Lynda Benglis
Compilation, 1972-1974
Compilation, 1972-1974
1. Home Tape Revised (Version 2), 1972, 28:00 Min.
"This tape reveals Benglis's technique of distancing the video image from any sense of 'real' time by retaping images off the monitor and narrating over the images. Benglis 'counteracts the perpetual now of video time', in order to call the reliability of the medium into question. In 'Home Tape', Benglis took a portable video tape recorder with her when she visited her family in Louisiana. She saw most of the experience through the video camera, thus giving her a distance from an emotionally-involving situation" (Bruce Kurtz, Arts Magazine, zit. nach www.vdb.org).
2. How´s Tricks, 1974, 34:00 Min.
"There is a crudeness to 'How's Tricks', Benglis's first venture into narrative fiction. No attempt is made to hide the mechanics of making the tape. At one point, while Benglis and Kaye argue about the tape they are making of Reynolds, Kaye is seen reaching over to turn off the video recorder—and thus the scene ends. The Nixon footage exposes the media structure that props up public personae, thus revealing the disjuncture between the media's presentation and the behind-the-scenes reality. 'How's Tricks' points out how easily television's 'magic box' is able to distort and deceive. The glee and transparency with which the magic tricks are presented also points to the willingness by which a captive audience is misled" (Carrie Przybilla, Lynda Benglis: Dual Natures, zit. nach www.vdb.org).
3. Female Sensibility, 1973,14:00 Min.
"As two heavily made-up women take turns directing each other and submitting to each other's kisses and caresses, it becomes increasingly obvious that the camera is their main point of focus. Read against feminist film theory of the 'male gaze', the action becomes a highly charged statement of the sexual politics of viewing and role-playing; and, as such, is a crucial text in the development of early feminist video. 'This video is Benglis's emphatic response to the notion of a distinctly feminine artistic sensibility and to the belief in a necessary lesbian phase in the women's movement—ideas that were often debated in the early 1970s'" (Susan Krane, Lynda Benglis, zit. nach www.vdb.org).