Stories
Creator:
Adams, JohnContributor(s):
-
Ken Gill
-
This work is part of the rewind archive.
Duration: 13 mins
Year: 1982
Original formats:3/4" U-Matic Lo Band
Media types:Video
Funding source: Northern Arts
Technical details: Shot in Aidanvison studios, Carlisle
In Stories, Adams fuses storytelling and performance in a reverie on reality and fiction. The artist sits alone in near darkness while, in voiceover, he relates a series of seemingly autobiographical anecdotes — “inside information” marked by irony, loss and black humor. This stark interrogation of self is accompanied by evocative narrative signifiers: a ringing telephone, a ticking clock, a naked light bulb, flickering TV images of a porn movie. The ambiguity of his stories — memory? dreams? fictions? — implies a tension between the construction of personal reality and the internalization of the conventions of popular fiction. As Adams writes, “The stories are all true. The character, of course, is fiction.” – Electronic Arts Intermix.
Piece written about John Adams and his video works for the Electronic Arts Intermix Catalogue pdf here.
-