In 2013 and 2014 we experimented with hosting video art. The non-traditional cinematic illustrated an approach to film making that moved beyond the big screen into more nuanced storytelling.
August 27, 2014
AUGUST ART CINEMA: Dave Greber's Stilllives (2014)
New Orleans-based artist, Dave Greber, creates vibrant, revelatory installations manifested at the crossroads of spirituality and predatory marketing. He is the Ambassador of the artist-run collective, The Front.
Dave Greber's "Stilllives" (2014) uses a combination of video-loops, sculpture, and painting to express consciousness revealing itself through popular culture. He observes media and social texts with a mystic reading to tease out the cosmic, archetypal play at hand and relate it to something tangible. What is attractive about Greber's particular expression of corporate or complicit social marketing, advertising campaigns, gambling machines, commercial newspeak, and pop-culture iconography is his constructing them into a contemporary visual fable. More can be found at his website www.thesculpted.com.
August 14, 2014
JULY ART CINEMA: Keren Cytter's Rose Garden
Keren Cytter's "Rose Garden" (2014) depicts a tragic story that takes place in a Texan bar. It's drastic course and the lightness of the composition are opposing each other contrapuntally. A virtually musical arrangement is formed by the repetitive employment of various elements (theme music, changing atmospheres, rifle shots). The therein presented, almost emotionless acceptance of death is contrasted by the narrative of a father speaking to his son. Rose Garden explicitly criticizes the bigot mixture of family values, American gun laws and societal behavioral patterns in general.
June 27, 2014
JUNE ART CINEMA: Ezra Wube's at The Same Time
Ezra Wube's "At the Same Moment" (2013) is a stop action animation painted on a single canvas. He states, "To make this animation I painted scenes of my daily commute from memory and photographed them. Each frame was painted on top of the previous one, each scene triggering the following scene. I collected sounds from the places and environments I painted and edited them together with the captured frames to complete the piece."
About Ezra Wube
Ezra Wube (b. 1980, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia), received his BFA in painting from Massachusetts College of Art, Boston, and an MFA from Hunter College, New York, NY. Based in Brooklyn, NY his works encompass video, installations, drawing, painting and performance. Ezra's work references memory, time and place.
April 03, 2014
APRIL ART CINEMA: Vector Equilibria by Chris Landau with music by Gene Coleman
Video excerpt from a site-specific projection installation
2013
Vector Equilibria is an exploration and celebration of the impact of the work of Buckminster Fuller on the science, technology and culture of today. The abstract animations of Chris Landau, combined with an original score by Gene Coleman was presented as a site-specific, outdoor video projection in October 2013 at the University City Science Center in Philadelphia, PA, where Fuller was World Fellow in Residence in the 1970s and 1980s. Landau is interested in Fuller as a futurologist and his work in imagining a dramatically different, and hopefully better, world. Some of Coleman's own compositions and research have focused on Fuller over the last few years, such as “9 Chains...” and “Spiral Network”, both of which use Fuller’s ideas as the basis for the composition.
Vector Equilibria was the first commissioned project by Animated Architecture, a series of 3D mapping video projection installations curated by Sean Stoops and funded by a grant from the John F. and James L. Knight Foundation. For more information, please visit www.animatedarchitecture.org
About Chris Landau
Chris Landau is an artist and designer living and working in South Philadelphia. Landau earned his BFA in Printmaking from the Cleveland Institute of Art and an MFA in Interdisciplinary Art and Design from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. He also works as a "visualizer" at OLIN, a Philadelphia-based landscape architecture and urban design firm.
About Gene Coleman
Gene Coleman is a composer, musician and director. Winner of the 2013 Berlin Prize for Music, he has created over 70 works for various instrumentation and media. Innovative use of sound, image, space and time allows Coleman to create work that expands our understanding of the world. Since 2001 his work has focused on the global transformation of culture and music’s relationship with other media, such as architecture, video and dance. He studied painting, music and film making at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where his principle teachers included legendary experimental film artists Stan Brakhage and Ernie Gehr, as well as Robert Snyder (music) and Barbara Rossi (painting).
March 06, 2014
MARCH ART CINEMA: Jennie Thwing by My Black Hole
Artist Statement
Using video, installation, and animation I create imaginary narratives that reference my history, ideology, social context, family mythologies and dreams. The subject matter ranges from miniature animated dioramas to historical reenactments. All of my work involves the anthropomorphism of nature, refuse and human environments.
