Cracks Between the Stones

The recurring tone of an old filmstrip signals to the viewer the outmoded nature of the educational narration we hear about the native peoples of North America in this Janis Crystal Lipzin creation. It is just one authoritative voice in a collage soundtrack juxtaposed to Super-8mm footage that maps tourist images of the Southwest, Stonehenge and other candid "evidence" of civilizations present and past. Taking the smug yet also quaint manner of such instructional material as a starting point, American filmmaker Lipzin's 2004 film-on-video collage sets up a series of shrewd oppositions regarding our own understanding of ourselves. - Robert Avila