PART I
© All images are courtesy and copyright of the artists
14 x 14
a collective film by Alberto Cabrera Bernal and Albert Alcoz, 16mm to video, color, sound, 3 min, 2012
14 x 14 is a 16 mm found footage film in which, from several identical prints of a commercial, a structuralist montage is proposed. Images have been manipulated through the chemical alteration of the physical support.
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Alberto Cabrera Bernal is a poet and filmmaker born in Madrid Spain. He works with various formats including found footage, video, 16mm and 35 mm film. His works have been shown in international venues and festivals including Anthology Film Archives, Cinemateca Brasileira, Chicago Underground Film Festival, and Artists’ Television Access. He has won awards at the Lucca Film Festival and Athens International Film Festival. Website: www.cabrerabernal.org
Albert Alcoz is a filmmaker, writer, teacher and curator of experimental cinema born in Barcelona. Since 2005 he has made films on Super 8, 16mm and video. He also works with found footage and cameraless techniques. HIs films have been screened at venues such as Anthology Film Archives, NY and film festivals including EXiS in Seoul. Some of his works are distributed by HAMACA. Since May 2006, he writes and designs the Visionary Film website about avantgarde cinema and current experimental film. Website: www.albertalcoz.com
Window
Will Bragger, 16mm, color, silent, 36 sec, 2012
Window is a film about film. It’s about texture, rhythm and filmic imagery. It is constructed frame by frame using 35mm sprocket holes with the holes themselves being blue symbolizing a window to another space. It was made during the time of the news of Kodak’s demise and the film is loosely a reaction to that.
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I started making film 1989 in Rhode Island. My early films were b&w, Super 8 and 16mm. They were loosely narrative, and contained a good deal of stop motion animation. I conducted a weekly film series at the University of Rhode Island entitled “For Films Sake” in which films notable for using film as art were screened. In 1992 I moved to Boston and began working mainly in 16mm color. It was in Boston that I discovered the true potential of film as an art form. Since 1994 I have only created handmade films with paints, inks, markers and various other mediums which adhere to film. I have strived to create visual silent music with rhythms of forms, texture and color. Recently I am making collage films with pieces of other film and other objects that will pass light. The primary influence on my film is music. Genres including Japanese noise, electro-acoustic, avant-garde jazz and other forms of “architectural” electronic music, have helped shape my films. — WB
Roghieh
Alysse Stepanian, HD video, color, sound, 5:31 min, 2009
This video is based on Stepanian’s early dream journal shortly after moving to the U.S. from post-revolutionary Iran. “Roghieh” paints a surreal picture of the early stages of the 1979 Iranian Revolution, when it empowered the underprivileged, who had a significant role in the overthrow of an elitist regime. A cleaning lady’s broom becomes a weapon symbolizing newfound strength. She jumps into the revolution from the wall-less bedroom of a young girl caught in the middle of great social changes and role reversals.
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Iranian-born artist, curator, and writer Alysse Stepanian currently lives in Southern California. Her videos have screened internationally and in the US at venues including: The Museum of Actual Art, Mexico City; Contemporary Museum, Baltimore; Arad Art Museum, Romania; Anthology Film Archives, New York City; Vasteras Konstmuseum, Sweden; Rencontres Internationales Paris/Berlin. Stepanian is the curator of Manipulated Image video screenings and multimedia events and URBAN RANCH PROJECT on Facebook.
Fire in the Fireplace
Adam Paradis, 16mm, color, sound, 12 minutes, 2012
Anarchy, robots, Cat Stevens and job related trauma. A power struggle at hand and what we face when our history catches up with us.
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Adam Paradis (b. 1980) is a Boston born film/video artist as well as an independent film curator. He graduated from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston in 2007 where he studied film/video, photography and animation. His work has been screened both nationally and internationally at venues, galleries and festivals including the Institute of Contemporary Art Boston, The Museum of Fine Arts Boston, Palais De Tokyo, Museum of Contemporary Photography Chicago, Union Docs, and The International Experimental Cinema Exposition. Adam is currently working towards an MFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago in the department of Film, Video, New Media and Animation.
Road back
Klara Jirkova, HD video, color, silent, 49 sec loop, 2009
Video where winter landscape runs forwards but the road goes in the opposite direction.
