Like television, architecture is the play of surfaces with mass appeal. No wonder then that alternative TV artists should turn their critical eye toward this most public art form. In Shelley Silver's Getting In, architecture is seen as a facade for male authority. The heated heroine of the tape is excluded from these bastions, but her edifice complex enflames her desire for a satisfying entry. The redundancy of suburban housing proves a remarkable resource for Bob Snyder's graphic manipulations. Using subtle video techniques, Trim Subdivisions unfolds fine mosaics of architectural detail that miraculously re-emerge as solitary homes. Snyder suggests that the plenitude of suburbia can be reduced to a handful of design elements. Carol Klonarides and Mike Owen employ a 360-degree camera rig to create a seamless, revolving backdrop of New York's steel and concrete canyons. Cascade (Vertical Landscapes) combines the exhilaration of upward reaching structural scale with the vertigo of overwhelming height and mass. As in a natural cascade, there is always the possibility of drowning in this urban whitewater. In a poetic evocation of place, Francesc Torres explores social realities by intersecting two devastated landscapes, Belchite, a Spanish town razed during the Civil War, and the South Bronx. The stark, perversely majestic buildings of Belchite-South Bronx stand as testaments to some looming barbarism. As the two cities merge, it becomes evident that the signs of war and the signs of peace are only a hair's breadth apart. Here, architecture is the flesh of civilization, bearing the scars of injustice. Steve Seid