Fire!/Hendrix

Dara Birnbaum

1982, 3:13 min, color, sound

Commissioned by VideoGram International, Ltd., for a videodisc of music by Jimi Hendrix, Fire! uses the stylized visuals and pacing of a music video to critique the representational economies of sexuality and consumerism. Translating the psychedelic fervor of the Hendrix song into a...

Kojak/Wang

Dara Birnbaum

1980, 3 min, color, sound

Layered with a tension-laden crescendo of rock guitars and gunshots, Kojak/Wang is a volatile pastiche of fast-paced, repeated images from Kojak (commercial TV), an ad for the Wang Corporation (TV commercial), and color bars. Birnbaum equates the violence of the crime drama shoot-out and the violence of corporate America.

PM Magazine/Acid Rock

Dara Birnbaum

1982, 4:09 min, color, sound

PM Magazine/Acid Rock is a spectacle of visuals and sound, a delirious collage of appropriated TV imagery and dynamic pop music. The introduction to the nightly television broadcast PM Magazine and a segment of a Wang computer commercial are the sources for the highly edited and computerized...

Remy/Grand Central: Trains and Boats and Planes

Dara Birnbaum

1980, 4:18 min, color, sound

Commissioned by Remy Martin for a public exhibition in Grand Central Station in New York, Remy/Grand Central is an advertisement with a deconstructive twist. In a syncopated collage of appropriated footage (including a TV commercial for Sergio Valente jeans) and a young woman drinking Remy on a...