Wednesdays, January 21, 28, February 4, 11, 18, 25

See important works by video artists in the series, "They Might Be Giants: Seminal Videoworks," screening at Pacific Film Archive on Wednesdays from January 21 through February 25.

The series includes an overview of the history of video art, When Video Came, a bright, zippy documentary featuring interviews with prominent artists from the world of alternative media.

"They Might Be Giants: Seminal Videoworks" is predominantly composed of one-person shows highlighting beautiful, influential works by some of the most important videomakers in this country. Each program will begin with a stimulating introduction by an artist, author, curator, or professor.

The series includes an evening of exuberant iconoclasm from Ant Farm, with in-person appearances by Chip Lord and Hudson Marquez, members of this provocative and entertaining art ensemble, and an introduction by art historian Patricia Mellencamp, author of High Anxiety: Catastrophe, Scandal, Age, & Comedy.

When Video Came will be seen in a program introduced by PFA's Video Curator Steve Seid. This evening also offers historically significant and enjoyable tapes by Nam June Paik, whom Seid calls "the de facto Father of Video Art.

Margaret Morse, a professor at UC Santa Cruz and the author of Virtualities: Television, Media Art and Cyberculture, introduces an evening of works by Gary Hill. With great intelligence and beauty, these tapes explore language, consciousness, and visual complexities.

Anne Wagner, professor of modern art at UC Berkeley, and the author of Three Artist (Three Women): Modernism and the Art of Hesse, Krasner, and O'Keefe, introduces a evening of entrancing, transcendent tapes by Bill Viola.

Tony Oursler's tapes, which offer sly confrontations with paranoia and desire, are introduced by Bay Area artist Tony Labat, and Robert Riley, who is director of the Richard L. Nelson Art Gallery and Fine Art Collection at UC Davis, and was formerly the media curator at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, will introduce a program of works by Steina and Woody Vasulka. Beginning in the early 1970s, they created customized tools such as their own video processing facility, the "Vasulka Imaging System," to generate wonderful, distinctive special effects.

Program notes for the series, which will be held at the PFA Theater, 2575 Bancroft Way near Bowditch Street, on the southern edge of the UC Berkeley campus, follow. General admission is $8. For more information about