'Different perspectives' offered through avante-garde video series

Robert H. Becker/Arizona Summer Wildcat Guest co-curator Kristine Diekman and Tony Allard talk about the concept of a "Temporary Autonomous Zone," nicknamed TAZ, at the recent Video Tensions film series. Taz is an environment formed by unconstrained and freely expressible desires, and was the b ases of the reality created by the six Video Tension films.

So, you're sick of watching Thursday's "Must See TV" reruns or going to your local video store and not finding the movie you want.

Well then, you could leave your lumpy couch and step out to see the free and fiercely entertaining video series showing each Thursday night for anyone and everyone in Tucson.

The VideoTENSIONS series offers "different perspectives on different issues" through the use of video, according to Vikki Dempsey, director and curator of VideoTENSIONS.

The annual series showcases "new cultural experiences" from national and local video artists featuring current, and sometimes controversial issues such as racial clashes, gay and lesbian issues, gender equality and the advancement of technology, Dempsey s aid.

This is the sixth year for the series, and the first year Dempsey has brought in guest curators. The guest curators are also considered to be visiting artists, courtesy of the Distinguished Lecturer/Multicultural Series, Dempsey said.

This year's theme is titled "Landscaping for the Year 2000." The theme is to be taken in a "literal and metaphorical" sense, Dempsey said.

She said the videos presented each week are "applicable to the use of land, the body, and technology as a landscape."

Landscape is a new word for identity and through viewing these videos, Dempsey said audiences will "discover how we deal with different landscapes."

At the June 12 presentation of VideoOZ, the theme of the six videos presented was the changing of mental, physical and architectural landscapes into temporary autonomous zones, or TAZ. TAZ is a temporary space where one can experience one's desire as real ity in a heavily mediated reality, according to guest co-curator Kristine Diekman.

In lighter terms, a TAZ can be defined as an area that is changed temporarily into another environment, such as the top of building turned into a party, then back to its original state, said guest co-curator Tony Allard.

The videos showed everything from bouts with madness, to a superhero named White Trash Girl, to nomadic points of reference made up of all the possible directions of the horizontal and vertical.

Both Allard and Diekman are professors at the Kansas City Art Institute.

Dempsey said she chose the presentation of VideoOZ as one of the themes for this year because "the Midwest is underrepresented in art and video."

"I would like the public to come and be open to new ideas, and gain the experience of the videos," she said.

Dempsey would also like the public to view the series to join "the disruption to TV, and get a freedom to think on their own," she said. Also, the series is "a rare opportunity to see this type of [progressive] work."

The series has four more shows this summer including this Thursday's VideoPARKS, VideoQUEER (June 26), and VideoLOCAL (July 17), designed for local videographers.

This series is brought to the community by the UA Office of Summer Session, College of Fine Arts, Tucson Visiting Artist Consortium, as well as Hotel Congress and other community and university organizations.

The new Aerospace & Mechanical Engineering building, Room 202, houses the VideoTENSIONS series each Thursday night at 7:30.

Come enjoy the comfortable chairs and see how fresh, creative, intellectually stimulating and, most of all, fun this successful series can be.