[iDC] iDC media curating & production

[Jason Simon]

Dear iDC group,
For the media curating thread, below is the program from our exhibition
entitled ³On The Collective for Living Cinema², shown at Orchard
(www.orchard47.org) last April. The show was organized by Jeff Preiss, one
of our founding members, with many evenings guest programmed as you see
listed. The show presented a wide selection from the history of that New
York institution devoted to experimental and independent cinema and drew a
connection between the Collective¹s self-organized intervention upon a
shifting media landscape and Orchard¹s own three-year project as a gallery
and social space intervening on the current art world climate of
corporatized market economies. One issue raised by the show is the role of
an avant-garde in forming an audience: indeed, it can be taken as a
definition of an avant garde that its purpose is to create an audience
rather than serve one. Another issue that the show raised was to examine the
roads not taken within this history of artists¹ media. Of particular
interest for myself was the blurry Œ80¹s moment when the Collective
incorporated video into its regular program of film-on-film, signaling a
commitment to long-form, content driven work shared by both film and video
communities and which video in the art world has since forsaken in favor of
the installation and its economy of shorter visual pieces. This Œ80¹s
history was recently referred to as a Œlacuna¹ of media in the art-world in
October magazine in a discussion of the Œprojected image¹. Rather than a gap
it should be recognized as a rare moment of self-validating and
self-legitimating audience formation around works that resisted
museumification and shared a screen among activist and avant-garde works.
Common across these enterprises, including the Collective, Orchard and the
works they have been committed to, is the attention to historical models as
actively informing contemporary audience formation; that is, to make
historical analysis a part of the contemporary scene. This is an
interventionist strategy, as standard as it sounds, given the market demand
for the ever new and young. Finally, I would say that the crucial role of
media curating is precisely in this legitimating and validating function,
where cultural capital is brought to bear on the marginalized practices
engaged with the past and present history of their own reception; that is,
the initiation of an informed and even privileged dialog that places works
in a shared, demanding and risk-taking culture.
--Jason Simon
 
On The Collective for Living Cinema, at Orchard, April 1­ 29, 2007:
 
In 1973 a group of film students from the Harpur College Cinema Department
looking to create a contemporary and fertile context for their work found
The Collective for Living Cinema, an artist-run cooperative that would serve
both as an exhibition venue and a center for production and discourse. Above
the first program note was a miniature manifesto stating their intention to
³overcome the economic, social and political burdens of an art in chains.²
Lasting for 19 years, The Collective came to embody the under-defined moment
between the canonized generation of ³the essential cinema² and the
transfiguration of film as ³new media² embraced by the institutional
hierarchy of the art world and subject to the theoretical, critical and
economic tidal forces therein. Run as a multi-disciplinary venue, The
Collective continuously engaged in a recovery of the recent past,
championing the marginal and positing alternative film histories. The
screening room was seen as a workshop in which this culture became immersed
in its own brand of cinematic delirium. Annette Michelson pointed out that
The Collective "attempted to break down distinctions between industrial film
and avant guard film, between films that form part of a classical canon and
those which are on the margins or periphery of canonical taste." By
"maintaining and constantly questioning an exploratory attitude rather than
by embalming predigested classical canon", Michelson stated, The Collective
emerged in the 1980's as the "liveliest" New York film venue of it's time.
 
This exhibition will re-examine the Collective¹s history and parallel it's
mission within the current set of ³economic, social and political chains.²
It has been organized as a series of individually programmed screening
events at ORCHARD (April 6-8 to be held at Anthology Film Archive), a
timeline of documentation and an installation specific to the ambivalent
capacity of cinema to enter the gallery through production / distribution on
video.
 
 
Screenings and Event Schedule at Orchard:
 
Collectives of Irrepressible Cinema(s): Three Evenings Programmed by Three
Maker/Programmers. Organized by Bradley Eros:
 
Thursday April 12, 8PM
Program 1: Organized by Mary Billyou & Sabine Gruffat
Interim Isles and Ur-Beings
Mary Billyou, Ours Be The Tossing, 2005
Sabine Gruffat, To the South Was, 72. 2005
Deborah Stratman, Energy Country, 2003
Redmond Entwistle, Social Visions, 2000
Shelley Silver,Things I Forget to Tell Myself, 1989
Bill Brown, Mountain State, 2003
Brian Frye, Observations at Gettysburg, 2002
Christina Battle: Buffalo Lifts,2004
 
Friday April 13, 8PM
Program 2: Organized by Lili Chin,
1080¹s Upper Field Square
Voom HD Lab
Ericka Beckman, Tension Building, 3 min, 2006
Theo Angell, Newr Blood Pinkis, 5 min, 2006
Lili Chin, May Mad Gab, 4.5 min, 2006
Pawel Wojtasik, Landfill, 5 min, 2006
Grahame Weinbren, 16 Letters, 16 min, 2006
Ali Hossaini, Unperception Now, 2 min, 2006
Angie Eng, Schpilin Aqui, 6.5 min, 2006
Leighton Pierce, My Person in the Water, 4.5min, 2006
Leslie Thornton, Sahara Mojave, 13 min, 2006
Bradley Eros, Aerodynamics of the Black Sun, 6 min, 2006
Jennifer Reeves, Light Work 1, 8 min, 2006
 
