Anthem is a post-industrial lamentation, structured on the single piercing scream of a young girl as she stands in the vast chamber of Union Station in Los Angeles. Viola relates this structure to the form and function of religious chants, particularly Gregorian chants (using a harmonic scale in a resonant hall) and Tantric Buddhist chants (ritual exorcism and conversation with demons). The original scream is extended in time and shifted in frequency to produce a scale of harmonic notes that comprises the soundtrack, to which Viola juxtaposes images of materialism -- industry and the worship of the body, giant oil pumps and the beating human heart, cars streaming along a freeway and blood flowing through veins, modern surgical technology and tree branches in an ancient forest. The anguished scream cuts through the corporeality of the body and contemporary culture as a living organism. For Viola, the piece is a ritual evocation of "our deepest primal fears, darkness, and the separation of body and spirit."

Lewanne Jones is Autonomedia's main Film and Video specialist. She will present her research into media archaeology in the EE.UU. New York-based Autonomedia are one of the most lucid publishers of books on radical media, politics and the arts. They have published more than 300 titles that have influenced and given voice to a generation of authors, thinkers and social collectives, and established a dialogue between seemingly unconnected critical voices. Their publications include: Temporary Autonomous Zones, by Hakim Bey; Digital Resistance and Electronic Civil Disobedience, by Critical Art Ensemble; Hacktivism, by the Electronic Disturbance Theatre; Pirate Utopias and European Renegades, by Peter Lamborn Wilson.  

Behind the scenes tour of NBC's radio and television broadcasting facilities at Rockefeller Center, New York City. The Prelinger Archives are a source of educational material, mainly ordered by theme, giving a vision of the dark side, the underbelly, perhaps naive of the American dream and the America that is ten hidden behind the media curtain. 6th Independent Vídeo & Interactive Phenomena Show

There's a Devil Loose

An experimental documentary about the role corporations have played in shaping the American public's perceptions of the developing world. Weaving together clips of corporate-produced archival film with poetry, performance, and other metaphorically interpretive text, the tape raises questions about how public relations media operate in the constitution of power, how and by whom history is written, and how audience and consumer desire are constructed. 3 Mostra de Vídeo Independent de Barcelona 1996.    

Decasia is composed entirely of decaying, nitrate-based archival footage which seems to melt, burn, drip and deteriorate before our very eyes. In his search for striking examples of emulsion deterioration, Morrison examined close to a thousand archive prints from numerous collections. But Decasia is no mere celebration of the psychedelic beauty of decay, for Morrison has deliberately chosen images which seem to push back against their own physical disintegration.