Charmant Band

Klaus vom Bruch

1983, 9:19 min, color, sound

In Charmant Band, the barely suppressed violence of vom Bruch's rapid-fire video switching is mirrored by his dynamic, reductive imagery. In an aggressive collapse of the personal and historical, vom Bruch repeatedly inserts the "live" image of his own face into fragmented film footage depicting...

I am the Light

Ante Bozanich

1976, 3:57 min, b&w, sound

I am the Light explodes with an intensity of focused aggression. Alone before the camera, his face distorted by grimaces and expressionistic lighting, Bozanich hurls insults, obscenities and pleas in a dramatic confrontation with the viewer.

Room Service

Tony Labat

1980, 7:37 min, color, sound

Using confrontational humor and performance, Labat replicates the frustration and anxiety of cultural disorientation in the witty yet pointed Room Service. Playing the role of a newly arrived Latino immigrant, he is seen in a motel room, rehearsing his only English phrases in preparation for a...

Secret Horror

Michael Smith

1980, 13:38 min, color, sound

Another regular evening at Mike's house turns into a comic nightmare. Finding himself a stranger in his own apartment, a "world totally fashioned from the effluvia of TV and pop music," Mike is plagued by a mysterious drop ceiling, his dry cleaning, and a host of ghostly visitors. This postmodern...

The Loner

Tony Oursler

1980, 29:56 min, color, sound

The Loner is a psychosexual journey through the dark landscapes of Oursler's insular narrative universe. The tape's paranoid, tormented protagonist — who is represented by such objects as a spoon and a water-filled sack — wanders through a hostile dreamspace of macabre obsessions and sexual...