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Independent Exposure FotoFest 2004
Curatorial Statement
This exhibition is based on a call for works for short form media that in some way represent the subject of water.
To program an Independent Exposure series based on a thematic call for works posed an exciting challenge to the established curatorial mission and methods of Microcinema International – a mission that has evolved through hundreds of screening programs over the last nine years. Microcinema typically selects films and videos from its ongoing call which have no thematic restrictions – only a time limit of fifteen minutes maximum. So, it was with a great deal of curiosity that we viewed over 100 submissions from around the world to see how the artists would interpret the subject of water.
In 1996, we created the Independent Exposure screening series to provide a venue for artists whose filmmaking approach pushed the boundaries of the medium. These artists experiment with new electronic technologies and use existing analog techniques in novel ways. At the same time, the Internet enabled us to discover and communicate with artists and curators throughout the world. The nexus of our activity was the venue; a small, alternative space such as a cafe, gallery, warehouse, or church. While the “film industry” was busy co-opting the “independent filmmaker,” a new culture of truly independent artists was emerging. Out of necessity and equipped with new technology, these artists tackled the art of filmmaking on a highly personal level. Enthusiastic audiences quickly developed to support these artists and the microcinema movement was born.
To produce this exhibition, we followed our typical curatorial mission: to produce a program that entertains and challenges the viewer with an eclectic mix of international works. We look for quality works that contextualize the vibrant and constantly evolving art forms of film and video and works that present the oftentimes deeply personal expressions of artists working within the Microcinema movement. The thirteen works presented in this special water-themed program represent the breadth and scope of the challenging works being created by today’s moving image artists.
Many of the artists presented in this program bridge the gap between the moving image arts and the visual, photographic arts. They use water as an artistic medium itself. Netherlands-based Ingeberg Verleisdonk, opens the compilation with a simple, short, yet powerful piece symbolizing our interactions with water. England’s Patricia Townsend transforms the everyday occurrence of draining water into a beautiful and thought provoking study. Seattle artist Mark O’Connell concludes the program with his impressionistic vision of snow falling outside the window of his production studio.
Water also is used as a powerful vehicle to convey social, political, and personal messages. Michigan artist Dylan Seuss Brakeman uses the literal imagery of a river to tell the story of a death of a friend. Portland, Oregon-based filmmaker Chel White’s Passage pits the poetic against the pathetic in a visual poem utilizing water “portraits”. Virginia Valdez experiments with the imagery of a sunken ship to portray our endless struggle against the current of life.
As water flows through all of us and everything around us, this program will satisfy your thirst for discovery while exposing you to yet more un-chartered territory.
Patrick Kwiatkowski
March 2004
| Catalog Number: MC-194 |
Type: Shorts Compilation |
Genre: Mixed Genre |
| Copyright: 2004 |
Length: 62 minutes |
Format:
DVD Region: All regions |
| TV System: NTSC |
ISBN: |
UPC: |
| Label: Blackchair Collection |
This is a Microcinema Exclusive title.
Wholesale Purchasing:
Microcinema is not authorized to sell this title wholesale.
Exhibition:
Program MC-194 may be licensed for Exhibition.
Films In Compilation
Invocation directed by
Ingeborg
Verleisdonk
Netherlands,
Experimental,
2003,
mini-DV,
Color,
Magnetic Stereo,
00:01:00
A human hand creates and enchanting flow of reflections on the bottom of a swimming pool.
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Dive, The directed by
Kia
Simon
USA,
Music,
2003,
DV,
Color,
Magnetic Stereo,
00:04:45
An impressionistic music video exploring love, loss, and transcendence into the afterlife. Hand painted frame by frame from live action video, “The Dive” brings to life the haunting sounds of San Francisco breaks duo Momu.
Released on Loöq Records and on Nick Warren’s new Global Underground mix.
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This is for Betsy Hall directed by
Hope
Hall
USA,
Documentary,
1999,
16mm,
Color,
Optical Monaural,
00:06:30
A construction in picture and sound of my mother, this is a personal film created as a gift for her. I did not grow up with her, and the phone has been our primary contact. She has been mentally ill and eating disordered all of her adult life. Using underwater scenes, a score by my brother, projection of archival video onto moving surfaces, and taped phone calls with my mother and father, this is my attempt to be heard by my mother in telling her story for her.
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Primarypostrouble Dreamanalyse v1 directed by
Didier
Oustrie
France,
Experimental,
2003,
DV,
Color,
00:01:39
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Drowning Room, The directed by
Reynold
Reynolds
USA,
Experimental,
2000,
16mm,
B&W,
Optical Monaural,
00:10:00
In collaboration with Patrick Jolley
A sequence of domestic vignettes from the sunken suburbs filmed in a submerged house. The inhabitants try to carry on as normal but beyond the borders of asphyxiation communication is limited.
