Monday July 5 – Thursday July 8, 11pm PT
YES: Diva Martinez / Robert Orlowski
Curated by Devon Narine-Singh
Screening in-person and online
Q&A with the artists follows the screening
Microscope is very pleased to present a new edition of our emerging artist series YES, featuring works by Diva Martinez and by Robert Orlowski, curated by Devon Narine-Singh. The event will take place both in person at the gallery’s new location 525 West 29th Street, 2nd Floor, as well as online for those unable to attend.
The screening starts promptly at 7:30pm and the following Q&A with the artists will also incorporate questions the online audience via live chat.
The program includes a selection of films by both artists whose works, although very different in approach, share a connection in their interest in the optical, natural and/or biological realms. Orlowski’s 16mm films are frequently concerned with seeing, camera and light movements as well as with film’s ability to alter the experience of time and space. Martinez’s works combine archival and found footage — often related to the body — to which various processes such as video feedback, collaging, replication and others are applied, often with humor.
From curator Devon Narine-Singh:
“Drawn together by a focus on analog techniques, Diva Martinez and Robert Orlowski exhibit works where process is front and center. Choice moments highlight this such as when Martinez explains creating her own video synthesizer and Orlowski deliberately removes his lens cap of his Bolex calling attention to its mechanical nature. Memory is key as well both in the format choices but in themes as well. Both filmmakers push the choice of analog as a way of living in a memory.”
Doors will open for entry at 7pm and the screening will start promptly at 7:30pm EST for both online and in-person viewing.
Please note: The gallery is limiting the in-person capacity to 30 audience members. Proof of vaccination for Covid-19 and masks are required.
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Diva Martinez was born in Havana, Cuba and emigrated to the United States as a political refugee at the age of three alongside her family. She studied photography at Miami Dade College, CUNY LaGuardia where her interest in video grew. She currently studies Film Production at CUNY Brooklyn College. Her passion for photography has driven her to experiment with image creation both still and moving. Fueled by nostalgia and the desire to time travel, Diva uses archival footage as the canvas with which she creates. Using any resources available to her, Diva combines a mixture of analog and digital technologies to create visceral works of moving images that reflect a time before today.
Robert Orlowski is a filmmaker currently based in Brooklyn, NY who works across documentary, experimental and narrative films. His short films have shown internationally at festivals such as the Alchemy Film and Moving Image Festival, Fracto Experimental Film Encounter, ICDOCS, Mono No Aware Festival, and the Transient Visions Festival of the Moving Image. In 2019 he was a finalist for the Tribeca If/Then American Midwest grant, for his work with Kati Rehbeck on their film, Lake Arrowhead. He is currently working on his first feature length film titled, Everything I Had Known About You.
Devon Narine-Singh is a curator, filmmaker and writer. His works have screened at Microscope Gallery, YOUKI International Youth Media Festival, NOFLASH Video Show, UltraCinema, The New School and The Trinidad and Tobago Film Festival. He has presented screenings and presentations at The Film-Makers Coop, Maysles Cinema, NYU Cinema Studies and UnionDocs. Along with Alia Ayman and Suneil Sanzgiri, he is one of the programmers in residency for the 2020-2021 Flaherty NYC. He has a BFA in Filmmaking from SUNY Purchase and is currently pursuing his MA in Screen Studies at Feirstein Graduate School of Cinema at Brooklyn College. His writings have been published in the first edition of the Dedza Scrapbook and the Feirstein Film School’s Screen Studies Quarterly.
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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.
