vhs-c, vhs / digital video

Closed Captions available

9 minutes

1996 / 2021

A 25-year anniversary remix of “Killer Janitors,” a single-episode cable access television show created by Kasten Searles and Mothra (AKA Malic Amalya) in 1996.

In January 1996, high school sophomore outcasts, Kasten Searles and Mothra (aka Malic Amalya) aired their cable access television show "Killer Janitors" across the Burlington, Vermont area where they lived. Filming on a VHS-C camcorder, they taped their show in their high school hallways, library, and cafeteria; through culvert pipes; on bus rides home; while wondering downtown; and during weekend sleepovers. Edited on an analogue VHS system at the local cable access station, their final cut was a single, 30-minute episode, influenced by punk, alternative, and riot grrrl subcultures, daytime and late-night TV, B movies, and art class.

“I Wake Up with a Flower in my Hand” is a 25-year anniversary remix of “Killer Janitors.” Using all original footage and adding no special effects, the new cut focuses on how the best friends saw each other and understood themselves within the context of their friendship, high school, home lives, and a world beyond their small-town confinements—felt but not yet touched.

Today, Kasten Searles is a painter and an Associate Professor of Graphic and Media Design at Henderson State University. She lives and works in Little Rock, Arkansas. For more information, please visit: