Poetry/Performance Videos and DVDs

*Note: Except where noted, all videos/DVDs available at UCSD Film and Video Library (downstairs SSH).

Art in the Struggle for Freedom (2000, 28 mins)
Documentary about poetry and poster art during the Spanish Civil War of 1936-37. (poetry and political action, literacy, high/low art)

Blast Theory: Selected Works 1994-2000 (2000, 23 mins)
Short segments of longer videos and videotaped performances, including “Kidnap” (about staged kidnappings of willing subjects) and “Choreograph Cop” (appropriated film footage set to music). (interactivity, surveillance, narrative, violence in popular culture)

Fear and the Muse: The Story of Anna Akhmatova (1991, 60 mins)
Documentary about celebrated Russian poet Anna Akhmatova, who lived and wrote poetry in the early 20th century during the Russian Revolution and under Stalin. (art and political action, artists as agents of propaganda, socialist realism)

Gang of Souls (1990, 60 minutes) [*available at Ken Video in Kensington]
“Objective” documentary featuring William S. Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, Anne Waldman, and other stars of the American Beat Generation. (poetry and Sixties counter-culture, poetic method and inspiration, poetry communities)

John Cage: From Zero (2004, n/a)
Four discrete films based on the work of composer John Cage, including “19 Questions” in which Cage uses chance operations to determine the length (in seconds) of his answers. (music and composition, human-machine interaction, voice and image)

Laurie Anderson: Collected Videos (1990, 60 mins)
Representative works (music/video) from one of the stars of postmodern performance art, featuring “Language is a virus” (based on the famous line by William Burroughs) and “O Superman.” (voice, representation, gender, technology and the body, gesture)

Living Language, The (1989, 60 mins)
Bill Moyers documentary featuring James Autry and Quincy Troupe (former UCSD professor), their poetry, and their respective community arts initiatives. (oral tradition, community organizing)

Slam Nation (1998, 90 mins) [*available at Ken Video in Kensington]
Film chronicling the journey of four New York slam performers to the national slam contest in Portland, Oregon. (spoken word, performance, audience response)

Take a Picture with a Real Indian (2001, 12 mins)
Video recording of performance piece featuring James Luna, who introduces himself as a “real Indian” and invites audience members to pose with him for photgraphs. (representation, consumer culture, audience response)

Towers Open Fire and Other Films (1989, 40 mins) [*available at Ken Video in Kensington]
Four films from the early 1960s featuring William S. Burroughs, Ian Sommerville, Brion Gysin, and Antony Balch, with original scripts by Burroughs. (voice and textuality, outlaw culture, production and method (cut-up), noise and nonsense, psychedelica)