SFCINEMATHEQUE

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Thursday, March 21, 2002

El Zócalo by Chip Lord and Gustavo Vasquez

Yerba Buena Center for the Arts





Since the 1970s, when he helped create the artist collective Ant Farm and other groups exploring experimental approaches to video and television, Chip Lord has produced a large body of videotapes that explore social customs in different societies and their relationships to technology. El Zócalo, premiering tonight, is an observational portrait of Mexico City’s central Plaza de la Constitución across one day in August. Soldiers, Aztec dancers, clowns, food vendors, protestors, rain, dogs, tourists, kites, balloons and dignitaries all meet in the public space of the Zócalo. Shown with The Aroma of Enchantment by Chip Lord, shot in Tokyo, where a strangely mutated idea of America takes many forms. (Steve Anker)