Awaiting the End of the Beginning

Programmed by Clint Enns. Presented by Vector Festival in Toronto, Ontario on February 23, 2013.

Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.
Winston Churchill

This program explores the competitive nature of video games and our desire for simulated violence. The program begins with Craig Baldwin’s Wild Gunman, a found footage film that includes images of the 1974 video game of the same name. The video game was one of Nintendo’s electro-mechanical arcade games that consisted of a light gun connected to a 16mm projection screen which showed footage of a gunslinger whose eyes flashed when the player needed to draw and shoot. Similarly, s.ara brings found footage techniques into the digital age in her video tape loading error.

You need a vacation? Perhaps you should spend some time in the ‘Peaceful Bar’ found in Kathleen Daniel’s wonderfully bizarre video Personal. Wei-Ming Ho’s Self Destruction for Eternity and Josh Bricker’s Post Newtonianism are radically different videos that reflect on the destruction and devastation found in video games.

Finally, in Jon Rafman’s Codes of Honor a legendary arcade video gamer is faced with his own cultural obsolescence as he reflects on a tradition that is slowly fading away. These are the memories that lie beneath the joystick.

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