The power of the generic is its utter familiarity. It is a form of visual shorthand, relying on indistinct features to summon the sense of an entire class or category. The reduction of the remarkable, the expunging of the unexpected is what the generic is all about. This becomes unexpectedly and remarkably evident when we look at that storehouse of moving images described as “stock,” film footage reused as all-purpose, non-particular padding. Curator Nancy Buchanan was fascinated by the generic categorizations themselves, the products of an odd diminution of difference. After purchasing copyright-free stock footage, Buchanan engaged a group of never-bland artists to interrogate “what is supposedly the ‘norm' for categories such as ‘nature,' ‘family,' ‘health,' ‘history,' etc. as defined by commercial suppliers.” The remixed result is a defamiliarizing bit of stock therapy.