Created with a 16 mm film camera and an Amiga computer, No No Nooky T.V. (1987), by Barbara Hammer (b. 1939, Los Angeles, California – d. 2019, New York City, New York) questions the heteronormative constructs of sexuality. The film uses digital graphics, excerpts from films (including Hammer’s own Multiple Orgasm, 1976) and texts on desire or sexual intercourse to create a unique narrative via the computer. Punning on the Spanish word amiga (female friend), the artist presents the computer as a potentially liberating tool for women, and an object of erotism, connecting computing and lesbian sexuality. ‘Radical content deserves radical form’, the artist stated in 1993, as such No No Nooky T.V. reflects both the technological and social changes of the 1980s and explores the notions of romance, sexuality and love in the post-industrial age.
Like the earlier film No No Nooky T.V. (1987) T.V. Tart (1988) combines 16 mm footage and computer graphics that Barbara Hammer (b. 1939, Los Angeles, California – d. 2019, New York City, New York) made on an Amiga computer. The film explores the connection of the food industry, consumerism and televised advertisement – focusing on the development of the increased use of sugar in the populations everyday food intake. The animated shapes in the background of the video remind of a state of being under the influence of a drug: the psychedelic visuals in combination with the layered words (such as sugar, candy or slave) suggest the addictive effect that sugar as well as consumerism have on society. The soundtrack of the work samples famous pop, soul and electronic songs with the applause of an audience – amplifying the effect of abstraction already initiated by the images.