Gaijin

Gaijin = A non-Japanese person. In 1984 I celebrated my eighth birthday on my mother's island. My Uncle Pat set a VHS camcorder up on a tripod and left it running to record the festivities. A year or two later, I accidentally recorded a snippet of the sitcom Mr. Belvedere over some of the footage. In November 2003, I combined some of these VHS artifacts with music I made on a Game Boy and images found on Google using the keyword “gaijin.” The images were animated in After Effects within my first few days of using the software, under the tutelage of Ed Rankus (I audited his class at SAIC for a few weeks). I made this piece quickly, within a couple of short sessions/days, so that it could premiere at London’s Exploding Cinema, at the invitation of Jennet Thomas.

This video is part of the 5 Video Hits series and is also available on Kent Lambert Videoworks: Volume 1