Sensible Shoes is a witty collision of fiction and reality, ironically rendered as a multi-textual pastiche of mass media and personal narratives. Adams’ fragmented collage is structured on the stream-of-consciousness monologue of an unseen woman, who collapses fantasy and the everyday as she “zaps” the television dial and skims the newspaper. Seamlessly integrating her daydreams of romance with appropriated images of violence, love and consumerism from popular British TV programs and ads, Adams tells the story of how the mass media dictates the construction of personal narratives. Visuals, voiceover and on-screen words are juxtaposed in a tightly edited assemblage of off-air TV imagery, shrewd wordplay and visual puns. The source of the handwritten text that propels the spoken and image-driven narrative is revealed in an ironic twist at the tape’s end. – Electronic Arts Intermix

Introduction written by Stuart Marshall for exhibition of Recent British Video, New York 1983.pdf here.

The Relationship of Picture, Copy and Reality: Article on “Video in the Cinema” screenings being shown in The Abaton, written by Lothar Kurzawa, TAZ Hamburg 22nd May 1986.pdf here.

5th Junior Dublin Film Festival, Irish Film Centre, UCI Tallaght, UCI Coolock, Dublin 14th-25th November 1994.pdf here.

Introduction written by Dimitri Eipides for catalogue accompanying the 13th Montreal International Festival of New Cinema, 18th-28th October 1984.pdf here.

Piece written about John Adams and his video works for the Electronic Arts Intermix Catalogue.pdf here.

Introduction by Jean-Luc Outers for catalogue to accompany exhibition Voir Des Video 5eme Edition, Wallonie, Brussels, London 3-5th May, Brussels 1985.pdf here.

Video Screenings, Summary Video UK – Programme of video works from Recent British Video Exhibition, Toronto March ’84. Presented for the first time at the ICA Cinematheque, The Mall, London, 1984. Includes the work ‘Sensible Shoes’.pdf here

Programme of ICA June 1984 events, screenings etc. Including ‘Tuesday Screening, Summary Video UK’ – video works drawn from Recent British Video Exhibition, Toronto March ’84. Presented for the first time at the ICA Cinematheque, The Mall, London, 1984.pdf here

‘Subverting Television – a three-part programme of British video art’, inlcudes information on John Adams’ ‘Sensible Shoes’.pdf here

‘Alternative Television – contemporary video artists presenting their own work’. A selection of videotapes presented by the artists at the Northampton Arts Centre January 1984. Including Adams’ ‘Sensible Shoes’.pdf here

‘Voir Des Videos 84/85 – Wallonie, Bruxelles, Londres’. A selection of videotapes including ‘Sensible Shoes’, exhibited in Brussels and London as part of the 5th video art festival ‘Voir Des Videos’.pdf here