When the EZTV Video Gallery first opened in the summer of 1983, founder John Dorr envisioned the space as presenting “an alternative vision of contemporary culture and reality, a vision in no way controlled by the mass media, lowest-common-denominator ethic.” This was accomplished through EZTV’s wildly varied programming, which featured everything from more traditional narrative video to live performance and cutting-edge video and computer art – and often works that incorporated multiple elements from all of the above.
This program is split into three sections: the first a survey of video and digital works from EZTV’s earliest years, the second a restaging of the moving-image portion of curator Patric Prince’s seminal “Art: 1990” computer art show at EZTV’s Cyberspace Gallery, and the third a survey of EZTV works from the 2000s and onwards.
AVANT VIDEO:
James Williams CHANCE ENCOUNTERS (1983, 6 min, SD-video-to-DCP)
“Minimum budget and maximum creativity marry to produce an ever-changing mandala of light and color. A video by James Williams.” –EZTV GUIDE
T. Jankowski RELIQUARY (1984, 12 min, SD-video-to-DCP)
“A sublimated dream of innocence in which eros becomes divine.” –EZTV GUIDE
James Williams CLEAR CANVAS (1983, 6 min, SD-video-to-DCP)
“An expressionistic video poem exploring the creative urge in its purest form.” –EZTV GUIDE
Victor Acevedo VIDEO AND PAINT SYSTEM TEST (1988, 1 min, SD-video-to-DCP)
Dave Curlender & David S. Goodsell LARGER THAN LIFE (1985, 2 min, SD-video-to-DCP)
“LARGER THAN LIFE is a digital animation that incorporated early motion-capture techniques and other innovative computer graphics techniques. Using the university’s molecular biology supercomputer, this was a project by then UCLA engineering/design student Dave Curlender and UCLA medical research doctoral candidate David S. Goodsell.” –Michael J. Masucci
ART 1990:
Max Almy & Teri Yarbow THE THINKER (1989, 6 min, SD-video-to-DCP)
“In THE THINKER, Almy satirically envisions the evolution of human intellectual thought – from ape to yuppie – as a television event, with an emcee providing the play-by-play commentary of a sportscaster.” –ELECTRONIC ARTS INTERMIX
Shelley Lake POLLY GONE (1988, 3 min, SD-video-to-DCP)
“A day in the life of a robot.” –Shelley Lake
Vibeke Sorensen NLoops (1989, 7 min, SD-video-to-DCP)
“NLoops is based on polyrhythmic musical structures translated into 2 and 3 dimensional space, and realized using computer techniques, in which complex time and space structures are built from phasings of abstract painted cycles.” –Vibeke Sorensen
Rebecca Allen STEADY STATE (1989, 4 min, SD-video-to-DCP)
“This work explores the dynamics of a relationship through the interactions of female and male body movements.” –Rebecca Allen
Karl Sims PARTICLE SYSTEMS (1988, 1.5 min, SD-video-to-DCP)
“This computer animation contains a collection of dream sequences created using 3D particle systems techniques. Behavior rules are applied to thousands of individual particles to model complex phenomena such as an explosion, a snowstorm, a tumultuous head, and a waterfall.” –Karl Sims
Karl Sims LEONARDO’S DELUGE (excerpts) (1989, 1.5 min, SD-video-to-DCP)
“Demonstration of choreographed image flow techniques.” –Karl Sims
Karl Sims PANSPERMIA (1990, 2 min, SD-video-to-DCP)
“This animation places the viewer in the middle of a virtual world of an aggressively reproducing inter-galactic life form, and depicts a single life cycle of this unusual self-propagating system.” –Karl Sims
BETWEEN THOUGHTS:
Michael J. Masucci QUANTUM ENTANGLEMENT (excerpt) (2003, 3 min, SD-video-to-DCP)
“A short excerpt from the opening of the Telly Award-winning 2003 feature-length digital film QUANTUM ENTANGLEMENT [which] mixes concepts from physics with pop culture conspiracies, metaphysical philosophy, and non-Western cultural practice.” –Michael J. Masucci
Kate Johnson LIBRA: AS WE WITNESS THE CARELESS SLIP OF THE SCALE (2005, 3 min, SD-video-to-DCP)
“Created in a relatively recent post-9/11 world, [LIBRA] was a reaction to the resulting wars, the murder of Daniel Pearl, the mounting deaths and displacement of innocent people, and the ongoing escalation of terror and counter-terrorism measures.” –Michael J. Masucci
Nina Rota LUSCIOUS (2006, 5 min, SD-video-to-DCP)
An exploration of gender and flesh in eight scenes of luscious pencil-drawn animation.
Kate Johnson XVIII: THE MOON (2005, 5 min, SD-video-to-DCP)
“A multilayered meditation on the mysteries of the moon. A collaboration with Loretta Livingston & Dancers.” –Kate Johnson
Cally Lindle ENTROPY (2024, 4 min, HD-video-to-DCP)
“Science tells us that the static ‘white noise’ from an old analog TV set is an energy remnant of the Big Bang. What if one uses the mind and emotions to navigate the realities within that primordial static?” –Cally Lindle
Kate Johnson BETWEEN THOUGHTS (2003, 4 min, SD-video-to-DCP)
“[A] multi-layered stream-of-consciousness exploration of the myriad of impressions that can course through us in the creative moment. […] What resulted is a visual poem on art making that traces through sensual, natural landscapes, elements, disembodied movements, and surreal imagery keyed to a hypnotic pulse.” –Kate Johnson
