Art Collective

In a radical action like Nam June Paik destroying a violin, and rolling up in bandages the bodies of the players in in a concert by Yoko Ono, the international avant-garde group Fluxus changed not only art, but the concept of it.

Planetary battle over the porous body of the earth. This is the battle of the Earth.

A rhythmic constellation of a proletarian figure.

A two-part study of the self-sustaining lifestyle of a communal farm in Vermont. 

At this time even the flowery wars are ready to begin and the flowery atavism begins to flash. The flowers, the skulls, the moon and the sun are ready for the sacrificial trance. Part of Tonalli.

This extensive interview with California artist Doug Hall (b. 1944) provides unique insight into the culture and politics of experimental artistic production during the 1970s. Discussing the founding of the performance group TR Uthco, Hall offers context for his contribution to the field of video art, and shares stories of his collaborations with Ant Farm, Videofreex, and others. Ranging from his early years as an art student, to his romance with artist Diane Andrews Hall, to reflections on technology in art, this interview importantly extends the discourse surrounding topics of archive, performativity, and autobiography—subjects that have come to define the contours of video art today. 

These are the ghosts of a haunted civilization, a culture of progress that hides the social and political horror behind the Olympic Games. These are the haunted figures in the Capitalocene era. A sinister dance of macabre abstraction. Part of the Hauntology series.

Mother’s Day in Mexico is considered one of the most important family holidays of the year. Thousands of mothers have nothing to celebrate. They are the mothers of victims of forced disappearances. Mothers and relatives of the disappeared participated in the "March of National Dignity. Mothers searching for their Sons, Daughters and Justice."

This is Warhol's haunted painting and its circular detour. Oily and greasy suppuration, as well as enchanted absorption as a harbinger in times of pandemic vortex.

Part of paraconsistent sequence series.

In Hyperthermia the cinematic body becomes overwhelmed by the luminous projection of outside political factors, causing the internal temperature of the celluloid to rise to dangerous levels.

These are icebergs in the night, spilling and melting their dense materiality over the frame of Western rationality. A hyperkinetic reminiscence of the last night of the Titanic.

The Erosions series develops the concepts of oxidation, wear and entropy from an audiovisual and cinematographic perspective.

Other works in the Erosions series include Barranca and Viral.

This is the state of mind in the post-Covid quarantine. This is the state of the body into the pandemic vortex. This is our post-Covid eyes. Part of the Hauntology and Post-Covid series.

The perception of machines' movement within industrial work.

Part of paraconsistent sequence series.

Part of paraconsistent sequence series and the hauntology series.

Irradiation is the thermal emanation of vital heat, the ancestral support that immerses beings in the solar blood. This is the immersion of beings in the bloody solar flow that gives the intense color of our present time. Part of Tonalli.

Stephen Varble began Journey to the Sun as a series of performances with projected slides in 1978. After becoming notorious for unauthorized costume performances on Soho streets in the mid 1970s, Varble receded from his public persona at this time. Deriving from his identification with his idol, the reclusive actress Greta Garbo, and informed by the spiritual practice of Subud, Varble began writing an allegorical epic about a musician, the Grey Crowned Warbler, who undergoes tribulation and metamorphosis on a journey to transcendence.

Part of paraconsistent sequence series.

Vision of Anahúac: Traveler, you have reached the most transparent region of the air.

The performance artist Stephen Varble spent the last five years of his life working on an epic, unfinished performance-turned-video titled Journey to the Sun (1978-1983). Only partially complete and under constant revision, this complex work combined Varble’s history of making costumes for performances with his fantastic stories involving metamorphosis and martyrdom. In 1982, Varble decided to make a “prelude” to Journey to the Sun, combining existing footage with new video taken in Riverside Park in New York City.

This is a kinetic tribute to Sylvia Plath at a time of the pandemic vortex, a dissemination of suspended bodies in the liminal space. Haunted figures in the Capitalocene era.

This is a fragment of the sacred lizard in desecrated times, an intermittent tour of the flashing body of the Cipactli lizard. Part of the Cipactli series.

“Trolling for news we call it,” says Bart Friedman a minute into this video, as he pushes down a road the Lanesville TV News Buggy – a baby carriage filled with video equipment, spilling over with wires. The buggy allows for easy transportation of equipment as the Videofreex make their way throughout Lanesville, interviewing residents on their daily activity. Although fairly ordinary – a visit to the lake, a small bit about a neighbor’s new electric golf cart, and an introduction to a newborn baby – the footage has an air of genuineness and all of the interactions are amicable.