Doing or being?

My wife and I were discussing the ritual of people who meet for the first time and ask: "What do you do?" as a way of passing quick judgment on the importance of the other person.  She wondered about the emphasis on "doing."  Looking at what a person does instead of who it is they are.  Doing or being?

I said it reminded me of what happens when people see a work of art -- experimental film, or any other work of art for that matter -- and question what it is the artist is "communicating" through the work, as if the message of the work were secondary to the visceral experience of being in the presence the work itself.  What it is a work of art is "doing" instead of what it is.

By way of analogy, I said, imagine someone looked at a sunset and asked, "Okay, it's nice to look at, but what is this sunset trying to communicate to me?"  Obviously a silly question, since it would be terribly presumptuous to assume that the sunset existed purely for the purpose of communicating something to the questioner.  But often people assume a work of art exists as a receptacle for delivering some message to the viewer.  A work of art might not be intended to communicate anything.  Its purpose might be just to "be."

* * *

. . . for more on this subject, time to turn to Susan Sontag's “Against Interpretation.”

Cheers!

Red Hook Cine Soiree!! - June 2, 2012

A breezy Saturday afternoon, and a full house at the BWAC screening room in attendance for "Red Hook Cine Soiree!! featuring magic potions! ghost towns! and flying bananas!!!" with experimental and underground films from cine-artists:

Jacob Burckhardt & Royston Scott, S.I. Chowdhury, Z. L. B. Dautzenberg, Taylor Dunne, Seth Fragomen, Jodie Mack, Barbara Rosenthal, Lynne Sachs, Sheri Wills

. . . and some pre-show music on the Victrola.

***

Some of the films were droll and humorous in nature, others more contemplative and imagistic.  But the curatorial question was, can such different works coexist comfortably in the same program without undermining each other?  So often a coherent program is one that threads together a theme or concept shared by the films.  But this unity might also run the risk of making the work seem redundant.  A more diverse approach brings up the question: will a short and humorous film get the audience out of the right mood for the sublime and slow-paced film that follows it? (indeed, it can happen.)  A good analogy for answering this question comes by way of the arrangement of musical works in a concert; where fast-paced or slow-paced works play off of each other.  If all the works are of the same tempo the concert risks getting a little tedious.  And so an arrangement of films attentive to the pacing and mood of the work (perhaps more than more thematic or concept-driven factors) turns out to be a decent method for programing films of a diverse nature.  The audience will often want a shift in mood from one work to the next to keep things interesting.

Cheers!

Tribeca Film Festival 2012

The Cine Soiree blog has been fallow while I've been spending much time and energy this spring in the editing room with a new project.  But hope to be posting here more frequently now that the completion of this new film is getting closer.

In the meantime, a short film I made recently, shot in super-8 and titled "Scenes from a visit to Japan," will be showing April 18-25 in the Tribeca Film Festival On-Line Screening Room.

Hope you can pay a visit there and check it out.

Cheers!

Millennium Film Workshop Cine Equipment Sale!!!

This Saturday - The Millennium Film Workshop Cine Equipment Sale!

See you there!

Snow and Fotopoulos

Many events all concurrent with one another: Occupy Cinema at Anthology, and the openings for Michael Snow at Jack Shainman Gallery, and James Fotopoulos at Microscope Gallery.  Attended both the Snow and Fotopoulos shows -- but it can sometimes be difficult being too many places all at once.

Tempting to draw comparisons between the two exhibits of artwork by filmmakers, but what was truly striking by way of comparison: issue of space -- that is to say, the available square footage of gallery space -- and its influence upon the grandly minimal arrangement at the Chelsea exhibit, with its cavernous white expanses, or the intimate and abundantly covered walls -- seeking to maximize the miniscule -- in Bushwick's aptly named Microscope Gallery.  Is larger space the ideal?  The hanging of the Fotopoulos show invited the perusing of the drawings through a meandering of the eye from one work to the next: up, down, this work to the side, and that work above or below, making sequences and comparisons through a zigzagging from one drawing to another.  A larger space might not have been as conducive this type of hanging:  Perhaps an eye-level ribbon of drawings -- providing a more linear experience -- would have been more appropriate to a large space?

