Bruce and Norman Yonemoto, A History of Clouds, USA 1991, video, colour, sound, 37 min
A comprehensive and playful survey of how clouds have been depicted in art and photography over the centuries, in which talking heads appear in frames within frames, often moving across the screen. The film’s final section explores the work of artist Gary Lloyd, whose company supplies meticulously painted backdrops for TV and films, including the Yonemoto’s own Made in Hollywood.
Bruce Yonemoto, Sounds Like the Sound of Music, USA 2005, video, colour, sound, 3 min
Sounds Like the Sound of Music sees a young boy sing a song from the iconic American musical in his indigenous Incan language of Quechua. Set in a mountainous region in Peru, the parallels of this idyllic location only serve to highlight the vast ideological dislocation between this scene and its referent.
Bruce and Norman Yonemoto, Spalding Gray’s Map of L.A., USA 1984, video, colour, sound, 28 min
The Yonemotos collaborated with performance artist Spalding Gray and actors Mary Woronov and Marshall Efron on this satire of the mythology of Los Angeles, juxtaposing a parodic fictional narrative with Gray’s autobiographical monologues. The ironic re-enactment of the New York artist’s encounter with the excess of Los Angeles focuses on the Southern Californian obsession with cars as cultural and consumer icons. In tragicomic monologues that punctuate the ongoing fantasy narrative, Gray traces his sentimental education through a series of anecdotal childhood memories that detail his romantic infatuation with cars.
Bruce and Norman Yonemoto Spalding Gray’s Map of L.A. 1984, film still. Courtesy Electronic Arts Intermix (EAI), New York
Bruce and Norman Yonemoto A History of Clouds 1991, film still. Courtesy Bruce Yonemoto