Norman Yonemoto, Nicholas Ursin
California-based artists Bruce and Norman Yonemoto, brothers who produced a body of collaborative videos beginning in 1976, deconstruct and rewrite the hyperbolic vernacular with which the mass media constructs cultural mythologies. Ironically employing the image-language and narrative syntax of popular forms such as soap opera, Hollywood melodrama and television advertising, the Yonemotos work from "the inside out" to expose the media's pervasive manipulation of contemporary reality and fantasy, individual and collective identity. Norman Yonemoto was born in 1946. He studied film at Santa Clara University, the University of California at Berkeley, the University of California at Los Angeles, and the American Film Institute. He has been a contributing writer for Artweek magazine, and is the author of the commercial films Chatterbox (1976) and Savage Streets (1983). Bruce and Norman Yonemoto co-founded KYO-DAI Productions in 1976. In 1999 a mid-career retrospective of their collaborative work was held at the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles. Their work has been exhibited extensively around the world, including at the Japanese American National Museum, Los Angeles;…
Films