My most recent project, My Black Hole is an animated portrait of the evolution of my studio practice, highlighting the dichotomy of the artist's joy and sadness after completing a body of work. It takes place inside a constructed room over 4 weeks and was created as a model (using my own perception of “home”) for an upcoming film series titled "The Living Room.". “My Black Hole” was created at the Millay Colony Artist Residency and supported by a grant from the Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation.
Artist Bio
Jennie Thwing is a New York-based artist and film maker. She has exhibited at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Seattle, the Arlington Arts Center in Arlington, VA, the Creative Alliance in Baltimore, the Center for Art and Visual Culture in Baltimore, the Fondazione Mudima per l'Arte Contemporanea in Milan, the Independent Museum of Contemporary Art (IMCA) in Cyprus, The New York Studio Gallery and Soho 20 in New York and was recently chosen as a Center for Emerging Visual Artists Fellow and a 2014 Queens Arts Fund Grant recipient.
Website
www.jenniethwing.com
February 03, 2014
FEBRUARY ART CINEMA: TOXI-CITY/ESTUARY BY RODERICK COOVER AND SCOTT RETTBERG
TOXI-city/Estuary are components of Roderick Coover's Altered Shorelines project on view at the Museum of the Chemical Heritage Foundation through May 2014. The project also includes a supporting interactive Website with a unique CHEMICAL MAP that catalogs petro-chemicals of the Delaware Estuary as well as contaminated clean-up sites and brownfields along the shore and low-lying flood-prone lands. In this way the project is true bridging of research and art: of research (chemical map) and documentary arts (Estuary).
The project is based on original recordings - most from Kayak - of the industrial docklands that stretch from Wilmington to Trenton to include the cities and environs of Chester, Philadelphia, Camden and others as well as on materials recorded by walking the Kent shore, including the lower Thames estuary. Much of the work is filmed from kayak in the busy port areas – one of the busiest in the United States. Setting geological and marine mappings, FEMA flood zone studies, biological research, energy grids and industrial constructions in relation to original animated panoramic recordings and video, the project considers how the meanings of maps and markers may change in relation to the contexts in which they are applied.
ESTUARY is an artist book that gathers observations from walking and boating shorelines onto a blended landscape. The work addresses how industrial uses of the river, notably those of the energy industries and transportation industries, become inscribed in a visual language that ranges from geological maps to flood markers. It also considers how the meanings of markers change when ideas surrounding the water evolve. For example, what happens when the water is seen as a force washing salt and toxic elements inward toward the cities of the Delaware rather than a force washing toxins away. https://unknownterritories.org/estuary/
TOXI-City is a combinatory narrative film by Roderick Coover and Scott Rettberg. The project imagines life in the Delaware River Estuary in a near future environment impacted by hurricanes, flooding, and widespread seepage of toxic chemicals in major population centers. The film asks what would happen if climate change resulted in storms and changes to our waterways that resulted in the release of the many poisonous substances from Superfund sites and abandoned factories in the area into Philadelphia and New Jersey. Six characters describe a struggle to conduct everyday life in a world transformed by environmental devastation and society's reaction to it. The fictional narrative fragments recombine with a chorus of contemporary voices describing factual deaths caused by Hurricane Sandy in 2012. The imagery based on original footage - most shot from a kayak - of the industrial docklands that stretch from Wilmington to Trenton to include the cities and environs of Chester, Philadelphia, and Camden. The narrative includes performances by Aram Aghazarian, Don Anstock, Kamili Feelings, Alice Gatling, Cynthia Geonnotti, Steve Geonnotti, Saskia Hargrove, Chris Monaco, Chris Whelan.
About Roderick Coover
Roderick Coover makes films, interactive cinema, installations and webworks. Some of his latest projects include the interactive series Unknown Territories about exploration in the American West and the edited bookSwitching Codes: Thinking Through Digital Technology In The Humanities And Arts (Chicago 2011). A pioneer in interactive documentary arts and poetics, his works are distributed through Video Data Bank, DER, Eastgate Systems and elsewhere. He is Director of the Graduation Program in Film and Media Arts at Temple University, Philadelphia where he teaches courses in film, new media and visual research.You can learn more about his work at www.roderickcoover.com.
