George Barber

Short film.

Video art by George Barber.

Short film.

Thirsty? The longing created by advertising is satirised in this remix of Schweppes advertising.

Short film.

Barber constructs a curious biography around his father's relationship to his nephew Alan Rickman who he dislikes one Christmas for refusing to eat potatoes – and the Barber family are later shocked at the Premiere to find that Rickman has ripped them off and used their father's speech in the movie Michael Collins.

This revolves around Tim West, an advertising executive who is developing a Channel 4 programme on cooking for terrorists. Disillusioned by the hyper-reality of the media world, he joins Robert de Niro evening classes, but also falls under the pastoral influence of Johnny Morris. From the opening images of night-time, car-ridden streets accompanied by languorous sax on the soundtrack, through to the sub-Chandleresque voice-over narration, Taxi Driver II strikes you with its clever knowingness. But it's more than just a clever nod in the direction of contemporary film noir, just as it's more than an incestuous joke at the expense of the London based media world: it's a telling comment on the contemporary media culture of postmodernism.

Short film.