Thursday February 24, 7:30pm
Handmade films from Grenoble’s MTK film lab:
Katherine Bauer, Loïc Verdillon, Joyce Lainé
In person only — All films on 16mm
Bauer & Verdillon in attendance
Microscope is very pleased to present a rare evening of 16mm films by Katherine Bauer, Loïc Verdillon, and Joyce Lainé made at the Atelier MTK film lab in Grenoble, France, as well as a collective film by artists from MTK, L’Abominable (Paris, France), and Labo Brussels (Brussels, Belgium). The screening concludes with two live collaborative performance works for dual 16mm projection by Bauer and Verdillon, who are visiting from France.
The renowned Atelier MTK is an independent film lab founded in 1992 by a group of artists and focused on filmmaking as an artisanal, handmade practice, while offering “an introduction and an education to lab techniques in order to provide filmmakers with the necessary independence to make their own films.”
Under the auspices of MTK and its openness to experimental techniques, the films in the program were made through a variety of processes involving among others seaweed, eucalyptus, aloe, sage, bee pollen, ashes, as well as using a film projector or a cathode ray tube as a contact printer.
“From deliberate uses of found footage to films utilizing raw material without concession, the camera and plants will take our eyes… Pupils will definitely be brightened by the projector… How can moving images stay in our heads?” – Loïc Verdillon & Katherine Bauer
Please note: This event is in person only. All films will be screened on 16mm film.
Proof of vaccination for Covid-19 and masks are required. Capacity is limited to 30 audience members.
General Admission $10
Member Admission $8
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Katherine Bauer works primarily with celluloid film and the cinematic apparatus in works encompassing the practices of sculpture, photography, installation and live performance.. Much of Bauer’s work involves mythologies, folklores, and narratives as told through the means of obsolete technologies. In addition to Microscope Gallery, her work has exhibited at Participant Inc., NY; Shoot the Lobster, Dusseldorf, Germany; Immanence Gallery, Paris, France, and others. Her works, including performances, have recently appeared at The Pompidou Center (France), Le 102 (France), Lausanne Underground Film Festival (Switzerland), Estudio Teorema (Mexico), Anthology Film Archives, Millennium Film Workshop, The Knockdown Center, and the Museum of the Moving Image (New York) among others. Bauer received a ESP TV Unit 11 residency (2017), a Cité Internationale des Arts Paris Residency (2012-13), and a Carla Bruni-Sarkozy Foundation Fellowship (2012-13). She holds a BA in Film and Electronic Arts from Bard College and a MFA from NYU Steinhardt in Studio Art. Katherine Bauer currently lives and works between New York City and Grenoble, France.
Despite a cycle of studies in physics and comparative literature, Joyce Lainé (aka Lucrecia) begins making films through the encounters with people & visions from the NYC experimental and classic film scene such as Anthology Film Archives, Millennium Film Workshop, Microscope Gallery, and Tisch (Christine Choy and students). The panoply of film practices and forms seep into soul and spirit until involving her hands. She moves to Grenoble and becomes involved in programming at the 102, an alternative venue for experimental film and music and collective organizations. She goes on to learn the bulk of her craft at Atelier MTK, through the collaborative projects of research seminars and performances, for instance: the performance “Fecula-est-tu la” (2017), made with Clovis LeMaireCardoen, Loic Verdillon, and Etienne Caire after the seminar researching the fabrication of Autochrome filters, 1903 color photography process of the Frères Lumière; the panchromatic emulsion or the film “L’amitie n’est pas toujours comme du ski de fond” (2021) after a workshop seeking to fine-tune the plant development process unearthed a year earlier; and a handful of personal films/performances, giving workshops, and running the lab. Her first film made in France was “40 active warheads” (2016), an adaptation of a poem by Daniel Owen, mixing found and personal footage. Recent collaborations include a 4-screen performance with the Un Ensemble & Riojim, and three films with a collective called “Le Ratoir,” in which the mise-en-situation seeks to blur the lines between research and the creation of a film; using projectors to copy archives, plants and cinders to develop the films, using spaces, travel, and so on — all manner of constraints to inspire and surprise. Lainé is currently seeking to create films and performances that reflect musical joy and the strange structures we construct and forget.
