NOW AGAIN THE PAST film series, programmed in conjunction with the Carnegie Art Center's exhibition (February 11-March 18)

$7 general, $5 students/seniors, $4 members

by Harun Farocki (30 min., 1969)

by Jill Godmilow (32 min., 1997)

Farocki's classic German essay on the interrelation of production and warfare was little known in the US until Jill Godmilow made a shot by shot replica of it (in English). Godmilow's remake highlights the original's content and conjures an additional layer of commentary on the art and practice of documentary filmmaking.

** Two different programs – see details below **


each night: $7 general, $5 students/seniors, $4 members
both nights: $9 general, $7 students/seniors, $5 members

A two-day program of films by George Landow who in the 60s and 70s was known as one of the most prominent and influential experimental filmmakers in the US. This touring program was curated by Mark Webber for LUX in London, and has been screened internationally since 2005 at venues such as the Whitney Museum (NYC) and the Lisbon Biennale. Produced in association with Österreichisches Filmmuseum, Vienna and supported by Arts Council England.

Programme One
Saturday March 18 at 8 pm
All films 16mm
• Remedial Reading Comprehension (1970, 5 min.)
Landow rejects the dream imagery of the historical trance film for the self-referential present, using macrobiotics, the language of advertising, and a speed-reading test on the definition of hokum. The alienated filmmaker appears, running uphill to distance himself from the lyrical cinema, but remember, “This is a film about you, not about its maker.”
• Fleming Faloon (1963, 7 min.)
A cinematic equivalent to the illusionistic portraiture of the Flemish painters. In his first 16mm film, Landow proposes that if we accept the reality offered to us by the illusion of depth on the flat plane of the screen, we can then assign reality to anything at will.
• Film in Which There Appear Edge Lettering, Sprocket Holes, Dirt Particles, Etc. (1965-66, silent, 4 min.)
The ‘imperfections’ of filmmaking, which are normally suppressed, are at the core of a work that uses a brief loop made from a Kodak colour test. “The dirtiest film ever made,” is one of the earliest examples of the film material dictating the film content. It may seem minimal, but keep looking – there’s so much going on.
• Bardo Follies (1967-76, silent, 20 min.)
A shot of a Southern Belle waving to group of tourists on a pleasure boat ride is looped, multiplied and then melted, creating psychedelic abstract images. These globular forms resemble cellular, microscopic or cosmic structures. “A paraphrasing of certain sections of the Tibetan Book of the Dead in motion picture terms.”
• What’s Wrong With This Picture? 1 (1971, 5 min.)
A found, utilitarian object, the overtly moralising educational film “How to be a Good Citizen”, is elevated to the status of ‘art’. The film is first presented unaltered and then in Landow’s colour facsimile, which is further modified by applying an opaque matte that creates a spatial paradox.
• What’s Wrong With This Picture? 2 (1972)
As Landow and his students were testing a new video camera, an elderly man began to talk to them about new technology. This impromptu conversation forms the basis for a comparison of spoken and written language. After being transferred to film, a transcript of the encounter is superimposed over the image.
• Institutional Quality (1969, 5 min.)
The film is constructed around a found soundtrack in which a strict female voice delivers a test of perception and comprehension. As this test continues, the relationship between sound and image becomes detached and they follow separate paths, a consequence of the filmmaker losing interest in his subject.
• On the Marriage Broker Joke as Cited by Sigmund Freud in Wit and its Relation to the Unconscious or Can the Avant-Garde Artist Be Wholed? (1977-79, 18 min.)
“Two pandas, who exist only by textual error, run a shell game for the viewer in an environment with false perspectives. They posit the existence of various films and characters, one of which is interpreted by an academic as containing religious symbolism. Finally, Sigmund Freud’s own explanation is given by a sleeper awakened by an alarm clock.” (P. Adams Sitney)

