Sightreading

Fluid Fragments(en)

A roll and a half made to delight in color and the presence of friends. Steps toward learning to read in the dark.

Kenneth Anger: Film as Magical Ritual(de)

Anger discusses his Aleister Crowley-inspired theories of art: How he views his camera like a wand and how he casts his films, preferring to consider his actors, not human beings but as elemental spirits. In fact, he reveals that he goes so far as to use astrology when making these choices. This is as direct an explanation of Anger’s cinemagical modus operandi as I have ever heard him articulate anywhere. It’s a must see for anyone interested in his work and showcases the Magus of cinema at the very height of his artistic powers. Fascinating. (Dangerous Minds)

Nuuk(en)

Köner uses sequences of images from webcams as raw material. People and their vehicles appear acoustically, but not visually. The shift from day to night and the influence of the weather gives motion to the segments. He condenses a total of 3,000 individual web images taken from the Internet into one scene. Despite the cinematic motion of the image, it seems like a still photo.

good boy(en)

The author's erotic imagination is mixed between desire and magazine clippings, and the trade of collage becomes a ship that travels from outer space to the city itself.

Beautiful Solution(en)

The film poem about pesticides reflects on the return to the natural food chain, in which insect pest serve as food for the higher order. The harmonic cycle of life and death, the temple that is the wildflower field resounding with the inebriating sound of crickets chirping and wheat spikes rustling in the wind, is invaded by the human, the ultimate consumer with no natural predator.

Nathaniel Dorsky: An Interview(en)

In his contribution to the On Art and Artists interview series, Nathaniel Dorsky (b.1943) begins by discussing his childhood love of the John Ford film Stagecoach and its influence upon his decision to make films while attending Antioch College. Describing the affinity he developed for work operating at the intersection of film materiality and personal language, Dorsky explains how he developed his philosophy of the “devotional film” and the “microcosmic viewer.” Dorsky likens his practice to Buddhist sculpture, referring to himself as a “Japanese poet continuing aspects of the ethos of the Marxist revolution.” In the interview, the artist describes his use of the screen as an “altarpiece for the image” and emphasizes his use of editing to create works which “harmoniously coalesce.” Interview conducted by Jeffrey Skoller in May 2000, edited in 2014.

Reflecting Thought: Stan Brakhage(en)

Stan Brakhage is a film maker whose work is shown mainly at film festivals. His work has been likened to poetry. Brakhage explains his techniques and his motivation.

Cartas de Arapuca(pt)

Phantasia(xx)

X-ray images were invented in 1895, the same year in which the Lumière brothers presented their respective invention in what today is considered to be the first cinema screening. Thus, both cinema and radiography fall within the scopic regime inaugurated by modernity. The use of X-rays on two sculptures from the Bilbao Fine Arts Museum generates images that reveal certain elements of them that would otherwise be invisible to our eyes. These images, despite being generally created for technical or scientific purposes, seem to produce a certain form of 'photogénie': they lend the radiographed objects a new appearance that lies somewhere between the material and the ethereal, endowing them with a vaporous and spectral quality. It is not by chance that physics and phantasmagoria share the term 'spectrum' in their vocabulary.

Afloat(en)

'Afloat' is an experimental film that paints a portrait of Japanese performance artist: Ayumi Lanoire. The film opens as a telephone call between Ayumi and Person X, which meanders the audience through the various layers that make up her personas leading one to wonder whether she is in fact a myth or reality.

A Little Love(en)

Through interspersed conversation and prose, this experimental documentary follows a poet and a neuroscientist as they explore the definition of love, what it means, and why it matters.

Wenn wir blinken können wir das Rauschen sehen(xx)

A camera rotates around the same four towers. Seasons, weather conditions and the positions of the camera change over the course of the film. The sound goes round in circles and drifts in variations.

EXILE(en)

An immigrant's last attempt to restore childhood innocence on strange lands.

My Friend Richard(en)

The life and times of artist Richard Ellis

Luminous Void: Docudrama(en)

A documentary like no other. Starting with the bizarre practices and fantasies of a group of filmmakers working under the label Experimental Film Society, it spins off into a manifesto of light and sound. This dazzling journey through a view of cinema as cosmic ritual and erotic delirium is also an idiosyncratic celebration of the medium itself. Rouzbeh Rashidi’s ornate visual style unleashes a parade of visionary scenes that redefine movie magic as a fevered hallucination.

Some precious things(pt)

During an audio message sent to his daughter, a father reflects on how the recent discovery of dusty reels and scratchy VHS tapes capturing childhood moments has propelled him on a journey of ancient memories and forgotten dreams . Using a blend of personal, public domain, and freely available footage, the film deconstructs reality and reimagines the past, questioning where memory ends and imagination begins.

Las Preguntas que Perdimos(es)

From 9 to 5(en)

Passing vignettes of the lives of workers and citizens, what home means to them, and inter-city transportation...

It's Not A Picture, It's A Video.(en)

A fragmented look into the memories of two strangers from the same hometown, brought together through a university project.

FUCK TV(en)

After concluding the now-legendary public access TV series, The Pain Factory, Michael Nine embarked on a new and more subversive public access endeavor: a collaboration with Scott Arford called Fuck TV. Whereas The Pain Factory predominantly revolved around experimental music performances, Fuck TV was a comprehensive and experiential audio-visual presentation. Aired to a passive and unsuspecting audience on San Francisco’s public access channel from 1997 to 1998, each episode of Fuck TV was dedicated to a specific topic, combining video collage and cut-up techniques set to a harsh electronic soundtrack. The resultant overload of processed imagery and visceral sound was unlike anything presented on television before or since. EPISODES: Yule Bible, Cults, Riots, Animals, Executions, Static, Media, Haterella (edited version), Self Annihilation Live, Electricity.