Including the premieres of A Refutation of Time, Patagonia, and Distant Relations. Artists in Person When collaborations work, unusual chemistries emerge. The collaborations that bind Dan Boord, Greg Durbin, and Luis Valdovino are unique, each artist having particular properties that find expression in partnership. What links their works are geographies, often imaginary, but often as not, genuine cultural contiguities, place-names peopled by strange turns of mind. Oklahoma looms large, as does Argentina; tango swoons beneath country swing; historical figures-Borges, Darwin, de Tocqueville-inhabit impossible moments. In Distant Relations (Boord & Durbin, 1994, 16:09 mins), a young woman, Elena, heads to Hollywood searching for her lost uncle. Once across la línea, serendipity takes over, infusing each quirky happenstance with the force of parable. A mystery is resolved, a journey completed, and a culture decoded from chance relations. Patagonia (Boord & Valdovino, 1996, 28:30 mins) also relates a journey, but this time the artists trace the steps of Darwin in Argentina, then retrace them as personal appropriation across the Southwest. Coincidence-Butch Cassidy in Patagonia, soccer in Monument Valley-constructs a portrait in time. In A Refutation of Time (Boord, Durbin & Valdovino, 1997, 8:16 mins), the artists look at the triumph of information over materiality. Along that artifact of mobility, Route 66, roadside diners incite the senses to taste and smell. But elsewhere, in cyberspace, Borges is overrun by context. The Going Away Party (Boord & Durbin, 1987, 31 mins) takes us to a town in Oklahoma where residents say farewell to their local commissioner, convicted of corruption. The folks excuse the scandal by emphasizing the shared benefits-a collaborative hallucination of necessity.-Steve Seid