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Full Circle directed by
Patricia
Townsend
United Kingdom,
Experimental,
2003,
mini DV,
Color,
Magnetic Stereo,
00:03:00
Using a fixed camera position, water was recorded spiraling down a plughole. Alterations in speed and direction are used to create a continuous loop in which water rhythmically rises and falls, enters and emerges. As it does so, the circular shape is transformed and reflections are revealed, hidden or distorted, creating the illusion that the subject of the piece is not a solid object but, rather, a mercurial, liquid substance. The "eye" of the camera interacts with the "eye" of the plughole, questioning the relationship between observer and observed.
The motif of the spiral is found in diverse cultures, both East and West. For Carl Jung, a clockwise spiral denoted the unfolding of the unconscious into consciousness. Gaston Bachelard, in The Poetics of Space, describes man's being as a spiral within which are many "invertible dynamisms". Bachelard was referring to the symmetric language of the unconscious, of our dreams, in which inside and outside, past and future, are equivalent and interchangeable. Full Circle uses the metaphor of the spiral and the language of symmetry, in the form of time inversion and loops, to allude to the workings of the mind and to induce a meditative state in the viewer in which time and space expand and become fluid.
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River Took Him, The directed by
Dylan
Seuss-Brakeman
USA,
Experimental,
2003,
Hi-8,
Color,
Magnetic Stereo,
00:01:30
A woman discerns the continuity of life when she follows her dead friend's instructions on how to scatter his ashes into a river.
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Passage directed by
Chel
White
USA,
Experimental,
2001,
35 mm,
Color,
Dolby Digital,
00:11:00
Passage deals with the poetic and the terrible, with innocence and corruption. Haunting underwater portraits of people are juxtaposed with archival films of war and atrocities to create a film that is part collage, part visual poem.
Taking its cues from the ethereal music of Gustav Holsts's Neptune, the aqueous portraits allow each person's vulnerable core to surface, exposing a deep primal innocence. Simultaneously, wars are waged, brutalities committed, and the worst of the human race evolves. But in this sea of humanity, all is not lost to the corruption of the human spirit.
Passage made it's world premiere (as a silent film) in Film Harmonic, a program of short films and live orchestral accompaniment, performed by the Oregon Symphony, Portland, 2001.
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Primarypostrouble Dreamanalyse v8 directed by
Didier
Oustrie
France,
Experimental,
2003,
Color,
00:01:30
Lave linge. The laundry.
|
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Thirst for Revenge directed by
Mehmet
Ozcelik
Denmark,
Narrative,
2002,
Digital Video,
Color,
Dolby SR,
00:08:45
A short film about being hurt and wanting revenge. But does revenge pay off in the end...?
DCIFF GRAND JURY AWARD - DC Independent Film Festival, Washington, 2003
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Submerged directed by
Virginia
Valdes
USA,
Experimental,
2002,
DV,
Color,
00:02:53
An empty ship forges ahead towards a blurry horizon. Apparitions from the past lead the way to a lost city. Post apocalyptic dream. We are fighting the currrent, drowning in history. Submerged.
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Harboring Wells directed by
Norma V
Toraya
USA,
Animation,
2004,
DV,
Color,
other,
00:06:00
There is a sudden crash of a flying vehicle and two individuals end up landing in a lagoon of a green heavily natural landscape. It is quiet and the pair are alone, floating around in this small lagoon - unable to contact the rest of the world. The main character is one who dances around, musing herself with the other character who is practically dead, injured, almost catatonic. Instead of letting go, she tries to entertain this other sunken character with gestures of fun, soothing comforting, showing past photos and picture books. This odd preoccupation shadows the fact that lurking in the landscape is a force, which ends their lives both. What the story attempts to convey is a sense of memory, denial, and harboring feelings - precious time which has passed.
The story and its title are based on a true account :
On Tuesday in Memphis, Tenn., a 9-year-old boy who lived alone with his mother's corpse for a month sat solemnly at her military funeral and was given the American flag that had covered her coffin.
Family friends dropping by for a visit on Dec. 6 (1999) found Travis Butler alone with the corpse.
Crystal Wells, 30, who suffered from high blood pressure and breathing problems, apparently died of natural causes Nov. 3, though autopsy results are incomplete.
Relatives say Travis feared being sent to a foster home, so he covered his mother's body with notebook paper and her coat and tried to carry on as usual. He attended school, fixed his own meals and even cut his own hair.
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Snow Seen from Warm Window directed by
Mark
O'Connell
USA,
Experimental,
2000,
Digital,
Color,
Magnetic Stereo,
00:02:00
Last winter's snow seen from Mark's window.
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