Reaction to a Barrage of Video

"If both the image and the sound in video are only "basic," only "outlines,"...be humanly "pushy": I can push up against the screen, as if to throw myself on the viewer," so writes Vito Acconci, writer, director, and star of Theme Song, a video invitation for love. The point of Theme Song is not only humor, which is present, especially when he changes the background music by switching tapes on an off screen cassette player, but Acconci also seeks to put his ideas about the video format into use. No better way to create the human to human contact that Acconci wishes to wring out of video than acting in one hundred percent direct address. Only by laying down, close to the camera, staring at his close audience, can the viewer's attention be grabbed. Acconci's performance is all about humility, maybe even humiliation, and it works. Without seeing it, one would probably be apprehensive about watching this guy for 36 minutes hit on him/her, but, when one is confronted with the video image, it's kind of hard (at least for me) to look away; i was pretty entertained.

Another attention-grabbing performance comes from the Uma Thurman from Pulp Fiction like Lisa Steele in Birthday Suit-With Scars and Defects. In the piece, she is totally nude, pointing out her scars in closeup in a very objective fashion, configuring her poses for the camera by looking at the monitor. This interesting use of video as almost a mirror seems a bit self-indulgent, but it works, especially, in my opinion, because of the intermittent nude shots.

Most of the pieces were void of narrative, focusing more on performance. In Beneath the Skin, however, Cecelia Condit blends these two aspects into a funny and creepy voice over, weaving a story about a boyfriend and the corpse in his house over footage of the woman telling the story, along with pictures. The beautiful woman laying in a bed has a face projected on her face at times, as if the dead woman is trying to invade her brain space or something. The pictures of mummies were pretty funny, obviously historical pictures, not the actual corpse she was referencing. The subtle effect of this video lends to the general creepiness. As the voice slowly reveals the real horror of the story, the images speed up, and one gets an idea of the trauma this character may experience from living this story.