A Kafkian vision of the New World. The arrival of Karl Rossman to the contemporary Babylon under the spell of the paranoid avant-garde. Kinetic coexistence of the archaic forms in dissolution.

2019
https://www.vdb.org/artists/colectivo-los-ingr%C3%A1vidos
49702
Colectivo Los Ingrávidos
Activism

Poison Ivy is an energetic activist response to conservative ideologies and their ‘Contract On America’.

1996
https://www.vdb.org/node/9556
Norman
Cowie
40742
Norman Cowie
Activism

Your Money or Your Life is a video essay on street crime, and on the role played by an atmosphere of pervasive (white) urban fear in structuring and renewing racial antagonism and inequality. At the center of the video is a young, white, middle-class woman caught in an ideological trap in which her genuine fear, whetted and animated by the media, becomes synonymous with racial suspicion and hostility. Her counterpart is a black mugger, who tells a story of unemployment, powerlessness, ambition and cynicism, unmasking an ethos not dissimilar to the ethos of American capitalism.

1986
https://www.vdb.org/node/83304
Laura
Kipnis
40688
Laura Kipnis
Activism

An experimental documentary video project about individuals who have been transformed from so called “ordinary” citizens into activists, Witness To The Future seeks connections that unite people of all cultures, communities, races, and economic classes as they struggle for environmental and social change.

1995
https://www.vdb.org/node/9525
Branda
Miller
40710
Branda Miller
Activism

"Between March 1972 and February 1977, the Videofreex aired 258 television broadcasts from a home-built studio and jerry-rigged transmitter in an old boarding house they rented in the tiny Catskill Mountain hamlet of Lanesville. It was a revolutionary act in defiance of FCC regulations — the first unlicensed TV station in America."

1972
https://www.vdb.org/node/9793
40985
Activism

Pochonovela is a bilingual, bicultural blend of Latin America’s and the United States’ most popular television genres—the telenovela and the sitcom, respectively. The humor and madness of life in East Los Angeles are captured here in performances by members of the Los Angeles-based comedy troupe, Chicano Secret Service, and other U.S. Latino actors. This provocative comedy touches on political, social, cultural, linguistic, and family issues attendent to the cross cultural life of Mexican Americans living near or on the border—both psychologically and geographically.

1996
https://www.vdb.org/node/9637
Coco
Fusco
40826
Coco Fusco
Activism

In the video Glennda does DC, Glennda interviews people in Washington D.C. about the topic of gay rights. As the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force Conference is going on simaltaneously, she asks people if they were aware of this, and if they believe that there should be a gay rights bill.

1992
https://www.vdb.org/node/83199
Glenn
Belverio
48982
Glenn Belverio
Activism

In this episode of Glennda and Friends, Glennda Orgasm and Mark Allen drink at Marie's Crisis Café, a piano bar in Manhattan. They interview other bar patrons and discuss topics including politics, Judy Garland, and the idea of mid-life crisis.

An episode of Glennda and Friends, hosted by Glennda Orgasm and Mark Allen.

1995
https://www.vdb.org/node/83199
Glenn
Belverio
48982
Glenn Belverio
Activism

On the vast Kazakhstan Steppes, nine 16-year-olds prepare to graduate from the Akkol orphanage. Rockets launched overhead from the nearby Cosmodrome inspire their dreams as they write about and perform their imagined future-selves. Guided by the nomadic spirit and natural beauty of the Steppes, the teens explore questions of time and truth in relation to the challenging reality of their lives.

2019
https://www.vdb.org/node/9572
Jeanne C.
Finley
40759
Jeanne C. Finley
Activism

The film-essay Mined Soil revisits the work of the Guinean agronomist Amílcar Cabral, who studied soil erosion in the Alentejo region of Portugal through the lens of his political engagement as a leader of the African Liberation Movement of the 1950s. This line of thought intertwines with documentation of an experimental gold mining site, now operated by a Canadian company located in the same Portuguese region once studied by Cabral.

2014
https://www.vdb.org/node/10127
Filipa
César
47823
Filipa César
Activism

In Two-Spirits Speak Out, Brenda and Glennda interview members of We'Wah and Bar-Chee-Ampe, one of the first Two-Spirit Native American organizations in New York. This episode addresses gender identity among Two-Spirit people, and discusses their involvement and experiences within the queer community in New York City. 

1992
https://www.vdb.org/node/83199
Glenn
Belverio
48982
Glenn Belverio
Activism

Subtitled: The Struggle for Western Shoshone Land Land activists Mary and Carrie Dann confront Federal Bureau of Land Management officers determined to impound the women's livestock until they pay grazing fees on land the Shoshone have never sold or otherwise legally transferred to the U.S. government. Part of an ongoing conflict over who will control ancestral lands in Nevada, this videotape depicts a standoff between the two groups, as activists speak about their ties to the land and their determination to keep it at any cost.

1993
https://www.vdb.org/node/9643
Jesse
Drew
40832
Jesse Drew
Activism

In the case of Carlos Motta’s career, the impetus has always been on, not adhering to particular medium or a particular style, but rather using media as it becomes appropriate tell a story that has heretofore been stifled by dominant power structures. The technical variability of his work is only matched by its potential to generate conversation and discourse in the arenas of sexuality, gender, democracy and colonialism – usually as a conflux of all four through historical excavation.