Programme Two
Sunday March 19 at 8 pm
All films 16mm
• The Film that Rises to the Surface of Clarified Butter (1968, 9 min.)
An illustrator is drawing figures that resemble Tibetan deities. He can’t believe his eyes when they appear to come to life and dance on the paper, taking on qualities we might associate with Disney characters. They appear trapped between 2D and 3D space, an eerie limbo which is amplified by the sinister loop of the soundtrack.
• Diploteratology (1967-78, silent, 7 min.)
A revision of BARDO FOLLIES, subtitled “the study newly formed monstrosities”. Its images represent visual phenomena seen during a passage into the afterlife, but also evoke the cellular structure of the filmstrip, and of our own bodies. “The suggestion is that death (destruction of the original image) is not an end but merely the next stage.”
• “No Sir, Orison!” (1975, 3 min.)
After singing a vivacious song of love in the aisle of a supermarket, the performer kneels down to ask forgiveness for those involved in the commercial food industry, which substitutes natural produce with non-nutritious commodities. Orison means prayer. The title of the film (a palindrome) is the answer to a question.
• Wide Angle Saxon (1975, 22 min.)
An interpretation of The Confessions of Saint Augustine, featuring an ordinary middle-aged man who undergoes a conversion experience whilst watching an experimental film. The film is by Al Rutcurts (think about it) and Earl is so bored that his mind starts to wander. He realises that his possessions may be a barrier between himself and God and determines to something about it.
• Thank You Jesus for the Eternal Present (1973, 6 min.)
A rapturous audio-visual mix that “deliberately seeks a hidden order in randomness.” The film combines the face of a woman in ecstatic, contemplative prayer with shots of an animal rights activist, and a scantily clad model advertising Russian cars at the International Auto Show, New York.
• A Film of Their 1973 Spring Tour Commissioned by Christian World Liberation Front of Berkeley, California (1974, 12 min.)
A radical Christian group’s lecture tour of US colleges was filmed in the cinema verité tradition, with hand held camera, sync and wild sound. To avoid making a conventional documentary, the filmmaker created a dynamic collage by stroboscopically editing together pairs of scenes using a rapid rhythm of three-frame units.
• New Improved Institutional Quality: In the Environment of Liquids and Nasals a Parasitic Vowel Sometimes Develops (1976, 10 min.) The IQ test soundtrack is re-used in an entirely new work that is concerned more with the effects on the examinee, who enters a Chinese box of impossible perspectives in a hyper-realistic living room. He briefly escapes the oppressive environment of the test but passes into the imagination of the filmmaker, where he encounters images from previous films.

ARTIST IN PERSON

$7 general, $5 students/seniors, $4 members

Stephen Vitiello will present an evening of his sound and video work to round out his recent Hallwalls Artist in Residence Project, which resulted in the original CD BuffaloBassDelay. Copies of the CD will be available for purchase.

ARTIST IN PERSON

$7 general, $5 students/seniors, $4 members

The videos that comprise THE TIN DRUM TRILOGY are concerned with the consequences of the illegal war in Iraq. The trilogy features RE: THE_OPERATION based on a set of the artist's drawings that depict members of the George W. Bush administration as wounded soldiers in the war against terrorism; BAGHDAD IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER, a video essay of life in Baghdad before the American invasion and occupation; and NOW PROMISE NOW THREAT that uses Omaha, Nebraska as a site and subject from which to follow the often unexpected lines connecting people, religion, and politics in "red state" America.

ARTIST IN PERSON

$7 general, $5 students/seniors, $4 members

As regional character disappears and corporate culture homogenizes our surroundings, itÕs increasingly hard to tell where you are. In CHAIN, actual malls, theme parks, hotels and corporate centers worldwide are joined into a monolithic "superlandscape" that shapes and circumscribes the lives of two women. One is a businesswoman researching the international theme park industry for her home company. The other is a young drifter, illegally living and working on the fringes of a shopping mall.

CHAIN premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival (Forum Section), and has been selected for festivals including Edinburgh, Vancouver, Vienna, Woodstock, Cinematexas, Melbourne, and Singapore. Its New York premiere was at the Museum of Modern Art, and it had a theatrical run in New York at the new IFC Theater. It opened theatrically in London at the Curzon Soho, won the Prix Léo Scheer Award at the Belfort Entrevues Film Festival, a 2005 Independent Spirit Award presented by the IFP, and was selected as the opening night film at the Images Festival, Toronto in 2005. CHAIN was broadcast on Arte/ZDF in France and Germany.

Screening and Jem Cohen's visit organized by Hallwalls & Squeaky Wheel; co-sponsored by the Experimental TV Center, the Central NY Programmer's Group, UBÕs Dept. of Media Studies Graduate Club and UB Dept. of Media Study programming committee.