Using the structure of a feature film as its basic format, A First Quarter adopts the principles of nouvelle vague cinema. Simultaneous realities, altered flashbacks, and plays on time and space, are all components of the form and content of this film. Because it was originally shot on video, then kinescoped to 16mm film, A First Quarter has acquired a softened, poetic look. The dialogue derives entirely from the creation of the work as it is spoken and read, built, enacted, written, and painted by the players. As scenarios build, they appear as tropes, one after another.

"The mise-en-scene, the whole story, takes place in one location, the artist's studio. A delicate psychological allegory on 'a day in the life of' anchors the displacement of (filmic) reality and the alienation of the (players) self. Devices such as incongruity between the image and the soundtrack, odd camera angles, and plays on objective focus are integral and explicit components of the narrative. Altered to Suit diverges from preceding films in that the dialogue is not solely related to the work; rather the work serves as a central frame of reference from which the story unfolds. This is also the first time that narrative dominates the structure of the film. It is shot in black and white with very sensual, very seductive photography." — Alice Weiner

16mm short film from 1981.

16mm film from 1982.

Lawrence Weiner film from 1999

The male/female, subject/object investigation in A Bit of Matter and a Little Bit More has no titillating introduction; the appetite is not whetted beforehand. Hardcore, the opening shot, shows the crotch areas of a male and female body engaged in coitus. At the end of the tape a male voice says, "Some questions and five answers relative to moved pictures, five questions and some answers relative to moved pictures—" a reference to the artists' book, 100 Rocks on a Wall.

With Blue Moon Over, Weiner extends his text-based works into the digital realm, positing aphorisms and epigrammatic phrases that investigate language, acquisition and desire. Employing a visual system that suggests flowcharts, horizon lines and diagrams, Blue Moon Over is structured as a series of seamlessly animated sequences of drawings and text fragments. Through subtle manipulations, Weiner engages in linguistic tricks and metamorphoses that visually manifest his conceptual inquiries.

Wild Blue Yonder fuses animated drawings and text with video footage of Weiner's friends, colleagues, and family. Weiner recontextualizes the everyday, leveling gestures, conversations, actions and interactions into a system of codes that blur the boundaries between what is choreographed and what is improvised. Weiner's visual grammar (arrows, horizons, frames) suggests motion and borders; the relationships of the animations, aphoristic text, and conversations activate questions of intimacy within the conventions of physical and personal space.

There But For resembles a soap opera; its characters—a couple whose relationship has seen better days, a ball-and-jack playing adult/child, and a couple that comes to visit the family—are in the midst of their day-to-day lives (an imitation of life). The music was composed and performed live on the set as the play unfolded. There But For is a free-form chance operation within the defined boundaries of place (an apartment) and the assigned roles of the players: the mother (bitch), the father (jerk), their kid (retard), and their visitors. The players continually argue as they feel their way through this structure, where ambiguity is the form. The kid asks, “Is mediocrity its own reward?” Perhaps the clue for the viewer is in the tape’s title: There But For (the grace of God go I)."

Writes Weiner: COLLAGED COMPONENTS COLLIDE IN THIS CARTOON - SINK OR SWIM LOOKS AS IF BUILT AS AN HOMAGE TO THE 'LOONEY TUNES' PREMISE THAT WHAT DOESN'T MAKE SENSE MAKES PERFECT SENSE: AS LONG AS YOU EITHER BELIEVE - OR KNOW. A SIMPLE PRESENTATION OF A SLICE OF LIFE (EMPIRICAL REALITY) DOES NOT APPEAR TO BE THE OBJECTIVE OF SINK OR SWIM.