Artvoice: Buffalo's #1 Newsweekly
Home Blogs Web Features Calendar Listings Artvoice TV Real Estate Classifieds Contact
Previous story: We Are
Next story: Rock-N-Bowl

The Five-Minute Video Series

If it’s true that “there is no such thing as an ordinary life,” as independent video producer Richard Wicka states in his Five-Minute Video Series, then it would seem he has an endless supply of material. Lucky for us, Wicka has found plenty of material right here in Buffalo’s arts scene, which he has been mining for fascinating stories since 2004. The end result is an archive of roughly five-minute videos of everyday people telling stories…good stories. (Pictured is Buffaloartist, activist and WHLD radio host Roxanne Amico.) There are tales of unrequited love, of losing family, of drug habits and foreign encounters. These are the trials, travails and victories that we are all faced with in life, and each story hangs on the quality of the storyteller, the degree to which he believes his own story. The videos are straightforward, with the storyteller simply talking into the camera. While the quality of the stories varies, each one satisfies our voyeuristic tendencies and reveals something intimate about human nature. Wicka’s video clips will show sporadically between other shows throughout the duration of the Infringement Festival at Squeaky Wheel Media Arts Center.