Wendy Clarke has made a career out of creating contexts for other people (particularly disenfranchised individuals such as teens and prison inmates) to access the tools and resources of video and other new forms of communications technology. Grasping the therapeutic potential of television after making her own video diary in the early 1970s, media artist and educator Clarke has spent the past two decades exploring video as a forum for personal expression. First came her legendary Love Tapes, a series begun in the late 1970s in which people spoke extemporaneously on camera about love, videotaping themselves in a special booth. Clarke then spent six years as an artist-in-residence in the California prison system, working with HIV-positive inmates on a series of media collaborations that led to her Remembrance project. The stories in Remembrance, like those from Love Tapes a decade earlier, range from personal tragedy and deep sadness to humorous attempts at coping. Collectively, the tapes serve as both a forum for contemporary discussion (and healing) and as a historic record of these times. 

Tonight’s program will include One on One: Ken and Louise and Love Tapes (Volume One).