VENEO VIDEO VICEO is an experimental examination of issues relating to cinematic media, fictions, beliefs and the marketplace.
Central to the work is the story of a young woman who gets the idea to make and market a punk-style aerobics tape—and does so at too great a speed to ever reflect on the ramifications of her project. She lives in New York’s East Village, and just happens to walk by Stephen Spielberg’s “Batteries Not Included” film set each day on her way to and from work. The counterpointing of the two projects—with particular reference to the degree to which either of them pay attention to anything more than a few superficial elements of the community and cultures they purport to be representing—raises the issue of the relationship of reality-representation to the forces of the marketplace.
The dramatic continuity of the story is frequently interrupted and folded into a filmic collage of images of the characters recontextualized in portrait format and overlaid with a series of onscreen texts. These images and texts serve as a chorus, providing comment on the relationship of the marketplace to the television medium and what people get to believe. They also comment on the construction of the video image itself and its enduring physical effect on the brain and our capacity for independent thought.
By these layered means, VENEO VIDEO VICEO calls attention both to satisfactions that are peculiar to the experience of video/television-viewing and which beg to be further explored and enjoyed—and also to some of the inherent qualities of both video and the media marketplace that work against the possibilities for television (most specifically) to function as well as we might like in imparting useful and reliable information.
55:00 minutes © 1991
color/sound video (NTSC); 1", 3/4", VHS
Two Quicktime Clips from this experimental video are viewable online:
14-second excerpt
in which two partners in a home video marketing company
discuss whether the making of an “off” mainstream video is or
isn’t following a market in its own way. (792 K)
33-second excerpt
in which a cyclist crosses the scene from left to right.
Texts reflect on the likelihood that if he were a part of the story, he
would turn back to the scene soon after leaving the shot—while if he
were a genuine part of the neighborhood, he’d have carried on... (1.7 MB)
Cast:
Carole Buggé
Bob Cato *
James Buechler
Marc Cato
Sarah Fargo
Ellen Krueger
Lynn McGlinchey
Tony McMaster
Wendy Lindberg
Anthony Moore
Judy Nazemetz
Christopher Scalici
Terry Sommer
Production Credits:
Writer/Director/Producer/Editor: Rohesia Hamilton Metcalfe
Camera: John Gallagher, Kathleen Mackenzie
Sound Recording: Tony McMaster
Lighting: Marc Cato
* Bob Cato (graphic artist/art director/collagist) R.I.P. 1923-1999
VENEO VIDEO VICEO
was produced through
Artist-in-Residency programs at
The Experimental
Television Center Ltd.
and
Film/Video Arts, NYC;
the online program of
Media Alliance, NYC
and with support from
The Shirley Clarke Workshop, NYC
experimental video and media studies
authenticity in the media; fiction & truth; believability of the television image
deconstructed narratives; film collages