About Scott Rettberg
Scott Rettberg teaches digital culture in the department of linguistic, literary, and aesthetic studies at the University of Bergen. Rettberg is the author or coauthor of novel-length works of electronic literature includingThe Unknown, Kind of Blue, and Implementation. Rettberg is the cofounder and served as the first executive director of the nonprofit Electronic Literature Organization, and is currently the project leader of the HERA-funded research project, ELMCIP: Electronic Literature as a Model of Creativity and Innovation in Practice (https://elmcip.net).
January 22, 2014
JANUARY ART CINEMA: GROWTH BY AMBER JOHNSTON
Amber Johnston's Gentrification" (2013) is about the results of repurposed land happening around the city of Philadelphia. She states, “As a renter I have been pushed further and further north as have many others. When I started this project I didn't feel very safe walking up Dauphin St. with my camera but over the next 10 months as the neighborhood progressed and more and more homes were built and remodeled, attracting "new neighbors" I felt completely safe on my daily excursion. It became a meditative walk. I noticed every change as the seasons passed, every change in every house remodeled. This project has come to represent life's never stagnant flow, there is always change, good or bad. Life is growing and dying to make room for the new."
About Amber Johnston
Amber Johnston grew up in Lexington, Kentucky and now lives and works in Philadelphia, PA. She received her BFA in ceramics at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia and her MFA in photography at Rochester Institute of Technology. Johnston currently teaches photography at Fleisher Art Memorial and ceramics at The Clay Studio's Claymobile program. She also freelances her photography and design. Johnston is interested in showing the human condition through her work.
December 26, 2013
DECEMBER ART CINEMA: BOSS FIGHTS BY ANASTASIA OWELL
Anastasia Owell's "Boss Fight" (2010) deals with play, games and identity. Fascinated by the history of gaming that sculpted the many social identities in different cultures "Boss Fight" reflects certain generations gaming experiences and identities. From a certain perspective computer and video games are a reality.
November 26, 2013
November Art Cinema: The Princess and Vagicorn by Nick Cassaway
Nick Cassaway's "The Princess and the Vagicorn" (2008) utilizes cartoon, archival footage and film elements that center around ideas of sexuality. Using traditional ballet as the focus of the video, producer and director Nick Cassaway, bring the characters through a number of symbolic locations through the dance ritual. Cassaway produced and directed the piece with choreography and performance by Rebecca Patek and Allison Lorenzen.About Nick Cassaway
Joshua Frankel is a director, animator and visual artist. Joshua grew up in the Hell's Kitchen section of New York City in a building filled with musicians, actors and dancers. He spent most of his youth listening to hip hop and trying not to let anyone take his lunch money.Nick Cassway graduated with a BFA from the Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia in 1990. Cassway is very active in the Philadelphia arts community; he is a founding member and co-curator of Dissentia Curatorial Service, a nationally recognized curating team best known for staging art shows in unusual venues. Cassway served as the executive director of Nexus/Foundation for Today's Art. His professional background includes developing marketing and graphic material for architectural firms. Cassway presently teaches courses in computer design at Drexel University in Philadelphia, PA.
October 18, 2013
October Art Cinema: Ossa by Collette Copeland
Colette Copeland's "Ossa" (2009) is a stop-motion video directed by Colette Copeland with animation by Christopher Dunkle. Copeland writes, "Gifted with a box of small animal skeletons, I envisioned creating a magical, but dark world, where the skeletons came alive, enacting primal rituals. Animator Christopher Dunkle shared my vision and together we collaborated on this short video inspired by the Quay Brothers and Tim Burton's 'Corpse Bride."
About Colette Copeland
Colette Copeland is a contributing writer for Glasstire, Ceramics: Art and Perception, and Afterimage Journal of Media Arts and Cultural Criticism. For seven years, she wrote a quarterly column for Fotophile Magazine and contributed to The Photo Review and Exposure Journal.
September 15, 2013
September Art Cinema: PLAN OF THE CITY BY JOSHUA FRANKEL
Joshua Frankel's "Plan of the City" uses the architecture of New York City blasting off into outer space and resettling on Mars. The film's visuals are an animated collage combining live action footage, animated elements, illustrations and treated photographs, including photos taken by the Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity made available to the public domain by the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
About Joshua Frankel
Joshua Frankel is a director, animator and visual artist. Joshua grew up in the Hell's Kitchen section of New York City in a building filled with musicians, actors and dancers. He spent most of his youth listening to hip hop and trying not to let anyone take his lunch money.
