Neotoma Tape

Neotoma Tape (1983-1985) is a collection of excerpts from public-access television broadcasts that Jamie, an eager collector of bizarre human behaviour, collected over a period of two years. Neotoma refers to neotoma cinerea (a kind of rat) and a specific greedy human or animal behaviour. Originally edited for the exhibition Neotoma in the Otis Gallery in Los Angeles on the subject of artists’ collections, the film forms a voyeuristic and mortifying collection of images of the most varied extreme human activities. For instance there are obsessive aerobics and vomiting brothers, but also Born-Again talkshows and parents discussing Satanism. In a shocking way, Jamie confronts us with one of the results of pursuing media democracy to the limits and hence providing space for the impertinent exposure of the shadowy side of modern society.