MAYHEM (1987, dir. Abigail Child, 20 min.)
Through a catalogue of looks, movements, and gestures, Mayhem presents a social order run amok in a libidinous retracing of film noir conventions. Sexuality flows in an atmosphere of sexual tension, danger, violence, and glamour; antagonism between the sexes is symbolized in the costuming of women in polka dots and men in stripes. Censored in Tokyo for its use of Japanese lesbian erotica, this tape creates an image bank of what signifies the sexual and the seductive in the history of imagemaking, pointing to the way we learn about our bodies, and how to use them from images.
BOTH (1988, dir. Abigail Child, 2 min.)
A beautifully ambiguous study of the nude in light and movement, this short silent film focuses on the dimly lit bodies
CHINESE TYPEWRITER (1983, dir. Daniel Barnett, 28 min.)
As a reflection on culture and language this film occupies a space somewhere between film essay and visual poem. Images and sounds of everyday life - in the street, the classroom, the theatre and the print shop - were recorded in China in 1978 and woven into a multi-layered construction on the optical printer. The filmmaker sees an analogy between the Chinese typewriter (invented shortly after his visit to China) which is used to manipulate thousands of ideograms and the optical printer on which he manipulated thousands of images.
Total Run Time: 50 Minutes