August 20, 2013
AUGUST ART CINEMA: ROOM BY RINPA ESHIDAN
Rinpa Eshidan's "Room" marked the group's first venture into sculpture and clay. The time-lapse short took an entire month to create. In a cube-like space, eight distinct scenes crafted out of paint, found objects, and clay magically grow and recede to the accompaniment of a music soundtrack mixed with acoustic sound effects.
About Rinpa Eshidan
Rinpa Eshidan is a Japanese "art crew" made up of: Noiz-Davi, Daisuke Yamamoto, D.H.Rosen, Akari Sasai, and XOLA. "Rinpa" is a word, created by the founders of the group, meaning "to bring people together, while "Eshidan" essentially means "art crew." Since the group's first breakthrough video went viral on YouTube in 2006, the Tokyo-based art collective has been creating "motion paintings" and commercial films that have earned them global notoriety. rinpaeshidan.jp
July 16, 2013
JULY ART CINEMA: REST BY LESLIE ROGERS
Leslie Rogers' Rest deals with identity scantily removed, a re-imagined man, unprompted, articulates his professional anxieties. The night time backdrop, upside down, scruffy talking chin outline the complexities inherent in traditional views of what a man and is not by reorienting point of view.
About Leslie Rogers
Leslie Rogers is a visual and performance artist from Philadelphia. She has exhibited at the Institute for Contemporary Art in Philadelphia, Vox Populi, Extra Extra, Bodega, International House, and Little Berlin, where she was a curator member. In New York, she has been exhibited at Monkeytown, Secret Project Robot, and St. Anne’s Warehouse as part of the Great Small Works Temporary Toy Theater Museum, and in Baltimore at Current Gallery and the Trans Modern Performance Festival. Rogers has directed and performed as a founding member of PuppeTyranny, a DIY theater collective, and has organized numerous touring performances with Philadelphia-based Puppet Uprising. She has recently completed an MFA in Sculpture & Extended Media at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, VA, where she also looks forward to an upcoming solo exhibition at Black Iris, then a residency at Art Farm Nebraska in collaboration with the Miss Rockaway Armada.
ART CINEMA: ROCKS TVS BY WENDY RICHMOND
Wendy Richmond Rocks TVs is an installation of eighty short videos playing on thirteen old TV sets. This is a brief snippet of the video installation showing a character kicking down, sweeping away and picking apart rock sculptures - some elaborate and labor-intensive, some slap-dash and trivial - that summer visitors have built on the rocky coast of Maine.
About Wendy Richmond
Wendy Richmond is a visual artist, writer and educator whose work explores issues of personal privacy, technology and creativity in contemporary culture. After graduating from Wesleyan University with a background in fine arts, design and dance, Richmond began mixing traditional media with new technology at MIT's Visible Language Workshop. She collaborated with programmers in pioneering work at MIT's Media Lab, and co-founded the Design Lab at WGBH in Boston. She received her Master's degree at New York University.
Richmond's recent exhibitions include "Wendy Richmond Rocks TVs" (Carroll and Sons, 2013); “Wendy Richmond: Navigating the Personal Bubble," (Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, 2012); "Overheard" (gallery@calit2, University of California, San Diego, 2010); and "Public Privacy: Wendy Richmond’s Surreptitious Cellphone" (Museum of Photographic Arts, San Diego, 2007-2008).
ART CINEMA: AMNESIAC BY TADASHI MORIYAMA
"Amnesiac" (2012) is inspired by life in a contemporary metropolis, where people yearn for home and nature. For Moriyama, the title "refers to what we have forgotten, but also suggests a residual pang, a memory imprinted, and a pervasive sense of something unresolved. It is the journey of one woman navigating the space between paranoia and rapture in the middle of the digital age."
About Tadashi Moriyama
Tadashi Moriyama was born and raised in Japan. Moriyama moved to the United States in 2001 when he was 21. He studied at Tyler School of Art (BA 2003) and University of Pennsylvania (MFA 2006) He has exhibited in Japan, Korea, Canada, Ireland, Belgium, Italy, and across the United States. Moriyama makes paintings, drawings, and mixed-media animation. Moriyama resides and works in Brooklyn, NY and soon will be relocating to Los Angeles.