2014
https://www.vdb.org/node/83294
Video Data Bank
40676
Activism

In this episode of The Brenda and Glennda Show, Brenda and Glennda comically debate changing the name of their show to Drag Queens for Jesus, in order to convert all the secular homosexuals to Christianity. They discuss topics like abortion and censorship from a drag queen perspective, exploring the hypocrisy and inherent bias of Christian ideals. Later, Brenda gets her nipple pierced in homage to Sandy Daley's Robert Having His Nipple Pierced (1971).

1992
https://www.vdb.org/node/83199
Glenn
Belverio
48982
Glenn Belverio
Activism

Spanning two years of protest and resistance, this video chronicles the politically-motivated police harassment of the homeless population in Manhattan’s Lower East Side; including suspected arson, illegal eviction, and the demolition of buildings that forced families onto the street. Taking its title from a quote by Malcolm X, By Any Means Necessary is an indictment of government systems that violate the law willfully and at random in the service of wealthy real estate developers.

1990
https://www.vdb.org/node/9598
Paul
Garrin
40786
Paul Garrin
Activism

This is the flowers under attack. An entire ecosystem under attack. This is the omen of the bugambilia. This is the pulsation of the nervous trance of petals in the anthropocentric times. Part of the Hauntology series.

2019
https://www.vdb.org/artists/colectivo-los-ingr%C3%A1vidos
49702
Colectivo Los Ingrávidos
Activism

Turner Prize winning conceptual artist Jeremy Deller works across many different mediums, creating highly political and frequently collaborative works. Defying conventionality, Deller often exhibits outside of traditional gallery spaces, such as his 1993 twist on artist open studios, Open Bedroom, a secret exhibition in Deller’s family home while his parents were on holiday.

2019
https://www.vdb.org/node/83294
Video Data Bank
40676
Activism

Irreverent yet poignant, The Eternal Frame is a re-enactment of the assassination of John F. Kennedy as seen in the famous Zapruder film. This home movie was immediately confiscated by the FBI, yet found its way into the visual subconscious of the nation. The Eternal Frame concentrates on this event as a crucial site of fascination and repression in the American mindset.

"The intent of this work was to examine and demystify the notion of the presidency, particularly Kennedy, as image archetype...."

— Doug Hall, 1984 

1976
https://www.vdb.org/node/10033
41234
Ant Farm
Activism

This interview depicts American writer, activist, and AIDS historian Sarah Schulman (b. 1958), discussing becoming a writer, her novels, and her long-term collaboration with filmmaker James Hubbard on projects devoted to gay liberation and AIDS activism. Born in New York to a Holocaust-surviving family, Schulman grew up in an era where women were not considered important.

2018
https://www.vdb.org/node/83294
Video Data Bank
40676
Activism

Broadcasters across Ireland and Britain have entered into a blackout strike. The workers are transmitting a programme bringing censored voices back onto the airwaves.

"In the late 1980s, as violence continues in the north of Ireland, censorship is increasingly being enforced on British and Irish television. In response, broadcasters have entered into a blackout strike, occupying several stations and transmitting a programme bringing censored voices back onto the airwaves."

2023
https://www.vdb.org/node/171382
Frank
Sweeney
57441
Frank Sweeney
Activism

Statement

A last stand for the silent guardians of the old order. Take It Down is a filmic day of reckoning for the Old Confederate South. What is up must come down, like the Confederate soldier monuments standing in court house squares across the South. At long last, a grand inversion! Solarized film makes positives bleed into negatives. The South is renewed.

This film looks to North Carolina to describe the cultural fissure that runs through the South, a legacy of the Civil War. In the context of the divisive Trump presidency and the increasing visibility of white supremacist activism, these Confederate memorials have become sites of conflicting politics and historical narratives. 

Historians agree that a majority of Confederate statues were erected as propaganda tools legitimizing racism in the era of Jim Crow laws. For example, “Silent Sam”, a statue depicted in the film, was erected on the quad of the University of North Carolina campus. In an act of civil disobedience in Fall 2018, students and protestors tore down the statue in a statement against white supremacist oppression.

2019
https://www.vdb.org/artists/sabine-gruffat
Sabine
Gruffat
49698
Sabine Gruffat
Activism

The Politics of Breathing: Tear Gas.

2019
https://www.vdb.org/artists/colectivo-los-ingr%C3%A1vidos
49702
Colectivo Los Ingrávidos
Activism

In Post Queer Pride 93, Brenda and Glennda attend the New York City Queer Pride Parade. This video marks the return of Brenda after her relocation to Florida, and Glennda interviews her about the queer scene and gay activism in the South. At the parade, they conduct interviews with queers about the postqueer movement, the leather and SM scene, feminism, and capitalism.

1993
https://www.vdb.org/node/83199
Glenn
Belverio
48982
Glenn Belverio
Activism

You will never be a woman. You must live the rest of your days entirely as a man and you will only grow more masculine with every passing year. There is no way out.

2008
https://www.vdb.org/node/10064
A. L.
Steiner
42243
A. L. Steiner
Activism

In Wigstock ’94, Glennda and her friend Bobra attend Lady Bunny’s Wigstock festival. Following the event’s move from the East to the West Village, they explore the changing dynamics and configurations of queer culture in New York. The pair interview other drag queens, members of the local community, and passersby to get a sense of how an event like Wigstock is received by the city.

An episode of Glennda and Friends, hosted by Glennda Orgasm and Bobra. Featuring Jackie Beat, Joan Crawford, Jackie O., Sherry Vine, Nona Vulva, Wendy Wild, and Yumi.

1994
https://www.vdb.org/node/83199
Glenn
Belverio
48982
Glenn Belverio
Activism