2023 Program
Light Matter is Curated by James Hansen
TS1/Harland Snodgrass Gallery
October 31 - November 12
Intervals
Simon Payne, United Kingdom, 2023, 10 minutes
North American Premiere
Stripes of primary and secondary colours in lateral motion and inverse diagonal motion, subsequently layered, divided and doubled. This has shown as a two-projector piece and it might well work for more than two. 'Intervals' can be thought of as a space between two things, a break in activity, a gap in time, the difference in pitch between two sounds, the difference between two colours etc.
Entelechy (or on the sense of duty)
Carlo Alleva & Anna Utopia Giordano, Italy, 2021, 5 minutes
North American Premiere
Entelechy (or on the sense of duty) is a spoken word song written and performed by artist, poet and performer Anna Utopia Giordano with music composed by multimedia indipendent artist Un Artista Minimalista. Entelechia is contained in Utopia's first album "Fogli d'ombra" released on March 19, 2021. The text, conceived by the author as a hybrid between poetry and script, contains suggestions from philosophy, literature and science, intertweaving current global issues with classical images of ancient Greece. The videoclip of Entelechy (or on the sense of duty) is inspired by the tradition of son et lumière night shows. The video concept was developed and conceived by Anna Utopia Giordano and Carlo Alleva, an Italian designer and director who has been entrusted with the direction of Entelechy. In particular, the theme of Entelechy (or on the sense of duty) concerns the value of life, how every living being is part of the same unique unbreakable network and the debate on migrants, a very important issue in Italy.
Ritual for Synthetic Media
Jason & Debora Bernagozzi, USA, 2023, 19 minutes
New York Premiere
Live Video Processing by Debora Bernagozzi Custom Software (SC Frame Buffer), Google Earth Hacking, Sound by Jason Bernagozzi "Ritual for Synthetic Media" is a single channel video recorded from a live video and sound performance by Debora and Jason Bernagozzi. Notes toward a statement Jason: The reason that the footage is interesting is because it is attempting to map our world and in exposing the inadequacies of it being able to map our world, it becomes a commentary about the ephemeral nature of things that seem monumental and permanent. Maybe even, like, the idea of the constructed, not as an end, but almost as a continuous growing and shifting thing. Google Earth is attempting to map our world, but in a way, it kind of exposes the fragility of what it is our world is made of. The sound elements are all granular synthesis and stretched moments of clicking hard drive failure sounds. Those are then being warped into soundscapes and musical movements. The live process is live granular synthesis from pre-recorded sounds of hard drives trying to boot up, clicking, and failing. The granules of those frequencies were then stretched, amplified, pitched shifted, panned, and remixed live using custom software built in Max/MSP by Jason. Debora: Worlds fall apart. Things fall apart. People fall apart. No matter how solid structures appear, there is a tenuous web of entropic processes at the core of everything. When I live process video, I’m not working from a rehearsed performance or simply performing a set of effects, I am feeling that video on a deep, physical level, and - combined with a solid relationship with my tools enabling nuanced expression - take both myself and the viewer into the video, experiencing it, embodying it, and emerging. Through the processing, I am further exposing the ephemeral qualities of signal and matter, while recombining the imagery to create new worlds, new energies. In these performances, Jason’s sound affects my experience of the video, and my visual responses to that affect his sound choices. We are traveling in the space of the media together.
me with and without my brain
Nilson Carroll, USA, 2020, 8 minutes
North American Premiere
me with and without my brother is a short experimental video exploring isolation and separation between brothers using original, real-time Super Mario 64 and Super Mario Bros. 3 audiovisual corruptions. Luigi repeatedly tackles Mario, jumping off his head, the eternal wisdom “boys will be boys” ringing in both their ears. Perhaps it is this toxic-masculine competition that drives the brothers apart, or perhaps they just grow into different, unrelated people. With time to contemplate, Mario’s vision blurs, his home becomes shattered glass, his air unbreathable. He no longer has ground to stand on, the limp UI in each corner his only sense of stability. His mental and physical states no longer align. It becomes a queer or defiant question to ask “what does Mario do if he has no princess to save,” no binary call to action. He looks to his brother for answers, but there is no one there. I miss my brother, and I miss my family. Divided by an anxiety to not be vulnerable, each of us remains distant. This work is dedicated to my older brother, who introduced me to video games almost three decades ago.
