High Hopes

'4' ’4′ originated as a collaborative performance by Deborah Fong, Carol Hackett, Annastacia McDonald and Jeanette Reinhardt as the S.S. Girls, following events and activities of the women’s daily lives on Main Street. The performance was produced by Paul Wong and co-sponsored by the Video Inn. ’4′ explores the lives and personalities of four women as described by one another in the style of a feuding dysfunctional family. ’4′ was developed as a multimedia performance, first staged at Western Front in 1980, then followed by a tour across Canada and into the USA. The scripted multimedia presentations were later adapted to a video work.

in ten sity "The VAG exhibition space was staged with a four walled cube, 8’X 8’ which was padded internally. The four walls and the open ceiling were monitored by video cameras. Wong entered the gallery, climbed a ladder and disappeared into the blue cube. Personally I was very uneasy about the work at this time. Knowing that [Kenneth] Fletcher was a close friend of Wong’s who had only months before committed suicide. I felt perhaps Wong would attempt his own cathartic self-mutilation as we all watched. As Wong’s slow pacing and wall assaulting became more intense the audience picked up the momentum of his energies. The intensity of the performance became overpowering. Not knowing how far Wong has planned his own movements, one began to wonder if he was indeed going to bash himself into unconsciousness as some observers had predicted." - Arthur Perry, Vanguard Magazine 1979

Hands Across the Border Hands Across The Border was a seven city slow scan collaboration. With participation from Paul Wong, Sharon Levett & Daryl Lacey, Video Inn, Vancouver;Randall Lyon & Gus Nelson, Televista Projects, Memphis; Sharon Grace, Video Free America, Berkeley Art Museum, U.C.; Peggy Cady, Bill Bartlett, Chas Leckie. Open Space, Victoria; Felix Partz, Jorge Zontal & Willoughby Sharp, General Idea, Toronto; Liza Bear & Robin Winters, Center for New Art Activities, NY.; et al. Slow-scan television equipment used a computerised memory to sample a picture from a television camera every few seconds, “freeze” it and send it down a telephone line as an audio signal. The machines could only be used between two points at a time. At the receiving end, the signal was decoded and slowly scanned out a still frame on a television monitor.

Le Retour d'Elisabeth Wo... Paris, 1945. Élisabeth Wolff spent two years in a concentration camp. At the end of the war, she returned to France without telling her family. She then attempted to win back her husband under a different identity.

The Perfect White Wall An avant-garde film set in an art museum. Dated 1996, likely a regional or student film.

Asteroid A made for the camera video collaboration with Steve Paxton, a unique pas de deux between videographer and dancer.

Beginnings Since the early 1990s, Roye Villevoye has regularly visited the Asmat (a Papuan people) in Irian Jaya, Papua New Guinea. After several films, Beginnings returns to his perspective of the first and naive interest of a Westerner. In two parts, shot on the spot and in Holland, we get to know an almost paradise-like state of innocence. It only becomes clear later how this was achieved.

Network Baby A grieving young mother employed at a video game company is recruited to test and train a new virtual world. She finds a character in this world of fantasy who becomes her new albeit virtual daughter.

7 Day Activity Early colour video recorded on ½ in. Part of The Mainstreet Tapes (1976-1980) a series of autobiographic tapes documenting Wong & friends “youth & angst”. 7 day Activity – 7 days of facial treatments for acne. Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the vainest of them all. 1970′s body/art. Digitally Re-Mastered & Re-Edited in 2008, the process of restoring the picture & sound elements included shortening the work from the original length of 13 minutes to 8.5 minutes.

eternity on a loop An employee of God takes a break from heaven's bureaucracy and spends some time on Earth. Through the eyes of an angel, the mundane realms can be more mesmerizing than the rigidity within a perfect (and repetitive) paradise.