Variety is a tribute to the theatre of vaudeville, burlesque, cabaret, pantomine, circus, fairgrounds, stage magic and illusion.
Inspired by research in the BFi National Film and Television Archive, Variety samples fragments of obscure footage from the early days of cinema and television, including badly damaged nitrate stock. Breakwell then employs sophisticated re-editing, with digital effects, evocative sound and music, to create an audio-visual montage filled with humour, pathos and sensuality. Structured in 12 self-contained ‘acts’ …
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The monumental, video sculpture «Les larmes d’acier» (Tears of Steel) consists of 27 monitors, 6 laser discs, and 6 laser-disc players, installed in a piece of black box architecture. Seen running in perfect synch on all the monitors are various images of athletic young men in the act of training their muscles. With their pronounced physiognomy and builds, they embody the type of muscle man considered a clone. The camera pans slowly over their faces, …
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Commissioned by BBC TV as the unannounced opening work for their special Arena video art programme. First transmitted March 10, 1976.
‘Richard Baker [the well known newsreader] describes the essential paradoxes of the real and imagined functions of the TV set on which he appears. The second shot is taken optically off a monitor, the third copied from the second, and so on, until there is a complete degeneration of both sound and image, …
Continue reading “‘This is a Television Receiver’ (BBC Arena Programme on Video Art) 1976”
