Monday April 8 – Thursday April 11, 11pm PT
Anto(n) Astudillo
To become the person I have always been
Artist in attendance — In person & online
Microscope is very pleased to present a solo screening of film and video works by New York-based artist Anto(n) Astudillo. The screening will take place both in person and online, with a Q&A with the artist following the screening.
In the seven works on the program, Astudillo considers the effects of two concurrent personal transitions: the gender affirming process of hormone replacement therapy (HRT) and their experience as a US immigrant from Chile during the past twelve years.
Social and political upheaval is also at the center of the artist’s concerns and practice, including several works on the program. In “The People’s Revolt” (2022) we witness the social unrest in Santiago in the fall of 2019 — just before the arrival of Covid — as the artist takes part in the protests. And in “Golpes” (2020) we revisit Pinochet’s 1973 coup d’état and reflect on its ramifications and remnants, such as bullet holes on buildings’ façades or views of the Atacama Desert where many were made to disappear by the State.
Their diaristic approach, especially the first-person voiceover, provides a poetic, personal and sincere commentary to the captivating images shot from real life on both film and video formats. The words used in the autobiographical work “While I Read This Letter” (2024) candidly delineate the in-between state of someone who has left home, in search for or in need of another.
Astudillo’s “How to Make an Avatar & Render My Body” (2023), visually depicts the process of its title as a way to elaborate on their experience of the HRT process, using audio documentation of the artist’s changing voice combined, among others, with footage of the artist creating the motions of the avatar which we see beside them on the split screen.
Astudillo will be available for a Q&A following the screening.
General In-person Admission $9
Member & Student In-person Admission $7
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Anto(n) Astudillo (they/he) is a Lenapehoking/NYC-based filmmaker, performance artist, and curator of trans experience from Wallmapu (Santiago, Chile). Astudillo works with 16mm film, video, and performance to create moving portraits of personal and political themes, navigating dynamic interconnections between embodied practices and experimental cinema.
Program:
Te quiero tanto
By Anto(n) Astudillo, 16mm film, 2018, 5 minutes 47 seconds
Away from their homeland, immigrant communities gather in urban spaces trying to make a living in a capitalist society. Through local markets, small shops, street stalls, etc. vendors resist for the survival of their goods and traditions. Through the lens of the camera and non-sync field recordings, which include a conversation with a friend, a day in the local market with their mother and the music of Don Jermán Tejerinas, an oral storyteller of indigenous tradition (Atacameño), the filmmaker walks through neighborhoods in Queens, East Boston and La Florida, (South of Santiago, Chile), shortening the distances of these locations through resonant images and sounds, imagining a common space where all these experiences converge.
Almargen
By Anto(n) Astudillo, 16mm-to-digital, color, 2018, 6 minutes 8 seconds
Almargen’ is a meditation on three major transitions in my life; moving to a new country in search of better opportunities, changing career paths, and going through long-term relationship break-up. I filmed this piece in Santiago, Chile in 2016, while also filming a short narrative piece ‘Beneath the Light’, in an effort to gain perspective of the current immigration wave in Santiago in comparison with my own experience. During the editing process I decided to make my thoughts the text of the film, becoming a distant observant of a city I no longer inhabit.
EXO
By Anto(n) Astudillo, 16mm-to-digital, color, 2019, 3 minutes 47 seconds
In EXO the body of the performer is a vulnerable surface. The metal dust is the eroding factor altering it. As the body keeps resisting and grasping, transformation becomes inevitable.
Golpes
By Anto(n) Astudillo, 16mm-to-digital, b&w, 2020, 7 minutes 29 seconds
“Golpes” is a film that revisits the coup d’état of September 11, 1973 by the Chilean army on the Government Palace (La Moneda) through images that document the bullet impacts from 50 years ago on the walls of the nearby architecture. The film draws connections between the army of 1973 and the police force that protects the ideals existing within La Moneda, and that continues to repress both the Mapuche communities and the popular power of the Chilean people. Likewise, brief visions of the Atacama Desert appear as a vast landscape that once served as a container for thousands of disappearances committed by the State. The non-sync sound and contrasting picture reference the way the film was shot (HI-CON film) as the boiling discontent grows stronger due to the explosion of a social movement in October 2019.
The People’s Revolt/La Revolución del Pueblo (Part 1)
By Anto(n) Astudillo, 16mm-to-digital, color, 2022, 15 minutes 35 seconds
For more than 10 years I have been filming different protests in the United States and Chile. These protests have had a great impact on my life. Chile’s “Penguin” Student Revolution, the Queer Liberation March, BLM, the Women’s March, and the Chilean Social Movement that erupted on October 18, 2019, have been filmed with the intention of archiving history, as well as motivate in viewers a feeling of community and popular concern that generates resonance in the world. This fragment of popular uprisings led by the people focuses on the social revolt in Chile, documented between December 2019 and January 2020. The inspiration of this film comes from the film program of the same name that gathers the work of several Chilean filmmakers and their response to Chile’s social revolt of 2019 and the repercussions of the 1973 Coup d’etat.
How to Make an Avatar & Render My Body
By Anto(n) Astudillo, digital video, color, 2023, 9 minutes 50 seconds
In this two-chapter project I piece together the progression of my HRT process, using voice documentation and virtual scenarios to recognize physical and psychological changes. Both chapters are chronological evidence of a -one year- gender affirming experience dating back to pre-T days, when I first envisioned my nonbinary avatar inspired by my deepest dreams.
While I Read This Letter
By Anto(n) Astudillo,16mm film, super8 & miniDV to digital, color, 2024, 25 minutes
Through the film ¨while I read this letter/mientras leo esta carta¨, Anto(n) addresses their family in Chile to share some of their experiences in the country of residence. This is an exercise inspired by the video-letter format of the AMAME project organized by the Ñukanchik People collective. After 12 years from the artist’s decision to emigrate, Anto(n) reviewed their personal archive of moving images captured since their arrival in the United States for the first time.