anti-globalization - film - 2002 - Video Active 4

Video Active 4
Toronto Video Activist Collective
2002

Hi out there in the Cyberweb!  I borrowed Video Active 4 from the Toronto Zine Library.

Video Active 4 is a compilation of video shorts by the Toronto Activist Video Collective, a loosely organized group of activist filmmakers who first came together in 1998.  The content of Video Active 4  is a collection of documentaries about various demonstrations and protest actions.  Most of the films document direct actions in Canada, however some are based on events that occured elsewhere.  Two films are shot in countries other than Canada, they are La Lucha Sigue by Tony Neale, which documents EZLN summit activity in Mexico, and Gustavo Benedetto Presente by Avi Lewis and Naomi Klein, about a protester named Gustavo who was murdered by police firing indiscriminately into a crowd.  These two shorts bring some variety in message and style to the compilation, much of the imagery of each film is remarkably similar to one-another.

Many of the films primarily focus upon the aesthetics of protest action, with little focus on the issues that were driving protests.  This was especially frustrating with the film called Map of a Restless Northwest, about an organization called Pacific North West Economic Region.  There was little explanation of what this organization actually was, or what it’s purpose is, what kind of threat it presents and who is threatened by it.  The video weaves together footage of an activist leader speaking at a meeting about their immanent protests and police confrontation, with footage of protesters interacting with police, but it doesn’t explain why this exchange is actually occurring.  

Many of the films follow suit, alternating between a display of action, and brief statements issued by the participants.  These shorts represent protest as carnivalesque action, as exuberant confrontation with police, but not really as collective will to demonstrate opposition to power.  There is rarely rationale presented in these shorts for why the protests being filmed are actually taking place, or why mass protests are appropriate responses - presumably these films are intended for an audience who has already been initiated into the exciting dynamics of direct action protest.  This audience likely does not need to be persuaded against various forms of power, nor does it need to be assured of the meaningfulness of such protest.

This issue of representation is pushed to an absurd limit when it is revealed that one of the film shorts is a music video for a band.  While music videos are known as sites of empty imagery and appropriation, here the most notable thing is that the music is the only thing that makes it different from many of the other films contained on this compilation.  I don’t think I really noticed if the footage used in the music video was unique from the footage used in any of the other shorts.  I don’t think it matters.  

The urgency of most of these films has passed, and now they can serve as somewhat superficial records of the protests of Toronto and elsewhere during the early 00-years.  These videos are low on information but they can still be read as a protest tactic in themselves.  I am unclear of what the effects of such films are other than to excite and steel the resolve of those who are already active in protest.  These shorts display how the activists who engaged in such activities have chosen to represent themselves on video.  There is a sense that the protests being represented are basically intended as large spectacles meant for media reproduction, and films such as those on Video Active 4 are perhaps efforts made by the participants themselves to control that reproduction.

The Toronto Video Activist Collective is still active in 2011.  I do not know if they continue disseminating compilations of their work, however they do maintain a Youtube channel at: http://www.youtube.com/user/TVACdotCA.  Some of the films contained on Video Active 4 are viewable on the TVAC youtube channel page, however their recent material is of much higher quality than the early works, and engages with issues of concern much better than those films.