Vadim Pevzner, a native of Russia, moved to the U.S. after living for several years in France. His filmmaking and videography reflect an engagement with all aspects of shooting, processing images, and sound.

His cultural orientation is structuralist but also highly absurdist. He experiments with the qualities inherent in formats from super-8 to 35-mm. to hi-8 to digital video, and mixes formats deliberately. An optical printer freak from early on in his career, he utilized the kinds of optical printing techniques that have recently been partialy replaced by programs such as Aftereffects and Electric Image. He also incorporates found footage. Whether through frame-by-frame montage or long, static takes, his editing tests the limits and endurance of visual and psychological perception.

Pevzner, who received an M.F.A. in filmmaking from the School of The Art Institute of Chicago, and whose films and videos have appeared in many international festivals, considers none of these techniques as ends in themselves. Collage and bricolage extend his vocabulary of expression rather than impose stylistic limitations. The particular texture of his work is further intensified by striking and memorable sound designs, considered a unique hallmark of his style. For Pevzner, sound and absence of sound are crucial as synergetic elements in the process of experiencing his films and videos; he asserts the "non-existence" of the film outside of the sound context and vice-versa.

He affirms a narrative coherence within frames and through associative links, up to and including processsing whereby even the absence of quality is treated as a quality, creating what he considers less expensive forms of storytelling while eschewing false imitations of Hollywood. Although he refuses to deal with specular emotional artmaking, his work has a particular emotional appeal without resorting to cheesiness. In spite of an anti-narrative bias, he manages to engage a reactive response. In terms of "subject matter", he continually tries to evoke differance. "There is always a sense of a fucked-up personal journey, Alice exploring a deconstructivist Wonderland".

Pevzner's works possess a playfulness and black humor not often found in "experimental" film-making. A "typical" audience at his recent screenings includes not only a fine arts crowd but also underground film addicts and club kids, some of whose activities he has "documented". Which is not to say he believes in the notion of documentary: "I use verité, hidden camera, and other devices to engage human qualities actors can't deliver." The provocative immediacy of some of his imagery, whether it be eye surgery or sweaty rave parties, can be disturbing. But Pevzner's position on the cutting edge enables him to slice tenderly through layers of flesh and flash and to serve up his concoctions as delicately and lovingly as raw sushi on a platter. He uses shocking images as a value in itself to evoke discomfort and displeasure and visceral involvement.

Pevzner chips away at the surface of subjects and objects with bittersweet irony and great seriousness, looking for as many ways through the looking glass as possible.