“As video games have increasingly become paradigmatic of our lives being split between screens and bodies, the films of Ericka Beckman have accrued a particular topicality since their production in the late 1970s. Associated with the Pictures Generation and the activities of CalArts in the 1970s, Beckman’s manic, real-virtual, highly symbolic films – which take video games, learning games, sports and even roulette as thematic motors – seem to have presaged the life-games we now waddle within.”