Revot Video Vol 2 Review

national | arts and media | opinion/analysis Saturday June 02, 2007 02:51 by seedot

retro chic from guerilla video collective

Putting on a reviewers hat and watching the revolt video volume 2 as promised. Apologies for style, I turn into AA Gill.

1 Free with every piss up

There's a funny retro feel to the newest DVD volume of Revolt Video work. The stalinist realist of the event posters and the v. 19th Century combination of red'n'black with curlicues and shades of faded parchment both contribute but in some ways the format itself seems a bit quaint, a genuflection to the idea of the journal that is almost secondary to the normal distribution vectors of Revolt Video work.

This volume from the collective has footage dating back to 2004 with a heavy focus on actions in 2006. As far as I could figure the two DVDs were arranged thematically (or maybe was seeing things cos I'd promised to write a review) with the first side being the dancy mix and the second being the chill out. There's a good recut of the Mayday footage where the streets of Dublin on the weekend in 2004 become the backdrop for the music video that will never get heavy rotation. Direct Action Man who introduces the side is in the edit studio deciding to cause trouble. The humour and surrealness of the Baldonnel action comes across well - footage I'd only ever seen on a computer screen sometimes stands up on its own as a testament to the people who don the garb and go to the heart of the problem. The mob cut of the Dublin riots by Aaronrip combining chekovs text with a stylishly edited selection of video from the day is well worth a look as are the two shell pieces. But, to be honest - I'd read or seen these before. It was interesting to see how the Dublin riots material stood up a year later but it was during these pieces that I knew well that the whole retro thing started to bother me.

Because a lot of the material I had seen before. And I started thinking of who I would lend the volume to and got confused. Individual pieces were things that I have shown to people as a way of convincing them, bringing them in to the politics that I feel part of. But the Revolt Video volume as a whole is probably not the best way - while some stories are told in their entirety, some were snapshots of a long process of documenting and analysing our struggles and creating an ongoing media scape. Watched straight through, the two disks cover some issues well - such as the Terence Wheelock death or Somali refugees and sometimes we get glimpses into ongoing struggles such as the court cases that finish side one. While those who have followed or been part of anti-war activism over the last few years will appreciate the pieces, to others they may lack a full narrative. It was good to hear Deirdre's take on the state of the anti-war movement but these did not feel like stand alone pieces - more like updates or ongoing reports.

The piece on the Terence Wheelock campaign benefits from strong editing of the speeches which tell the story well. The same technique is used to good effect when interviews with Somali protestors are intercut with a speech by Michael D. As a sign I am getting old, Revolt have sometimes frustrated me because I can feel the cameraman/editor getting bored with a speech I want to hear - but in these instances they focus on the words not the images. The Rossport campaign supplies many of the images to keep side two bouncing along but there is a more thoughtful feel. As we see the unmanageables bringing their mix of decorum and in your face reclamation not merely the editing but the activity becomes more considered. I don't know if this is a reflection of what was happening or a mood switch in compiling the volume but the tempo slows as end approaches.

Sandwiching a RAR demo at the Dail are 'The Political Economy of Genocide' - which seems to be a free edit that at times is quite disturbing as it strives to re-invigorate images we turn away from until we are immune, and the Noam Chomskey talk that was private to the WSM. Its a strange ending to the volume bringing up again the question of who this distribution is for. The pace by this stage is positively laconic - if not academic. We started with toy soldiers and burning matchbox cars as Direct Action Man is unleashed and conclude with the acolytes listening to the sage. (not a slag of any person living or dead, purely for metaphorical, review type purposes).

So ..... who would I recommend this to? As I said, there are loads of pieces on this that I appreciate having on hard copy media so I can send to people. But there are other pieces that for loads of people I'd feel like I should be sitting in the room explaining it - as this is part two of an ongoing series - but also a stop, pause and compile moment by a collective with an ongoing commitment to producing and distributing media in a variety of manners. For friends who would be part of the media revolution, I think that many would have seen much of this although perhaps in lower resolution or in a different edit. While some pieces are excellent reportage, the time scale of the distribution method, as compared to web or p2p distribution means that as news they are out of date.

But I think thats the strength of this collection. Because when I thought of who I should give it to I thought of loads of reasons why different people wouldn't like different pieces. But after a while I realised a big part of this was because I wanted to hold onto this - not as a journal or a reference but as a memento that I could carry with me. If you want to convert someone take one or two of the pieces off this and arrange a showing. If you want to link someone up with the work of Revolt Video get them to start streaming and downloading the material as it is released. But if you spent the last couple of years already watching the irish independent media output which Revolt is such an important part of then get one of these packs, rip it onto your computer and put it on a shelf. Because I guarantee you'll take it down in a bit and put it on and get into the whole retro buzz that Revolt Video have decided to bring us.