Vivienne Dick Staten Island (1978)

Born in Donegal, Ireland, Vivienne Dick moved to New York in 1975. There she became part of a group of filmmakers affiliated to the music and aesthetics known as No Wave. Shot mainly on Super8, Dick s films from this period feature many people and musicians from the No Wave movement in New York, such as Lydia Lunch, Pat Place, James Chance and Ikue Mori. Invoking the spirit of 60s underground filmmakers, her work betrays an interest in individual transgression, urban street life, kitsch and pop culture. Multilayered and openended, the work is framed from a female perspective, with an overriding concern for social conditioning and sexual politics. Pat Place plays a creature who lives in an old abandoned barge on a rubbish strewn beach. The mood is postapocalyptic and the music of Telstar mixed with domestic kitchen clatter. V. D. The quintessential No Wave J. Hoberman