RED HOUSE
Barry Doupe, Canada, 2022, 3 minutes
RED HOUSE is an animation that playfully explores metamorphosis in relation to the stability and structure of housing. Created using the AMIGA computer console and Deluxe Paint IV software, hand drawn sequences delight in the constant reconfiguration of images, characters and forms.
The Becoming
Melissa Faivre, France, 2020, 5 minutes
New York Premiere
The Becoming is a dynamic, fast-paced collage of animated photographs of ink paintings as well as video material of extinct and living species of fish, reptiles and birds. The juxtaposition and superposition of fragments of different life forms, together with cold or blooming nature expresses the idea of regeneration. This somehow hallucinatory collage evolves into a succession of increasingly vibrant patterns reminiscent of biological cells and ends with an explosion of shapes and colors. Quite an intense trip.
DATAVISION
Joris Guibert, France, 2023, 5 minutes
North American Premiere
- How does an animist see the world? - What do we see when we look at a screen? - What does video code look like? - Do digital data spread throughout reality? - Do images form an encoding of the gaze? - What is the conversion of reality into data? Digital camera compression clones and reconstructs all or part of each image. In a video, we actually see very few images : we watch algorithms. This film is made from real-world material captured in digital video (without any virtual effects or synthesized creations), through a hijacking of data.
Body Building
Mary Tiffany Lewandowski, USA, 2021, 11 minutes
Four channel split screen depicting phases of body building process: diagnosis, quest, rite, assembly.
Education Lost
Francisco Ríos, Ecuador, 2022, 13 minutes
New York Premiere
Education Lost forges an adverse portrait of Ecuador and its social distances. The film introduces a subjective wandering through out the turbulent paths of an unfortunate nation.
Help Desk
Edwin Rostron, United Kingdom, 2023, 3 minutes
A mysterious transmission revealing playful geometric possibilities. Help Desk is a hypnotic hand drawn animation, providing a meditative and contemplative space, oscillating between flatness and depth, control and instability. The film was made using an improvisational process of ‘straight ahead’ animation, and was primarily an attempt to regain some much needed focus after the fragmented years of the pandemic.
When I Said Express…
Ajunie Virk, USA, 2023, 3 minutes
New York Premiere
My sister told me the way there would have a great view of the city. But I accidentally went to the wrong platform and instead spent the whole ride traveling through a tunnel. There, I was forced to listen to a cover band sing a tragically off-key rendition of Empire State Of Mind in a pitch-black subway car for 15 minutes. I am now in Bay Ridge and was stranded at a McDonald's (one of those boring, new ones that lack a play place and seems more suited to house a plastic surgeon’s office than a few deep fryers). Even though he was redeeming his free birthday fries, the man that ordered before me was holding a bunch of coins in his hands. He seemed really happy that it was his special day. He was smiling so wide I could see all of the plaque buildup on his teeth. When I went up to order, they claimed to have “broken” their ice cream machine. I used the McFlurry money to buy this journal and a pack of Lisa Frank stickers. I’m still deciding, but I think I’ll just walk the rest of the way there.
Discriminator Loss
David Witzling, USA, 2023, 9 minutes
World Premiere
A data science allegory: the technological spectacle of nudes descending staircases, and a visual poem on modelling non-equilibrium thermodynamics in reverse. Electronic provisions for Socialist victuals accompany secular church bells from a new Homeland, whereupon we encounter a visual divide between the domestic and foreign defiance of Gravity. Tones in the static. A symbol of the Muse is then destroyed, while serenaded by the lullaby of an amphibious UFO colony.