in Vera Frenkel's art homecoming at MOCCA: One of Canada's...
by Murray Whyte. The Toronto Star, Nov. 26, 2014.
Must-see mischief: The fundamental strangeness of Frenkeland at MoCCA
by James Adams. The Globe and Mail, Nov. 28, 2014.
Part One: Language and Interdisciplinarity: (Re-)contextualizing...
by Karl E. Jirgens. Trans/acting culture, writing, memory: essays in honour of Barbara Godard, 2013. Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2013.
Not Just a ride from point A to B: L'Art Boat passengers...
by Matthew Chung. The Toronto Star, June 8, 2007.
Art that's inside the box (set)
by Sarah Milroy. The Globe and Mail, Aug. 18, 2005.
Moving Pictures: UK/Canada Video: Allo, Votre Messie Vous Parle
by Catherine Elwes. Border Crossings, Aug. 2000, v. 19, no. 3.
Revisiting the Power of Absence: Silences, Shadows, and Remembering
by Vera Frankel. Memoire et Archive, Mar. 2000.
Vtape: FAQ & info
by Lissa Gibbs. The Independent, July 1999.
The story is always partial: A conversation with Vera Frenkel:...
by Dot Tuer and Clive Robertson. Art Journal, Winter 1998, v. 57, no. 4.
An artist in motion
by John Bentley Mays. The Globe and Mail, Apr. 12, 1997, no. 122.
Vera Frenkel: Video an Installation Artist
by Roger Matuz. Contemporary Canadian Artists, 1997. Toronto: Gale Canada, 1997.
Indies impressive in year of plenty
by Cameron Bailey. Now, Jan. 2, 1992, v. 11, no. 18.
The Place, The Work, The Dilemma
by Vera Frenkel. This Is Your Messiah Speaking, Aug. 1990.