Best Of UbuWeb: General Idea's "Pilot"

In 1977, AA Bronson, Jorge Zontal, and Felix Partz, collectively known as General Idea, produced a half-hour long segment called Pilot, which was broadcast on TVOntario. The video is both a campy survey of their work from 1969-77, and a witty commentary on mass media and the role of the artist in society.  

From Catalogue Netherlands Media Art Institute:

"By using a satirical didactic style, collages of imagery from 1950's beauty illustrations, and self-portraits stereotyping themselves as cinematic characters, General Idea show how they have successfully designed themselves, how the media is expertly manipulated to achieve desired results and how the audience becomes no more than a submissive mass, smiling in a standing ovation at the command of a master we do not see." (Elaine W. Ho)

It's really good. You can watch Pilot here.

Photo: General Idea, Pilot (still) 1977

UbuWeb is one of our most favourite sites on the whole of the Internet, host to multimedia files from the history of the avant-garde. It has 100 year-old recordings of Dadaist sound poets. Books written by computers. Surrealistic Luis Vuitton commercials made by legendary Japanese directors. It's crazy. Visit it here. Or see all of our "Best Of UbuWeb" recommendations here.

Posted by Rebekah Hakkenberg, the co-creator of Once Again, To Zelda. She also tumbls and tweets. You can read her posts here and email her at rebekah@littleredumbrella.com