My Word

Vito Acconci 

1973-74, 91:30 min, color, silent, Super 8mm film on video

In this feature-length silent film, Acconci uses hand-written title cards to present an "interior monologue" about speaking, language, and silence. The written text alternates with images of Acconci, alone in the interior of an urban loft or on a rooftop, with the skyline of downtown New York as a backdrop. This metaphorical landscape of isolation resonates in the text, in which Acconci directly addresses several different women by name, alluding to their relationships with him. The women's identities seem mutable; they are consigned to silence, others without a voice. Given the unstable nature of subjectivity in his work, Acconci ultimately appears to be "speaking" to himself.

The Red Tapes

Vito Acconci 

1977, 141:27 min, b&w, sound

The Red Tapes is Acconci's masterwork, a three-part epic that is one of the major works in video. Acconci maps a topography of the self within a cultural and social context, locating personal identity through history, cultural artifacts, language and representation.