Assistance: Hirofumi Mora, Japan-United States Friendship Commission
Produced by IMATCO/ATANOR for Television Espanola S.A.El Arte del Video

“In the Land of the Elevator Girls” uses the elevator as a metaphorical vehicle to reveal an outsider’s gaze into contemporary Japanese culture. The continual opening and closing of elevator doors serve as a succinct formal device, as the viewer is offered brief glimpses of a series of landscapes－natural, urban, cultural, and domestic. Doors open onto doors to reveal layers of public and private vision, transporting the viewer from theatrical performances and street scenes to an elevator surveillance camera’s recording of everyday life.

Source: “Steina & Woody Vasulka Video Works,” planned by ICC, NTT Publishing, 1998
(reprinted from “Electronic Arts Intermix: Video” (edited by Lori ZIPPAY, 1992))

“In the Land of the Elevator Girls” 1981