Past is Prologue: Alex Muir Lucky Pennies; Fiction Video at the Dawn of the New American Morning

Description:

Lucky Pennies: Fiction Video at the Dawn of the New American Morning was a screening of works from Western Front's archive curated by Alexander Muir for Past is Prologue.

Western Front hosts a range of works that find artists playing at making movies—obstinately miming Hollywood in a moment when the image industry was jumping to a global scale. Lucky Pennies: Fiction Video at the Dawn of the New American Morning considered how these efforts related to block-busting la la land and the subjectivities it ushers in. Muir’s selection of works also questioned how video’s relationship to documentary, performance, relational sculpture, and visual art is frequently invoked, while its place as a storytelling medium is conspicuously scarce in the early history of video making.

Program:

Lowell Darling, Hollywood Archaeology (1976). 21 min. 17 sec.
Susan Britton, Casting Call (1979). 37 min. 29 sec.
Andrew Paterson, Basic Motel (1980). 22 min. 41 sec.
Eric Metcalfe and Hank Bull, Duster (1991). 39 min. 37 sec.

The screening was accompanied by an essay by Muir.

Past is Prologue was a series that invited artists, writers, curators, and critics to produce a new work using the Western Front archive as a critical point of departure.

Documents:

• Past is Prologue: Lucky Pennies; Fiction Video at the Dawn of the New American Morning brochure (2014). Essay by Alex Muir.