Advertisements of every ilk-from cocktail napkins under glass to dirigibles overhead-permeate our man-made environment. Harold Boihem's The Ad and the Ego (57 mins, From Parallax Pictures) traces the subtle construction of this artificial habitat, beginning with its naive roots in nineteenth-century advertising and arriving at present-day consumer culture. This frantic essay heightens its analysis through a beautifully conceived montage of adverts and a dizzy sound design by the local group Negativland. Here, advertising has become an environment unto itself, a "totality" that holds sway through its deceptive transparency: you don't see it, but it's everywhere. So complete is its reign that advertising, as one expert declares, has come to "dominate the cultural space where we think about ourselves." As bookends we also include Valie Export's A Perfect Pair (1987, 13:30 mins, From Video Data Bank), in which the very body of the consumer is co-opted by product slogans, and Doug Henry's Only Thirteen Minutes Left (1996, 16 mins, From Henry Bros. Studio), in which actors become inseparable from their roles in thirty-second spots.-Steve SeidPlus Negativland videos: The Greatest Taste Around (2:15 mins) and Drink It Up (3:30 mins), created by Negativland with Harold Boihem, Michael Cousineau.