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Sticky Impulse Archive Night

#StickyImpulse

How To Be A Recluse

May 26 thru June 8, 2020

While VIVO has been closed to the public, we are still digitizing the tape archive. This month’s Sticky Impulse is an eclectic selection of videos made by people who have lived in Vancouver or had a relationship with VIVO. They all dance with ideas around social and cultural isolation and bonding.

How to Be a Recluse (7 easy steps)
Laurel Swenson [1998]

We live in a busy world and isolation seems to be the only way to escape the buzz of lists, inspirational catchphrases and reminders to upgrade now! The peace of ignoring the phone may be bliss, but what about when we get what we ask for and are forgotten altogether? The director mulls over the bittersweet reality of escaping. This is a video about wanting to be alone and being lonely, a meditation on the cult of individuality and independence in our anxious urban world.

Sombrio
Paul Manly [2006]

Sombrio documents the end of a diverse community of surfers and squatters that existed on the southwest coast of Vancouver Island for more than thirty years, the last wild-west pioneer community. It captures some of the residents over a two-year period and reveals their personal stories and convictions as they come to terms with their impending eviction and follows up with them six years after the fact.

My German Boyfriend
Wayne Yung [2004]

A gay Chinese-Canadian encounters ethnic stereotypes as he seeks his ideal boyfriend in Berlin. A comedy about mistaken cultural identities, a diary of immigrant isolation, and a love letter to a boyfriend who might have been.

SuperQueer
Sakino Sepulveda [2010]

How a simple public display of affection between two men on a public street provokes a violent homophobic reaction.

Selection

This month’s videos were selected by media artist, and VIVO’s digitization technician, Clark Henderson.

About Sticky Impulse

Sticky Impulse is a monthly series featuring works from the Crista Dahl Media Library & Archive. Its title references the materiality of video – from the originating electrical impulses that transfer content to magnetic tape, to a videotape’s inevitable demise from deterioration of its core elements – and evokes the problematic,things difficult to navigate or to let go of, creative spontaneity, compulsion, euphoric abandon, or the urge to act. Expect video (often), but also textual records, audio, photographs, legacy technology, and ephemera from our collection.