Freund Hein | Elizabeth Smolarz | 2008 | 4:00 min.
Freund Hein is an anachronistic German vernacular expression, ‘Hein’ being the impersonation of Death as an unwelcome ‘friend’ knocking on once door. I my latest video installation I conceptualized a performance based film project as an exploration of the question of death. Since the human death is typically hidden from everyday life what is the source of our death-image? I invited people of different ages and backgrounds to my studio and asked them ‘to die’ in front of the camera. The participants were free to improvise in whatever way they wanted to pretend the act of dying. Some choose to be ‘shot’, some were ‘stabbed’, some ‘chocked', others said ‘good bye’, laid down and ‘died’. The sequences of these performances were mostly short, maximum a few minutes, showing that most people imagine the act of dying as an abrupt event, a crass unexpected rupture in the experience of an everyday time continuum.
Bamboos | Fanny Allié | 2008 | 00:45 sec.
My artwork revolves around the notion of Identity or loss of Identity and how we present ourselves to the world. The people I film are assigned to play a role or to follow a specific instruction in order to take a distance with their own self (their everyday “self”). In my last project called “The disappearance of the cleaning lady” (2008 - 2.32 min), I asked four cleaning ladies who have been working together for many years, to create a story about the possible and sudden disappearance of one of them. They therefore fill their role with their own feelings.
Parallel Paradises (Japan) | Manuel Saiz | 2007 | 4:00 min.
Rin and Mai are two dancers of parapara, a disco dance trend popular in Japan. Their perfectly synchronized movements have a very precise pace and protocol, like they were speaking an unknown language. They perform in a forest were their figure and attitude results heterogeneous to the organic movement the nature around them, both words exist complete in the same space but do not touch each other.
Tears for the Future | Javier Morales/John Michael Boling
2008 | 4:45 min.
Javier Morales/John Michael Boling have solo as well as collaborative practices. They are based in Athens, Georgia. Since 2005 they have worked together on videos, as well as a number of web-based projects, most notably the video web blog Channel 53. A selection of the duo’s earlier works are hosted on John Michael Boling’s redoubtable 53 o’s website
(in google search ‘53 o’s’ – quicker than typing www.goooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
ooooooooooooooooooooooogle.com) where you can also view some of his and Morales’ individual works.
What If…? | Torsten Zenas Burns/Darrin Martin | 2008 | 11:47 min.
WHAT-IF? is an experimental video & installation unfolding a role-playing workshop where participants reenact a fictional polyamorous romance. The performance, played by a rotating international cast of artists, leads to a group wedding and honeymoon between characters based upon two obscure Marvel superheroes and two internationally renowned art personalities. The happy foursome are Stelarc, an artist whose cybernetic mission in life is to render the body obsolete; Orlan, an artist whose actual redefinition of her own body via plastic surgery confronts representations of woman throughout art history; the Scarlet Witch, a mutant superhero who has unlimited powers over probability, and the Vision, a “synthezoid” whose mechanically fabricated body contains a human soul. WHAT-IF?…unfolds the entangled story that brought this romantic foursome together spanning the gulf between genders and representations; the body and technology.
A Matter of Fiction | Julie Casper Roth | 2008 | 3:35 minutes
A Matter of Fiction is a study of truth in traditional documentary film. It takes a recognizable model of documentary film - the historical documentary - and alters it to demonstrate the vulnerability of supposedly reputable information. The result places historical scholars in a web of fictional banter about their own lives and indiscretions. Commentary that was utilized in an authoritative context becomes banal.This humorous piece was born out of the artist's own work in documentary filmmaking and her acknowledgement of the vulnerability of truth.
From above | Fanny Allié | 2008 | 1:30 min.
My artwork revolves around the notion of Identity or loss of Identity and how we present ourselves to the world. The people I film are assigned to play a role or to follow a specific instruction in order to take a distance with their own self (their everyday “self”).
Sittin' on a Million | Penny Lane/Annmarie Lanesey | 2008 | 26 min.
Mame Faye did not exist... At least that's what the history books would have you believe. Prostitutes and madams, no matter how popular and successful, are not part of legitimate history. But the citizens of Troy, New York insist that Mame Faye did exist. Everyone past the age of retirement has a story - funny, sordid, unbelievable - about Troy's most famous madam. Filmmakers Penny Lane and Annmarie Lanesey present these stories in all their contradictory glory, alongside vintage erotica, reenactments, and street performances. Mame Faye ran a world famous house of prostitution in Troy, New York for almost forty years (c. 1906 to 1941). Mame's story offers a rare view into sex, money, politics, and women's place in society in the early 20th century. Sittin' on a Million asks us to consider the role of memory and imagination in creating history, and reminds us about all those ordinary, extraordinary people erased from the official record.
