Concord Ultimatum

Directed by Tony Conrad

"Originally intended as one scene in a larger work concerned with the metaphorical destruction of the viewer (through demolition of the camera), Concord Ultimatum unexpectedly became the occasion of the larger project’s demise. In addressing the camera mechanism itself as a subject, and even offering to exchange positions with it, this performance dismembered at one stroke most of the aporias of the materialist/structuralist position in film theory. On the other hand, this work revealed no point of access to the visual image; its situationist grounding in a particular structure of events, which placed voice and performance at stage center, simultaneously won me over to the video medium and stripped me of visual tools (until Combat Status Go)."