Part of Summer 1992
The current breakdown of traditional barriers between video and film provides an ideal opportunity to look at the historical distinctions and similarities between the aesthetics of the two mediums, and to ask in what ways this may now be changing. Hosted by Michael Balser and Dot Tuer, this evening’s open forum will be a lively and engaging public discussion and screening, tackling many of these issues. Dot Tuer has written extensively about video and film for many of Canada’s arts magazines and is known as an engaging public speaker. Michael Balser is a Toronto videomaker and an organizer of community-based programming initiatives, including most recently, Toronto Living AIDS.
In thinking through this program about the aesthetics of film and video, Michael and I have chosen to select separate bodies of work, but with one eye upon the interrelationships and programming intersections that this creates. Our mutual discussions have revolved around video and film cross-overs and elements of time-based media that construct commonalities as well as visible and conceptual boundaries. Our reflections on the topic have led us to an interest in the way in which aesthetic difference can be interpreted within a community context and the realm of theoretical mediation.
Does video have a conceptual affinity to cyberspace? Does film reproduce a dream state? How do the structural and historical trajectories of these two time-based mediums respond to the mutating consciousness of McLuhan’s information age? Is there purity to form, a specificity of medium, a difference in community formation? These are some of the questions that have arisen in our conversations. The flickering illusions of cinematic space, the cool simulcast immediacy of telecommunications, the relationship of body to place; these are some of the themes that the work touches upon, some of the ideas we would like to engage in presenting this program.
Michael Balser’s selection:
Why You, Why Anyone Ric Amis, 14 min, 1988.
What Isabelle Wants Wrik Mead, 3 min, 1987.
Warm Wrik Mead, 5 min, 1992.
Haven Wrik Mead, 2 min, 1992.
Apocalypse Poo Todd Graham, 5 min, 1991.
Dot Tuer’s selection:
Untitled Michelle Mclean, 5 min, 1983.
Talking Tongues Lisa Steele, 11 min, 1982.
Second Impressions Lorne Marin, 9 min, 1975.
The Bird that Chirped on Bathurst Street Midi Onodera, 4 min, 1981.
Baby Eyes Liz Van Der Zaag, 3 min, 1983.
Toto Anna Gronau, 2 min, 1985.
