Put a grid around the world, standardize consumption, then establish a global economy of experience: instructions for the new Mcllenium. The unregulated Standards (26 mins, Color, Beta SP, From the artists) puts the grid on the griddle and watches it sizzle. Unified consumption as expressed through super-size fries and other cohorts of cholesterol is viewed the world over, then debunked in favor of regional idiosyncracy. Like an alien abduction, though one not covered in the section on Roswell, this gasping mock-doc unravels and is replaced by curious anecdotes of Americana. The artists, Boord and Valdovino, certainly side with the resilient charms of superstition and strange behavior. As we see, the atomic clock at the National Institute of Standards may be synchronizing the world, but between the beats weirdness still reigns. Scott Rankin's intriguing essay The Pure (59 mins, Color, 3/4" video, From Video Data Bank) scans the globe searching for authenticity amid the clutter of contamination. The central subject of this visually immaculate work is not purity but rather the reverence paid to the authentic. In a parody of a PBS "think piece," the narrator appears in sites throughout the world, binding locales together with a complex theory that draws on tourism, subjectivity, time measurement, set theory, postcolonial rectitude, and the fabrication of history. Irony abounds in this thought-provoking work, for The Pure suggests that the elevation of authenticity is simultaneously its demise.-Steve Seid