Do Video Objects Have Tails? (begun 2002)

Do Video Objects Have Tails? is a work of interactive cinema by Barbara Lattanzi. The performance uses a laptop computer and experimental software authored by Lattanzi for improvising variations on digital videos solicited from various contributors. The software is based on a number of films from the experimental cinema of the 1970s, as well as experimental media from the 1980s and 90s.

The performance software includes modules based upon particular structural components of older experimental films and media by Hollis Frampton, Ernie Gehr, Anne McGuire and others. These software modules include HF Critical Mass, AMG Strain, and EG Serene.

Do Video Objects Have Tails? includes contributions of videos made or selected by Rob Danielson, Julia Dzwonkoski, Rob Fish (main.indymedia.org), Chris Hill, Barbara Lattanzi, Keith Sanborn, Brian Springer, Ghen Zando-Dennis and Julie Zando-Dennis.

Video stills from this project are viewable here.

Barbara Lattanzi is currently Visiting Artist in Digital Media at Smith College, Northampton, Massachusetts (U.S.) Recent exhibitions of her work include the screening of several early films as part of the 1999-2000 Museum of Modern Art series "Big As Life: An American History of 8mm Films" and the on-line exhibition of digital multimedia work as part of the Rhizome "Artbase" collection of net art. Her cdrom, "wildernessPuppets", was included in the 9th New York Digital Salon. She premiered "Muscle and Blood Piano" at the Wisconsin Film Festival (2001). She has presented "Muscle and Blood Piano", experimental software for live performance, at the Wisconsin Film Festival, the 2001 "Ready to..." conference in Prague, Czech Republic; and the 2002 European Media Art Festival, Osnabruck, Germany. Her website - www.wildernesspuppets.net - includes downloadable "idiomorphic software" as well as interactive applets. An essay by Chris Hill on Lattanzi's recent work in relation to video archives will appear in the forthcoming issue of Millenium Film Journal.

Performance duration: variable, 30 minutes or more.

Equipment supplied by Barbara Lattanzi:

Equipment supplied by Host:

A videotape (VHS, NTSC) which demonstrates the performance is available upon request.