Punk, Attitudinal: Film and Video, 1977 to 1987

Dale Hoyt, Barney Haynes, and Mindaugis Bagdon in Person

Punk was more than the music. It was an attitude that swept through culture like an angry roar. It thundered in the Bay Area's dank clubs, but it could also be detected in brash works made by bratty artists intent on aesthetic insurrection. Everything in this program is about loud, whether it's the sonorous outbursts of the Avengers, the Mutants, or the Dils in Mindaugis Bagdon's searing doc Louder, Faster, Shorter, The Residents's prepunk proddings in Third Reich and Roll, or the memorable mayhem of the Offs in Richard Gaikowski's Deaf/Punk. A caustic collage of found images, The Units' Training Film was a visual backdrop for this groundbreaking punk-syntho band. While the music was churning in the clubs, video artists were mangling the medium. Whether it be Dale Hoyt's last gasps of anxious youth, Barney Haynes's sonic travels through the wasteland, or Ivar Smedstad's slice-and-dice orchestrations, the proof was in the pummeling. Finally, sluggo selections from Target Video's Joe Rees take us into the core of the hardcore maelstrom.

Your World Dies Screaming (Dale Hoyt, 1981, 4:45 mins, Color, Video, From the artist). Deaf/Punk (Richard Gaikowski, 1979, 8 mins, B&W, 16mm, PFA Collection). Thought Crimes in the Satiation Pool (Barney Haynes, 1987, 7:09 mins, Color, Video, From the artist). The Units' Training Film (Scott Ryser and Rachel Webber, 1980, 12:30 mins, Color, 16mm, PFA Collection). Brent Aske (Ivar Smedstad, 1987, 4:37 mins, Color, Video, From the artist). Third Reich and Roll (The Residents, 1977, 4:10 mins, B&W, 16mm, PFA Collection). Louder, Faster, Shorter (Mindaugis Bagdon, 1979, 17 mins, B&W, 16mm, PFA Collection). Dancing Death Monsters (Dale Hoyt, 1981, 4:51 mins, Color, Video, From the artist). Selections from Target Video (Target Video, 1977–1980, approx. 20 mins, Color and B&W, Video, From the artist).

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