Rick Prelinger

Sending a burning arrow into the stunting effects that the compartmentalization of culture has on how creativity manifests, visual artist Doug Aitken embarked on an experiment exploring a less materialistic and more nomadic direction of art creation, exhibition, and participation. Station to Station involved a train that crossed North America housing a constantly changing creative community including artists, musicians, and curators, who collaborated in the creation of recordings, artworks, films, and 10 unique happenings, across the country.

The amazing story of how the Berkeley police department, the Nazi invasion of the Netherlands, an Academy Award winner and Mr. Spock from TV’s Star Trek are all connected by “Sudden Birth”, one of the most unintentionally hilarious and disturbing educational films ever created.

A dream walk through the United States of America; a meditation on the thoughts and ideals of its inhabitants, as they are exposed in their silent but eloquent home movies.

All-Is-Well collects ordinary adventures remembered only because they survive in home movies. Against a backdrop of distant news events, kids stampede for Easter eggs; horses run together; families read pulps and shoot craps; cooks fry; tin-can tourists work hard at leisure; people pose, clown and drink, pull back the husks of sweet corn. For them and for us, remaking the ephemeral gesture is both a small pleasure and an act of survival. The home movie segments used in the film date from 1930 to 1969, the period in which the near-infinite and mostly-unseen archive of home movies that awaits our attention was born.