Tucson Weekly: Cheap Thrills (June 5

HIGH-STRUNG CELLULOID: Throw out your image of the immediate landscape as a smattering of irrigated oleander, a bed of roses and a pair of pink flamingos. Instead, chew on this vision forwarded by the folks behind the 1997 VideoTENSIONS series, in which our environs are "a slate upon which culture, habitation and labor is written and may be read"; where "the landscape simultaneously records our history and determines our future."
Cheap Thrills And that, in an esoteric nutshell, is the driving force behind this year's independent video-making showcase, wherein artists and guest curators refer to that landscape both as a specific place and a general state of mind. Their aim is to introduce a new palette "that draws on the past, theories on space and technology to create a more dynamic future for diversity and new thought."
Not that anyone would be so brazen as to accuse the series, now in its sixth annual incarnation, of being anything less than dynamic. A brain-child of the adventurous UA Department of Media Arts, it showcases some of the best groundbreaking video work from around the country. And this year, all entries are Tucson premieres.
The videos will screen at 7:30 p.m. every Thursday through July 17 (with the exception of July 3), in the UA Aerospace and Mechanical Auditorium, located on the northeast corner of Speedway and Mountain Avenue. Admission is free.
The series opens Thursday, June 5, with VideoHOST. Kristin Lucas, a visiting New York City performance artist, showcases a piece that premiered in New York's Museum of Modern Art last March. Utilizing a helmet cam and her own experience as a video jockey, she contextualizes the complexity of being a woman in an automated society.
Lucas prods the audience into recognizing that a new landscape for women exists, one which encourages and advocates technical intervention, as an alternative to the familiar role of laborer to the machine. She'll also be on hand to discuss her work following the performance.
For information concerning this and other upcoming VideoTENSIONS presentations, call 621-7352.
ENDLESS JOURNEY: For some of us, Colin Fletcher is more than just a nature writer. And his seminal, philosophical how-to guide, The New Complete Walker, is far more than a simple intro into life beyond the concrete--it's a restless invitation to see things differently, to erase our unease at visiting a wild world that scoffs at the vain trappings of man.
Fletcher's The Man Who Walked Through Time took that notion a step further. Documenting his solo journey into the Grand Canyon, it laid bare the connection between the timeless and the contemporary, celebrating ancient rhythms that still rule our erstwhile hurried lives far more than we'd care to admit.
Now he's back with River: One Man's Journey Down the Colorado, Source to the Sea, a testimonial to the emotional geology of the landscape, and described as "a glorious vehicle both for Fletcher's unique voice and for his singular spirit."
The author reads from and signs copies of River from 4 to 6 p.m. Monday, June 9, at The Book Mark, 5001 E. Speedway. For details, call 881-6350.

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