 
Saturday April 14, 8PM
Program 3: Organized by Marianna Ellenberg
We are So Much Better Than This, Part II: THE PLASTIC SELF
Steve Reinke, Ask the Insects, video, 11 min, 2006
Shana Moulton, Whispering Pines, video, 4 min,2005
A.P. Komen/Karen Murphy, Play On, video, 5 min, Netherlands, 2005
Oriana Fox, The Embodiment Workout, 2005
Helki Frantzen, Storm Brains, video, 3 min, 2006
Marianna Ellenberg, Welcome to Normal, video, 7 min, 2007
On Film Inc., The Relaxed Wife, 16mm, 13 min,1957
Elisabeth Subrin, Swallow, video 28 min, 1995
 
An informal discussion on the Collectives of Irrepressible Cinema(s) program
will follow the 4/14 screening.
 
Sunday April 15, 8PM
Performance by Michael Smith
Michael Smith will be presenting some early performance pieces from around
the same time period as his work at The Collective for Living Cinema. Since
that is so long ago he is unsure what he will do, but it will probably be at
least 10 minutes and no more than 30. Be prepared to either sit on the
ground or kneel, because if people stand, only five audience members will be
able to see the show.
 
Thursday April 19, 8PM
Orchids for Orchard.
Program organized by Amy Granat
Cats, flowers,(a little touch of wild)...some sounds..almost hallways..
Pola Chapelle: How To Draw A Cat
A short film by Cinema Zero (with sound piece by Richard Aldrich)
Brian Wilson "Untitled"
Direct Art Product: Robot Movie
Performance Jutta Koether
Installation contribution by Ann Craven
 
Friday April 20, 8PM
Perilous Fictions: Programed by Abigail Child
Addressing political content through formalist means, utilizing a variety of
strategies: structuralist, post-lyric, inventive, hybrid. The line up:
Peggy Ahwesh, 73 Suspect Words, 2000; 3m
Fred Worden, Here, 2005; 11m
Leslie Thorton, Let Me Count the Ways 10, 9, 8,7, 2004; 20m
Dominic Angerame, Anaconda Targets, 2004; 11m
Abigail Child,The Future Is Behind You, 2004-5; 21m
Ken Jacobs, Krypton Is Doomed, 2005; 34m
 
Saturday April 21, 8PM
James Benning and Bette Gordon:
United States of America
&
Anthony McCall, Claire Pajaczkowska, Andres Tyndall and Jane Weinstock:
Sigmund Freud¹s Dora
 
Sunday April 22, Gallery Hours performance with screening 8PM
Projection/Performance: Living Cinema Workshop
Project by Bill Brand.
Experimenting with live performance and a moving projector within the
exhibition space, BIll Brand, Ruthie Marantz and Anya Maddow-Zimet will
workshop evolving ideas of place, character and time, producing a work that
will be presented as the evening's screening event.
 
Thursday April 26, 8PM
Dara Birnbaum
Birnbaum will present the original program of her works, as screened at The
Collective in 1980. An experiment in ³reverse engineering² of her well-known
early appropriated video works to intersect with the Collective's program.
By producing 16mm kinescopes of her early TV-formatted works, Birnbaum would
directly affect a film-audience by taking on not only the dynamics of the
cinemagraphic size, but also the difference in texture of what, during those
years, were two nearly incompatible mediums. The screening will consist of
the 16mm kinescope versions of Technology/Transformation: Wonder Woman,
©1978/9 and Kiss The Girls: Make Them Cry,² © 1979. In addition, (A)Drift of
Politics: Laverne & Shirley, ©1978 will be presented. This work shows a
direct one-on-one comparison between video and film, by utilizing only the
two-shots butt-edited, in video, from an episode of ³Laverne & Shirley",
screened simultaneously with a slow-motion film-version of the same images.
Completing the evening¹s program, Birnbaum will also show rarely viewed
video works produced during the same time period. Experiments with image and
sound, in the pre-MTV, pre-digital, days of independents, which foreshadows
the new ground between video and music, that was to come. Included are:
³Remy/Grand Central: Trains and Boats and Planes, ©1980; New Music Shorts,
©1981, and Fire/Hendrix!, ©1982.
 
Friday April 27, 8PM
Union Gaucha Productions Presents:
SPLIT IN HALVES.
Square Times. 2001, color, 16 mm, sound, 12 minutes
Twins. (by Union Gaucha Productions and Jeff Preiss). 2002, color, 16 mm,
sound, 10 minutes
Axiom of choice. 2005, color, 16 mm, sound, 4 minutes
The End. 1999, black and white, 16 mm, sound, 6 minutes
Braco Dimitrijevic:
Interview. 1974-2005, color, video, 8 minutes
The Geography of Art. 1975-2006, color, video, 13 minutes
Jeff Preiss.Orchard Compass, April '07.
 
