"Tip" Berlin Magazin - Nr. 10/94 - 23. Jahrgang 5.5 - 18.5, 1994 - page 68
Vegetables in the Machinery
The videos of "Tentatively, a Convenience," to be seen at the "Eiszeit," are about Walt Disney's heritage, singing mouths and fruit in a peepshow
In the middle of the '80s, some peep show visitors in Baltimore might have been somewhat disturbed when, right in the porn muddle, a grapefruit was penetrated by vegetable pieces. These confused gentlemen were not very likely to have reached theit climax, after every turn-on (screwing) scene would be interrupted with ironically estranged artifices in dramaturgically refined intervals. After all, "Balling Tim Ore's Best," the smuggled-in fake porn film (named after his home town's advertising slogan, "Baltimore is Best"), ran 24 hours non-stop for two weeks until it was stolen back by its creator, "Tentatively a Convnience." The video artist, "born in 1975 at age 21," already made 175 films, which he sums up by calling them "fucked up." "Tentatively" produces reality in permanent metamorphosis, "firmly believing in the plasticity of reality," shortly: "anything is anything."
Permanent revolution of reality is delivered in "Transparent SMILE - Monty Cantsin Performing with White Colours" (1984-1985), a rhytmic hell ride of melting images, cyphers and symbols. With "Diszey Spots" (1993), grave-robber "Tentatively, a Convenience" steps right into the brain of deceased Walt Disney whose frozen corpse is rumored to have been preserved for future young generations. "Until melting him, " says "Tentatively," the studios have probably wired his head via electrodes, just in case he still comes up with films." Disney's most recent film idea is exclusively to be seen in "Diszey Spots," although somewhat scrambled, since an autopsy of Walt's brain troubled the line just during the recording.
By the end of the '80s, "Tentatively" was planning to have 50,000 people tell their personal philosophy while just filming their mouth. However, he then restricted the project to singer Elisabeth Downing who, according to the filmmaker, is a wonderfully warm-hearted woman who had grown up in a tiny motel room. In "Philosopher's Union Member's Mouthpiece: Emma Elisabeth Downing" (1988), the lady's mouth becomes a being of its own, a mollusc, uttering and chanting a rhythmic stream of wisdom, unfortunately for only five minutes.
Beyond his videos, "Tentatively a Convenience" lives true to his maxim that reality must be transformed and fixed roles undermined: Once he whipped dead dogs in a subway tunnel and acted as a blind girlfriend's guide dog in London. Wearing a dog mask, he crawled on all fours through a double decker bus where the British conductor would pass by without showing surprise. Only the real dogs insisted that anything is not anything and barked at him in confusion. (The videos of "Tentatively a Convenience" are to be seen at the Eiszeit.)
Katja Nicodemus
(translation from the original German by Florian Cramer)
to the tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE movie-making "Press: Criticism, Interviews, Reviews" home-page
to the "tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - Sprocket Scientist" home-page
to the "FLICKER" home-page for the alternative cinematic experience
to find out more about why the S.P.C.S.M.E.F. (Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Sea Monkeys by Experimental Filmmakers) is so important
for info on tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE's tape/CD publishing label: WIdémoUTH
to see an underdeveloped site re the N.A.A.M.C.P. (National Association for the Advancement of Multi-Colored Peoples)