THE FILM GALLERY is pleased to present a special screening with artist, writer and filmmaker CLINT ENNS (based in Montreal).
Video mixtape’ is a term that describes hand-made VHS collage tapes primarily consisting of found footage re-recorded from movies, television, and home videos. Some refer to them as ‘video complications,’ while colloquially they can also be referred to as ‘VHS shit mixes,’ ‘video cut-ups,’ ‘scratch videos’ (as the British call them), and to a few lonesome (or perhaps hopeful) creators they are referred to as ‘party tapes.’ Historically, such video collages were mainly self-distributed, with the genre’s most popular titles being bootlegged and eventually shared on peer-to-peer networks. Although a few of them have been commercially produced, none would be considered commercially successful.
A wide majority of video mixtape compilations are comprised of short clips, dubbed from other source videotapes, which mixtape creator-collectors thought were the ‘best of the best’ or the ‘weirdest of the weird.’ They offered up some of the most extreme, bizarre, and sensational clips from people’s individual video collections. A few even included original material produced specifically for the mix. Some of the more extreme video mixtapes were officially (or unofficially) ‘banned,’ an aspect that appealed to gore-hounds since it suggested this morally corrupt material was offensive enough to inspire some government bureaucrat to try to censor audiences from seeing it. Warning labels attached to tapes not only suggested that the material was shocking, but also functioned as a challenge to potential viewers: Do you have the intestinal fortitude necessary to engage with this material?
For this program, we have selected the most emblematic of the earliest mixtapes and, using two VCRs, we have edited them onto one VHS tape for your viewing pleasure. 18+
Screening organized in collaboration with Charlie Hewison, hosted by Ejla Kovacevic.