Saturday April 28, 8PM
FEAR OF WHITEOUT- the substance of things hoped for evaporates in the blink
of an eye.
Programmed by Mark McElhatten
³The girl I left behind me is constantly before me someday she¹ll be beside
me again² ­ Fats Waller
A gentle exorcism in a thimble theatre. I shudder to thinkŠ
A shoot- out on White Street leads to a gathering at the Orchard.
Proceeding from a place that was, arriving in a moment before us now
destined to fall at our feet. An evening of involuntary memory with some
site specific considerations, Shards of sound and image subjected to time,
of known and unknown provenance. Film and video of vintage maturity mixed
with the infantine and tender.
Filmmakers will include:
Paolo Gioli
Ernie Gehr
Lewis Klahr
Bruce McClure
Julie Murray
(A program that has metamorphosed into):
BONE ORCHARD SCRAPBOOK (living photoplays portray the aftermath).
Kalup Linzy. Lollypop.
Mark LaPore. Lunatic Princess.
Eenie Gehr. Greene Street.
Jeanne Liota. J.L. Pageant Performance with Hymnal Board.
Luther Price. Singing Biscottes.
Paolo Gioli. Animatografo.
Julie Murray. Anrthema.
Bruce McClure. 16mm Projector Performance.
 
Gallery installation includes:
Peggy Ahwesh: Marina¹s Playhouse. 1989, Super 8 Sound to DVD, 20 min.
Abigail Child: Mayhem. 1987, Featuring Lushe Sacker. Improvised music by
Christian Marklay, Charles Noyes, Zeena Parkins, and Shelley Hirsch. 16mm to
Video, 20 min.
Vivienne Dick: Guerilléres Talks. 1978, Super 8 Sound to video, 28 min.
Featuring: Anya Philips, Beate Nilsen, Lydia Lunch, Adele Bertei, Ikue Lle
and Pat Place.
Su Friedrich: Gently Down the Stream. 1981,16mm to DVD, 14 min.
Joe Gibbons: Multiple Barbie. 1998, Pixelvision, 9 min.
Bette Gordon: An Erotic Film. 1976, 3 min. / Still Life, 1975. 3 min. /
Noyes, 1976. 4 min.
Bette Gordon and James Benning: Michigan Avenue. 1974, 3 min. / i94. 1974, 3
min.
Nicolás Guagnini and Jeff Preiss: (Sergeant Shit Serge), 2007. Photograph
and DVD Loop.
Bob Fleischner / Mark Graff: Bobby¹s Birthday. 1976, Video, 28 min.
Henry Hills: Nervous Ken. 2004, DV video, 22min.
Ken Jacobs: Two Wrenching Departures. 2006, 89min., Featuring Bob Fleischner
and Jack Smith, a digital recreation of a Nervous System Performance, 1989.
Gerorge Kuchar: Weather Diary 1. Video, 1986, 1 hour 21 min.
Saul Levine: New Left Note, 1968-1982, Standard 8mm Silent to DVD, 26 min
Ken Ross and James Livingston: Promo for the Collective. Super 8 sound to
DVD, 22 min.
Jeff Preiss: Ludlow St. Newsreel, featuring Abigail Child, Henry Hills,
Peter Hutton and Fab Five Freddy / Portrait of Warren Sonbert, / Storing
Industrials. Standard 8mm Silent to DVD 8 min.
Yvonne Rainer:* Screen Tests. 1984, Super 8 Sound to DVD. 8 min.
Stuart Sherman: The Leap. Shot and edited by Phil Weisman. 1987, Video, 3
min.
Michael Smith: Slide projection documenting One Size Fits All Fashion Stunt
Show. Performed at The Collective For Living Cinema.
 
Also on view:
ARTISTS CALL: Super 8 Against U.S. Intervention in Latin America:
Scott B
Andrew Chambers
Doug Eisenstark
Mary Filippo
Clifford Fournier
Ellen Gain
Julio Benítez, Doug Hertz, Rob Scheber & Nancy Sullivan
Silvia Goldsmith
Andrew Guthrie
Jim Hubbard
Robert Huot
Bette Gordon & Karyn Kay
Lewis Klahr
Lorna Lentini
Dan Walworth, Norman Cowie & Yanni Damianos
Hilary Kliros & Anne Manuel
Katy Martin
L. Mentel
Marjorie Keller & Sidney Peterson
 
Round table discussion: The Shared Screen: Merging Film and Video Before the
Installation. Sherry Milner, Bradley Eros, Keith Sanborn, Peggy Ahwesh, Bill
Brand, Abigail Child, Zoe Belloff, Andrew Lampert, Jeff Preiss, Jason Simon,
Leslie Thornton, Bette Gordon, Tom Zummer and others TBA.
 
April 6-8
Anthology Film Archive.
For info: http://www.anthologyfilmarchives.org/
 
*Yvonne Rainer's Screen Tests Used as the first 8 minutes of "The Man Who
Envied Women" (1985, 125 minutes), is a reconstruction of its original Super
8 incarnation. Made for the Collective for Living Cinema organized program
in collaboration with Artists Call: Super 8 Films Against U.S. Intervention
in Central America.
courtesy of Zeitgeist Films.