Intimate spaces seem to have been increasing within the past few years: Microscope, Spectacle Theater, and even the storefront-located Union Docs, all functioning within small-sized spaces of one sort or another (compared to the full-sized theater seating 100 or more).  The little Maya Deren Theater (which seats 72) on the ground floor of Anthology seems cavernous compared to these more recent venues.  Of course Bradley Eros's E.P.I.C. = E(xtreme) P(rivate) I(ntimate) C(inema), in which several screenings took place for an audience of exactly one, may be the ultimate example of this small-sized venue (or perhaps the Edison Kinetoscope, which by its nature can have no more than one viewer at a time?).
 
***

And so begins the new year and a new year of Cine Soirees as the blog is now one year old.

Cheers!

The Secret Life of... Anthology Film Archives

A festive Secret Life screening at Anthology Film Archives: the once-every-calendar open screening for staff and friends of Anthology.  The evening finished off with birthday cake for Bradley Eros.

Secret Life is not really all that much of a secret: it's listed on the Anthology calendar and anyone can attend.  But despite its public listing Secret Life is almost always more of a private screening for those filmmakers showing work that night.

Bradley refers to a screening where the attendees are also the filmmakers as a "players only" event, which sounds more like a poker game.  I'm intrigued by this notion: what lies in between a public and a private screening?  Is the in between ostensibly a private screening into which some uninvited guests may have wander in?  Or how to characterize a screening where the public was invited but only the "players" attend?  Is this now a more of private screening through the happenstance of who shows up?

But that's all for now.  If you what to know more you'll just have to come to Secret Life yourself.  Won't tell you about what was shown that night -- that would be giving away the secret!

Cheers!

"Christmas on Earth" at Artists Space

At Artists Space on Friday to help project Barbara Rubin's "Christmas on Earth," with Barney Rosset, MM Serra, and Jonas Mekas on hand for the introduction of the film.  The event was in celebration of the release of Whatever Happened to Sex in Scandinavia? edited by edited by Marta Kuzma and Pablo Lafuente.

I've projected "Christmas on Earth" several times now with MM Serra, who has been a notable champion of this double-projection work, perhaps under-recognized for its importance in exemplifying sixties underground cinema.  Figures in body paint play out erotic interactions, superimposed in a smaller frame within a larger one, the outer image comprising of closeups of the body, most notably shots of genitalia.  The synthesis of these two images creates the impression of the body-painted figures as inhabitants of the genitalia, as if we are privy to the playful goings-on of unseen pixies and sprites that inhabit various hubs and recesses of the body.

The film has a certain indeterminacy built into its presentation: The film is a dual projection piece, with one image inside the other, the inner image approximately half the size of the outer one.  The black and white footage is transformed into color by the projectionists placing color gels in front of the lens of each projector while the film is showing.  Barbara Rubin requests that the soundtrack be a live radio, tuned to a rock station.  All of this is communicated by a set of instructions that are packed in the can with the film.

Given its design as a work of expanded cinema, each time the film is shown something new is there in its presentation.  What drew my attention in projecting the film on this occasion was the degree to which the density of the color gels demanded careful consideration from the projectionist.  A very deep, dark color (dark blue, for instance) could completely obscure the image if a bright gel (yellow, perhaps) was being used by the other projector.  I kept trying to adjust the use of gels on the projector to complement the gel on the other projector, not just in terms of color combination but also in terms of density of lightness or darkness.  Something I'm sure I've done without thinking about it, but this time -- perhaps due to the gels available -- it seemed to require much more deliberation than at other times I've helped to show the piece.

For those wanting to know more about the film, an very informative article on Barbara Rubin's "Christmas on Earth" can be found in Art Signal Magazine.

Cheers!