We try to move forward, but at the same time we still live in the past… — KJ
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Klara Jirkova (born 1983) is an artist based in Prague, CZ. She is a silent observer of the surrounding world who lets you glimpse it with new eyes by means of her work. She can open principal issues employing just a minimum of means. She graduated at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague, New media and Monumental Art department. And she spent half year at the Berlin University of the Arts, Digital media Class.
Don’t Leave Me
Angela Washko, video, color, sound, 06:09 min, 2011-2012
“Don’t leave me!” is a phrase frequently cried out by female characters in the role-playing video games I played religiously throughout my childhood. Recently I’ve realized that my expectations for a romantic partner that will jump in front of a sword for me and be my over-bearing protector and savior are more than a bit unrealistic, and that these demands have been formed as a result of over a decade spent playing video games in which such storylines are heavily prevalent. Female characters in these games are frequently collapsing, dying, running scared, afraid of being alone, and always in trouble. Male characters who exhibit these traits within the same games either do not exist or are portrayed as effeminate and possibly homosexual. The existence of these not-so-subtle anti-feminist plots reinforce negative gender-based stereotypes that are harmful to developing children, the largest consumers of these games.
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Angela Washko is a New York based artist and facilitator devoted to mobilizing communities and creating new forums for discussions of feminism where they do not exist. These forums are created through actions, interventions, videos, and performances- sometimes in video games. Her most recent project includes the founding of The Council on Gender Sensitivity and Behavioral Awareness In World of Warcraft – earning her the Terminal Award and Grant, a Danish Arts Council Grant, an upcoming fellowship and residency at HIAP in Helsinki Finland, and a solo exhibition at Austin Peay State University. Fond of creating institutions with long names and lofty goals, she also founded The World of Warcraft Psychogeographical Association, another in-game organization which she plans to expand into an artist residency program inside the video game. Washko’s community organizing practice has transformed into a curatorial practice as she recently curated “The CONFLUX Festival 2012” at New York University. She has participated in artist residencies at Gullkistan (Laugarvatn, Iceland), Contemporary Artist Center at Woodside (Troy, NY), Flux Factory (NYC), and The Fabric Workshop and Museum (Philadephia, PA). Washko’s work has recently been exhibited at the Institute for Contemporary Art in Boston, Momenta Art (NYC), Art in General (NYC), NURTUREart (NYC), The Rotterdam International Film Festival (Netherlands), Spanien 19C (Denmark), and The Budapest Short Film Festival. Her projects have been written about by Hyperallergic, Rhizome, the New York Times, Digicult, ANIMAL NY and more.
Pterodactyl Man
Sam Cooke, video, color, sound, 7:53 min, 2012
A terminally ill pterodactyl/human-hybrid attempts to develop a website that “is like LinkedIn.com, except you can customize your profile.”
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Sam Cooke is a filmmaker and artist from Austin, Texas. He is currently based in New York City.
Flashes
Tina Willgren, HD video, color, sound, 2:33 min, 2012
Walk, forest, flashes.
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Born in Tierp, Sweden 1972. Lives and works in Stockholm, primarily with video, sound and installations. MA degree at the Royal University College of Fine Arts in Stockholm 2005. Recent exhibitions and screenings include: No, No, I hardly ever miss a show, Zacheta, National Gallery of Art, Warsaw, Poland/WPA Experimental Media Series, USA/Animacall, Contemporary Art Center of Thessaloniki, Greece/Visionaria, Toscana Video Festival, Piombion, Italy/Projetaveis, Bienal do Mercosul, Porto Alegre, Brazil. In 2011 the video “The Polymoids” received the first prize in the Blubanana Video Art Contest, and the Best Experimental/Animation award in the West Virginia Mountaineer Short Film Festival.
CocoRose + Sonny: it’s an act, but it’s real
CocoRose & Sonny, video, color, sound, 7:02, 2012
Boozy, retro-glam entertainer CocoRose descends on 14th Street, accompanied by her loyal companion Sonny. This is a big dream, so she takes her time. Dropping by the Designer Shoe Warehouse lobby, she signals to Sonny, who adjusts the sound so she can lip-sync the sweet strains of favorite chanteuse Nancy Sinatra. Both dramatic and subtle, Coco savors each note and nuance, chewing on it, drawing passersby into her world of longing and desire. This docudrama peeks behind the scenes of Coco’s glamorous and public life, following her every move. A host of questions follow: what exactly is her relationship with Sonny? Is she really a star, or does she only think she’s a star? Who is the person under the mask? Is this an act, or is it real? Find and follow Coco on Facebook and Twitter: @reallyCocoRose.
