Video art

9 mins Betacam SP
© 1996 Go Girl Productions

crew:

direction, camera, edit - Janet Merewether
concept - Yuji Sone and Janet Merewether
voices - Yuji Sone, Eric Dorfman and Janet Merewether

synopsis:

A collaboration between performance artist Yuji Sone and film/video maker Janet Merewether, this short video, based around a language lesson structure, intends to teach the language of
Japanese intimacy in five easy steps. The subtleties of love are humorously regimented into dry language drills.

Open the heart for a video romance, and enter a world which is out of synch, as Japanese television and iconography are deconstructed to reveal an erotic subtext. Suppressed thoughts
and desires are liberated as geishas and animated superheroes play out epic and banal tales of attraction. Women desire. The unspeakable is spoken. Taboos are broken.

The electronic landscapes of Tokyo's television and neon signage contrast with the traditional, if not cliched images of the classical Japanese environment - carp, the Buddha, a paper house, fishmarkets. The oppositions continue. 'Liberated' Western sexual values sit uneasily, their 'universality' questionable when imposed on a culture known for its love hotels and eccentric sexual desires.

awards:

WINNER - BEST VIDEO - ST KILDA FILM FESTIVAL 1997
WINNER-BEST FILM - MELBOURNE FRINGE FESTIVAL 1996
HONOURABLE MENTION BY JURY - VIDEOBRASIL, SAO PAULO 1996

festivals:

EUROPEAN MEDIA ARTS FESTIVAL, OSNABRUECK, GERMANY 1997
SYDNEY FILM FESTIVAL 1996
MATINAZE (SIN / ART GALLERY OF NSW) 1996
EXPERIMENTA 'DOMESTIC DISTURBANCES' TOURING PROGRAMME 1996
TECHNE - IMAGO'S TOURING DIGITAL ARTS PROGRAMME 1996-8
QUEENSLAND ART GALLERY - ASIA PACIFIC TRIENNIAL SCREENINGS 1999
BROADCAST-ALMANAC-ART ON TELEVISION, AMSTERDAM 1999
OTHER THAN ENGLISH: ELECTRONS OUTSIDE THE VACUUM - CENTRE FOR ART TAPES - NOVA SCOTIA 2002
BANKOK EXPERIMENTAL FESTIVAL 1999
FREUNDE DER DEUTSCHEN KINEMATHEK, ARSENAL CINEMA BERLIN 2002
WOMEN MAKE WAVES FESTIVAL, TAIPEI 2003

distribution:

Go Girl Productions
email go girl productions

North America / International
V tape, Toronto, tel: 1 (416) 351 1317
info@vtape.org
http://www.vtape.org

Europe
Montevideo, Amsterdam,
Nederlands Instituut voor Mediakunst
info@nimk.nl
http://nimk.nl/eng/contact-information/

 

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