A chain letter you actually want Issue #35

Miranda July’s Joanie 4 Jackie connects videographers

By Nadja Sayej
Published: March 1st, 2008 | 1:44pm

Electronic chain letters are generally to be deleted, thrown out, and avoided at all costs, but video-art chain letters are something else entirely. Joanie 4 Jackie is a video chain letter based out of Bard College in upstate New York that was first founded by Miranda July in 1995 and originally called Big Miss Movieola.

July remains a fan, but the chain letter is now run by Jacqueline Goss, a Brooklyn-based video artist who is film faculty at Bard. The ongoing annual art project showcases a mélange of short film and video work by amateur and expert lady film artists such as July, Carolyn Ryder Cooley, and U.K.-based artist Emily Richardson, along with several others. With topics spanning kung fu, soap operas, how-to's, and porn, each DVD is sent out to a mailing list that consists only of those ladies who submit a video. The rules of the letter are simple: Give a video, get a video compilation.

But low key and analogue is a must, Goss says. "I think there's something pretty great about getting a packaged DVD of your video with the work of nine others," she says, noting that a retrospective of the project will show at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco in 2008. "It's more personal. I think some women and girls feel more comfortable with a limited audience."

For information on joining the chain, purchasing previous compilations, or seeing the upcoming show, visit joanie4jackie.com.