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CocoRose and Sonny are the creation of Philly-based dance artist Robert Bingham and performance artist Laurel Jay Carpenter.
The T1 19
Timothy P. Kerr, digital video, color, sound, 1:18 min, 2011
Weight loss advertisements often use Before and After shots to prove the effectiveness of the latest program or fitness machine. With very little time or effort one can loose an amazing amount of weight. They also get a miraculous tan. Ladies get perkier and bigger breasts while men loose all chest hair. As evidence in the After shots. The obvious exaggeration should raise suspicion of deceit. Through such propaganda the line between instinctually known, logical fact and obscure fiction become blurred. The work draws on absurdity and disconnection between visual and audio layers to create an exaggerated juxtaposition between fact and fiction. This aims to humorously explore the cognitive recognition of falsified facts and known truths. Drawing on humor the piece mimics techniques of propaganda and commercial manipulation and encourages the viewer to acknowledge the obvious deceit. — TPK
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Timothy P. Kerr completed a Bachelor Degree in Fine Art, Visual Arts in 2007, and further completed a Bachelor Degree, Honors, in Fine Art, Visual Art in 2008 at the Queensland University of Technology, Australia. Since then Kerr has been exhibiting both nationally and internationally. Kerr’s multidiscipline creative practice has a primary concern with the intersections of contemporary art, humour, the everyday, and social critique and engagement.
Power Animals Systems “4444”
Jason Martin, video, color, sound, 1 min, 2012
A video hieroglyph from the future in standard definition. Sex magic stone spandex power treatment transmission. One creature reveals its iterations. 4444 designates unknown numerological significance.
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Jason Martin is a visual artist and musician who makes animal-human hybrid videos, performances, drawings, photographs, as well as a variety of songs and sound-based works intersecting with this subject matter. Jason Martin’s visual art, under the titles POWER ANIMALS and POWER ANIMAL SYSTEMS, engages species-queer paganistic animism. Exploring power structures, species and gender hybridity, witchcraft, conflict, rock music, pre-history, and analog electronics.
Drove (or The Devil is in the Dance)
Nicola Carter, digital video, color, silent, 2:42 min, 2012
On a midwinters night a solitary hare runs along a remote country road, we (the viewer) apparently driving the animal, chasing closely in some unknown vehicle. We watch her movements, the wild mesmerizing dance, in and out of frame, illuminated only by our headlights and the full moon… Shortly, we pause, kill our engine, allow the beast some respite, to travel some distance ahead, escape our pursuit….but here now a shift, an eerie exchange, the hare has not made its escape, instead she too has paused, she seems to wait for us, crouching in the shadows… Is it now we now who follow? We who are led onwards into darkness by this mysterious nighttime traveller? Who is driving who? What are we witness to in this encounter? — NC
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I graduated from Lancaster University in 2004 with a BA (Hons): Art: Theory and Practice. At art school. I specialized in installation and sculpture. After a long career break I am now beginning to explore still photography and film. — NC
Performance
The Birds of Chernobyl
Margaret Rorison, 16mm film with live soundtrack and amplification of projector, color, sound, 8 min, 2012
This piece is an ode to my 93-year-old grandfather, Harry Bennett who made a living as a painter for Gothic and Romance novels in the 60s and 70s and lived with dementia. He spent much of his life as a solitary man, committing himself to walking, philosophizing and creating. This piece incorporates our shared love for reflection amid landscape.
The 16mm footage was shot during a residency I attended with a young painter in The Ozarks. The audio accompaniment of this piece incorporates recordings of my grandfather, Harry Bennett, field recordings of oil rigs and fishing wire in a Louisiana bayou and live amplification of the projector’s motor using both contact mics and electromagnetic pick-ups.
I made this piece while Harry was still alive, he recently passed away in November on the night of the frost moon. What was once an ode and celebration of my grandfather, has now resolved itself as a memorial and document to a beautiful human being who I miss dearly. — MR
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Margaret Rorison is a filmmaker and writer from Baltimore, Maryland. She is interested in the dialogue between film and language and sound and often projects her work with accompanying sound artists. Aside from her own work, she is co-founder and curator for Sight Unseen, a roaming experimental and expanded cinema series in Baltimore and is also a member of The Red Room Collective. Website: www.margaretrorison.com
© 2012 – Images are courtesy of Margaret Rorison
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PART I
PART II
PART III