Loïc Verdillon is a musician, performer, and printmaker. Between 2019 and 2012 he composed music for theater pieces by the company “mais ou l’as-tu.” Since 2010, he’s been an active participant of the musical and cinematographic program at the 102. Currently, his research is focused on sound, its materiality and forms. He built “yotta-phone,” a performance for multiple megaphones, played at different festivals in the summer of 2015. His graphic works focus on the sound shapes of Ernest Chladni in experimental engraving. In 2015, he combined plastic and audio art for the installation of an “attraction park” made up of dissected loudspeakers, working with the primitive elements of copper, paper, and magnets. Since 2016, he has run and worked at Atelier MTK Independent Cinema Laboratory in Saint-Martin-le-Vinoux. He has presented Expanded Cinema performances and organized 16mm workshops around the world, in such places as Norway, Italy, Switzerland, Germany, France, Czech Republic, Belgium, and Indonesia.
Atelier MTK is an association that has been co-producing audiovisual projects since 1993. It seeks to expand the limits and connections between image and sound using innovative approaches in all their forms: film, installation, performance, etc. Developed on the principles of experimental cinema (cinema of artisans, non-standard cinema, transgressive cinema…), MTK is devoted to the collective organization of production tools by artists working with the film medium. With the abandonment of film by the industry, MTK’s role has evolved to include the safeguarding, and the transmission of the means and know-how, specific to the photochemical process.
Program:
Abracadabra el Corazón
By Katherine Bauer
16mm film, silent, b&w, 2020, 18 minutes
Processed with eucalyptus, aloe, sage, and bee pollen from the region of Mexico outside of Guadalajara where the film was imbued by the shapes of the area’s plants, water and temples.
Capture d’écran #1
By Loïc Verdillon
16mm film, b&w, sound, 2020, 6 minutes
Television as you’ve never seen it! After a meticulous dissection of a cathode ray tube, this is what we are left with: a 16mm and luminophore body to body for a noise dance of pixel without camera.
La dernière vague
By Katherine Bauer and Loïc Verdillon
16mm film, b&w stained red from sea-weed, sound, 2020, 7 minutes
Film with the infusion of the sea. Developed with seaweed from the ocean where it was filmed in Brittany and ashes from the oven of the pizzeria next to the beach. The forms of marine life aggregate and make rise with the tide a starry and fundamental rouge.
40AW
By Joyce Lainé
16mm film, color, sound, 2016, 3 minutes 33 seconds
Inspired by Daniel Owen’s poem “40AW” in his book Toot Sweet, constructed of found footage and original footage, giving three versions of a story.
L’amitié, c’est pas toujours comme du ski de fond
16mm film, silent, b&w, 2021, 8 minutes
Collectively made with artists from MTK (Grenoble/FR), L’Abominable (Paris/Fr), and Labo Brussels (Bxl/Bel). Filmed and processed in a week of researching how to process film with just plants and ashes. No Vitamin C or washing soda… No industrial material… The luscious bodies of summer show the colors of the plants.
Faut-pas délirer!
By Loïc Verdillon and Joyce Lainé
16mm film, b&w, sound, 2018, 10 minutes
“Faut-pas” being something one must not do and “delirer” meaning to be crazy, or to have crazy visions. Alternatively, it can mean something that goes out of its technical path. This film was made by exposing found footage to black and white print film while both are run through a projector. Projection and printer.
Les Vacances de Blanche
By Katherine Bauer and Loïc Verdillon
2 x 16mm film, b&w, 2021, 10 minutes
See what slimy creatures sneak up on Blanche’s feet during her walk on the beach!
Dark&Mush for Room&Room
Katherine Bauer and Loïc Verdillon
2 x 16mm film, b&w, 2021, 10 minutes
Those guys who shows their nose in the fall among the dead leaves with their weird and special shape usually finish in our meal but today your ears and eyes will be full of them…
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Microscope’s Event Series 2021 is sponsored by Re:Voir, a home video label for classic and contemporary experimental film in Paris, France.
