A partial transcript of Lenny Bruce’s penultimate performance from 1966 is reperformed by Elkin, with percussion.

“The six short sequences of Cold Open, part of a larger series, veer from the oblique to the voyeuristic. At points elegiac, romantic even; at others, inscrutable, sinister, the scenes which this portmanteau project presents — and they are scenes — impose a narrative, or at least begin to locate one, while simultaneously refuting any sensible account of events; cancelling the very idea, or value, of a narrative.” (Adam Pugh)

Teaching filmmaking at the San Francisco Art Institute, George Kuchar insisted that each class collaborate on a project. I, An Actress shows him in action. Student Barbara Lapsley had wanted a short film to launch her acting career, and the class obliged by staging a classic Hollywood screen test. By the time the crew was ready to shoot, only ten minutes of class time remained. In I, An Actress, Lapsley launches into her monologue, an appeal to her philandering lover — played by a draped post, topped by a wig — to abandon “rich widows with their sparkling rhinestones.” Kuchar initially gives direction off-camera but finally rushes into the scene to demonstrate what he wants. The student cannot summon up the hysterical excess of her director but finishes her screen test all the same. In Kuchar films, everyone gets a chance to be a star.

In Why La Bamba, the musician John McKeown is fed lines by Elkin from a Dustin Hoffman interview from 1975. The work is a meditation on roleplaying, performance, improvisation and the talk show — all common themes within Elkin’s practice. The formal transactions within the convention of the talk-show of image-making and influence are reworked and abstracted, as McKeown and Elkin joke their way through the process. The work is scored by McKeown’s take on La Bamba, which was selected by Hoffman on Desert Island Discs in 2012. He related that he used to skip to the song on film sets between takes to ‘stay loose’.

“Beckman began making films in the mid-1970s using the then new technology of Super-8 sound film. Her first films were neither documentaries nor narratives, but rather idiosyncratic constructions that triumphed over the limitations of the narrow gauge format with their ingenious special effects. These remarkable early works have the vitality of primitive cartoons, and are similarly filled with comic violence and dreamlike condensation. (...) In the Super-8 We Imitate; We Break Up a set of life-sized marionette legs teach the filmmaker/protagonist how to dance and play a version of soccer, and then chase her all over the lot when she runs away with the ‘loot’.” (Jim Hoberman)

Dame 2 recreates an interview on Parkinson with Helen Mirren from 1975, transcribed and performed as a song by Elkin. She is backed by a choir of associates and friends she corrals into chanting in loose harmony. The work explores the notion of improvisation and power-balance within the recorded-as-live TV format, and re-cites/recites this particular interview, which is so often referenced as an example of historic sexism. The work was originally a performance in 2013, and was repurposed as a video in 2016 for the exhibition Television at CCA Glasgow.