Free screening at the Billy Wilder Theater in the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, Saturday May 30th at 10:55 pm.

World Premiere of New Preservations

1984 to 1997 was a fruitful period resulting in over 50 works Raphael Montañez Ortiz termed “computer-laser-videos.” The rise of consumer video formats and new technologies brought renewed opportunities for deconstruction — this time, in a realm that merged analog and digital. These videos were made by using films on laserdiscs (mainly titles from the 1930s to 1940s), selecting segments ranging from one to 10 seconds, editing and distorting clips via computer, and using joysticks to move footage back and forth at various speeds. Once it was finalized, Ortiz would transfer the footage to 3/4 in. videotape. This practice resulted in a new visual landscape of disjointed movement that was further heightened by the use of a wave-form generator to alter sound, creating a cacophony of words, music and disembodied noises. In expanding the length of these clips, Ortiz dissects and scrutinizes the whiteness, hegemony and gendered behaviors presented on-screen, reconstructing them as satire, performativity and artifice.

These four selected works are Ortiz’s final computer-laser-videos, marking a significant point in his career as an interdisciplinary artist and pioneer of the Destructivism movement.—Yesenia Perez

Special thanks to our community partner: Los Angeles Filmforum