There is a tiny screen at the Museum of the Moving Image currently playing Alien Workshop’s Memory Screen (1991) on a loop. It’s part of “Recording the Ride: The Rise of Street-Style Skate Videos,” a comprehensive exhibition dedicated to the inimitable style of skate video that took hold of the ‘90s and set the standards for what a skate video should be from that point onward—think fuzzy camerawork, brash soundtracks, and the inevitable fish-eye lens. But, Memory Screen is not your typical skate video; it has more in common with the poetic style of editing characteristic of the American avant-garde and less in common with contemporaneous skate films such as The Search for Animal Chin (1987) or Spike Jonze’s early works. It is a strange and beautiful artifact that is less interested in showcasing skate tricks as it is in capturing the spirit of its sport.
Marking Alien Workshop’s first foray into the world of skate videos, Memory Screen quickly set the skateboard company apart with a visual language that leaned heavily on archival footage of landscapes, cities, and animals. The skaters in Memory Screen—Neil Blender, Steve Claar, Scott Conklin, Rob Dyrdek, Thomas Morgan, Duane Pitre, John Pryor, and Bo Turner—only account for a fraction of the video’s runtime and when they are on screen, numerous wrinkles and distortions fog their appearance. While most skateboard companies at the time were preoccupied with showing off their skaters’ faces and personalities, Alien Workshop was more keen on figuring out how to translate their skills in cinematic terms; and, it’s the latter’s decision that proves more rewarding, as it shines a spotlight on genuine skateboarding feats through visual flourishes instead of limp camerawork. For Alien Workshop, it was always clear that the thrills and perils of skating necessitated cinematic counterparts, not mere documentation, but true visual embodiments of skating’s grand and risky gestures. It is for this reason that Memory Screen feels much more like a George Barber scratch film than anything else, it’s every harsh cut, sudden insert, and change-of-direction reflecting the nature of a sport where falling on concrete is always a possibility, spontaneity is cherished, and split-decisions are the name-of-the-game.
Then, there’s the soundtrack. Not only is it a great collection of lesser-known songs by artists such as J Mascis, Dinosaur Jr., and Worked World, it is also an integral element of the video. Often cutting to the rhythm of each track featured in the video, Alien Workshop sets Memory Screen on a unique groove in which each strum pairs well with a dissolve and rushes of percussion announce adventures in flicker. The inaugural track, J Mascis’s “A Little Ethnic Song,” is heard following about a minute of a super-grainy footage depicting a feedback vortex—a fucked-up, DIY-response to the Stargate sequence from 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). The song, which consists of short, patterned whirs, slowly guides the film out of its vertigo-inducing opening sequence into a more harmonious stream of images. It’s a simple edit, but it evinces its makers’ belief in the beauty that resides behind a well-executed match-cut, needle-drop, or landing. The film’s final scene, of a seagull nose-diving in silence, completes Memory Screen’s project. From din to quiet, visual excess to simplicity, the video mirrors the arc of a skate session—a sublime ride is predicated on a couple tumbles.
Memory Screen is on view through January 26 at the Museum of the Moving Image as part of the exhibition “Recording the Ride: The Rise of Street-Style Skate Videos.”
