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Valentine for Perfect Strangers

Ben Coonley

2006 00:03:20 United StatesEnglishColorStereo4:3Video
Tags:
Humor, Language, Love

Description

A love letter to the Internet from a feral cat in Brooklyn.

Anonymously published to the web in 2006, Valentine for Perfect Strangers was an early example of an art video that "went viral," amassing over a half-million views and landing on the front page of YouTube.

 

 

Bonus Feature:  DVD versions of this title include the  Russian "sequel"  Valentine for Russian Perfect Strangers. This video was made for inclusion in the Moscow Biennial, where the English and Russian versions alternated on a loop. The Russian version uses footage from the Russian version of the TV show Perfect Strangers in place of the original footage. It also includes a number of departures from the original script that explain the English original and address concerns of a Russian-speaking art audience.

About Benjamin Coonley

Ben Coonley is a video and performance artist who uses comic pedagogical styles and direct audience address to explore aspects of media culture and film history.  Drawing from the avant garde canon and amateur/public access video conventions, his videos are sardonic no-brow subversions of cinematic form and genre.

Coonley studied Art Semiotics at Brown University, and received his MFA from Bard College.  His works have been screened at venues and film festivals including the International Film Festival Rotterdam, New York Underground Film Festival, Cinematexas and the Pacific Film Archive, San Francisco.  He is a regular contributor to Movies with Live Soundtracks, a quarterly DIY film/performance series based in Providence, RI.  He lives in Brooklyn.

He was recipient of the 2003 Barbara Aronofsky Latham Memorial Award, given to an Exceptional Emerging Video Artist.