[Frameworks] 40 years of VHS - short video recommendations?

[Steve Polta]

As a former Blockbuster Video store manager and warehouse employee of "
reel.com" during the epic VHS-to-DVD transition, the VHS format has always
been very dear to my heart and I've often thought of "works," "artists" and
"genres" that epitomized this wretched format. For generic VHS I like to
think about exercise/aerobics tapes, "Barney the Dinosaur" and mainstream
releases that saturated the "market" which were everywhere and haunt us in
thrift store junk shelves. "Home Alone" (which I recall having seen for
sale in gas stations and just about everywhere else) is the top of the heap
of this for me and I'm sure there is a monstrous landfill somewhere
overflowing with these horrid specimens.

In terms of "artist-made" work, *Animal Charm*
<http://www.vdb.org/artists/animal-charm> made a huge body of
single-channel tapes and performances derived from goodwill-harvested VHS
tapes (many these are from corporate training-type videos, weird forgotten
product promos etc). *Scott Stark
<http://www.scottstark.com/janefonda.html>'s **More Than Meets the Eye:
Remaking Jane Fonda * <https://vimeo.com/75539914>remakes what is possibly
*the* iconic VHS exercise tape. I would also second Stephen Broomer's
recommendation of Christine Lucy Lattimer's 21st Century VHS work. It was
fun screening *The Pool* in CROSSROADS 2012 (I think) as it allowed me to
purge a VHS deck from my "personal collection," after which it was just
placed outside the theater on the curb and vanished in ten minutes. Fun.

Steve Polta
<https://vimeo.com/75539914>




On Mon, Sep 12, 2016 at 1:03 PM, Stephen Broomer <
stephen_broomer at hotmail.com> wrote:

> Hi Richard,
>
> Christine Lucy Latimer has used VHS to make some very interesting work
> dealing with the format's aesthetic character.
>
> The Pool comes to mind -- https://vimeo.com/32115389
>
> I screened this work about three years ago and seem to remember her
> entrusting me with an exhibition copy on a shiny red VHS tape.
>
> Stephen
>
>
> On Sep 12, 2016, at 12:28 PM, Richard Ashrowan <richard at ashrowan.com>
> wrote:
>
> 40 years of experimental VHS.
>
> We're working on a programme of shorts, aiming to celebrate the 40th
> anniversary of VHS. I would love to hear some recommendations for both
> early canonical and more recent works that deal in specific and contrasting
> ways with the experimental possibilities of the medium.
>
> I do appreciate that this question is too big, for a 90m screening, and a
> bit like asking if anyone knows any good experimental films...  but if
> anyone feels like suggesting a few starting points, it would be most
> appreciated.
>
> Very best,
>
> Richard Ashrowan
> Alchemy: www.alchemyfilmfestival.org.uk
> www.ashrowan.com
>
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