Favorite This! at the Meridian Gallery, San Francisco, CA

Favorite This! at the Meridian Gallery, San Francisco, CA: A one night video screening of artists from San Francisco & Los Angeles
Favorite This! at the Meridian Gallery, San Francisco, CA

I organized a one night screening of videos by artists from Los Angeles and San Francisco entitled, Favorite This! at the Meridian Gallery in San Francisco. Part of my motivation for organizing the screening, was being inspired by some of my friends video pieces and wanting to share of these with a larger public. I made a call out to friends and friends of friends to send me their stuff. Without much in the way of parameters, I said "just send me what you have". Everyday was a delight, when I would go to my mailbox and right there next to my ever accruing bills, were these little packages containing the submissions for Favorite This! Each one was individually wrapped and packaged, reflecting the artist' particular artistic mission and taste. From the plain bubble wrapped CD mailer, a pink picture book, a DVD box set, a glassine wrapped disc. Some nights, I would come home to find little discs tucked into the planter next to my front door. With my live in love, exclaiming, " I opened the door and a weary eyed girl handed me this disc!" Were those the tired eyes of late night video editing? Oh final cut..How I love thee. I set out to arrange the pieces in the screening into some cohesive format, sitting for hours viewing Quicktimes and making notes on them. I noticed themes in common, like a certain quality of light, narrative or texture. The screening opened up with pieces I saw as exploring narrative and drama. In a lovely piece by Jordan Biren, It Was Dark as Night and Shadows, chiaroscuros hide and reveal characters trapped in a ritual of smoky eyed looking and not looking.

In others there was the use of collage aesthetics, see Tricia Lawless Murray's L' Autoportrait, cut-n-paste film making ( Krista Chael's Black Bayou Swan animation or as I like to call it faux animation, as in Nao Bustamante's #1, from the series the Earth people, where her champaign poodle FUFU is coiffed in the manner of an American Bison. The city and nature were juxtaposed in Michael Damm's video, a projection of urban locales projected onto a Oakland street corner and Stephanie Allespach's Walden Musings: Aims of an Anarchist. There was also a lovely marriage of works in the politically charged pieces by Andy Cox and Nancy Popp in Hostage video and United States Code 2340A, respectively. The last sequence of video's explored the artist as narrator, auteur, or Christ figure. Gordon Winiemko in Meet the Artist or Cliff Hengst as Jesus Christ stalking San Francisco's Mission district,a spoof or commentary on the sidewalk proselytizing that occurs in street corners across America. The screening room at Meridian was pretty filled until approximately 11:30, when the crowd started to peter out. After that only the hardcores were left standing or leaning to watch the LA Art Girls's piece Strangelove, a remake line by line and scene by scene of Stanley Kubrick's 1964 Doctor Strangelove, Or how I learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.

Here is a little blurb from the press release.......
Favorite This! takes its title from the blogging and viral video phenomenon of “favoriting” and “sharing” an internet find. Favorite This! connects the work of video artists with video work spread across the internet in social media websites such as Facebook, My Space and You-Tube.
Video makers can be said to be predecessors or even trailblazers of the current DIY video phenomenon found on sites such as You-Tube, where the democratic platform has allowed everyone from the amateur filmmaker to TV networks and Hollywood production houses to post videos for public view. As early adaptors of film- making equipment, such as the movie camera, the video camera and more recently digital editing software, artists have used DIY strategies to bend the medium of film and video, in works that are abstract, performative, and narrative.

Alvaro Perdices, 47 Names (still)
47 Names by Alvaro Perdices ( video still)
47 Names by Alvaro Perdices ( video still): An installation view of Alvaro Perdices video in Favorite This! at the Meridian GalleryLA Art Girls, Strangelove ( video still of Favorite This!): The LA Art Girls do their own version of Stanley Kubrick's Doctor Strangelove.LA Art Girls, Strangelove ( video still of Favorite This!): Strangelove by the LA Art Girls. Featuring artists Elizabeth Tremante and Micol HebronLA Art Girls, Strangelove ( video still of Favorite This!): Strangelove by the LA Art Girls. Featuring the work of Stephanie AllespachLA Art Girls, Strangelove ( video still of Favorite This!): Strangelove by the LA Art Girls. Featuring artists Angela Ellsworth and Tania KatanLA Art Girls, Strangelove ( video still of Favorite This!): Strangelove by the LA Art Girls. Featuring artists Angela Ellsworth and Tania KatanLA Art Girls, Strangelove ( video still of Favorite This!)