Underground films of the 1960s circulated as mutable, performative events

Evidence

An unfixed work that, in all its iterations, was essentially performative, No President evolved out of Smith’s November 1967 program, suggestively titled Horror and Fantasy at Midnight. A half dozen individual titles (Reefers of Technicolor Island, Scrubwoman of Atlantis, Ratdroppings of Uranus, Marshgas of Flatulandia, The Flake of Soot, and Overstimulated) were variously screened at the former Tek, renamed the New Cinema Playhouse (where, following its premiere at the New York Film Festival, Shirley Clarke’s Portrait of Jason had been running for six weeks). All were silent, accompanied by a taped soundtrack by Angus MacLise’s Cineola Orchestra and the Vietnam tape prepared by David Gurin two years earlier for Rehearsal for the Destruction of Atlantis. — J. Hoberman, Everything Is Now, 1372

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s shelf thesis that avant-gardes are produced by conditions — the mutable non-fixed film work itself is a product of cheap venues and improvised screening culture.