From: A Suparak (email suppressed)
Date: Thu Apr 15 2004 - 22:40:27 PDT
This program is screening at many different places including an international
short film festival in Germany, a Philadelphia college, a church rollerskating
rink, a summer school for high school girls in Santa Fe, a gallery in Chelsea,
New York, a town called Normal and maybe your city too.
Hope to see some of you,
A. Suparak
. . .
LET'S GET TESTED
video, film, and audio screening
curated by Astria Suparak, originally for the 50th anniversary of Oberhausen
Film Festival
LET'S GET TESTED presents recent video, film and audio by Canadian, American,
Brazilian and French artists, young at heart or in age. Playfully adapting
public space into personal games, these makers look at architecture,
videogames, biology, schoolwork, history and even their own memories with
fresh eyes and twitchy fingers. Often sincere, sometimes willfully naive, they
project a new optimism and the ability to self-amuse and re-imagine.
LET'S GET TESTED frolics under a handmade sun with a few dark cultural
reflections. Culled from work I've seen over the past year, it embraces videos
made for the Internet, CD-ROM and DVD zines (the new casual pop distribution),
crafted with consumer software alongside obsolete video formats pried out of
dead cameras.
Here the coolest nerds hack up a 1980s iconic revelry/reverie; American
Midwesterners romanticize 1970s German political terrorists; a Canadian snubs
murder commands to peacefully stroll through Grand Theft Auto 3; and a
videomaker refashions his memory into a sweet and disturbing mélange of
literature, pop songs, film and news reports - all trying to make the grade
while honoring arbitrary rules. Attempting to keep spirits up in times of
strife, this program opts-out of violent spectacle, reckoning that life should
be savored and wonder is a calculated state of mind.
These artists move fluidly amongst performance, writing, printmaking, music,
photography and installation, and one revealed in a disclaimer, "I don't have
a preview reel or screening history -- I just make silly movies with my
friends, primarily for our own amusement." How novel. - A.Suparak, excerpts
from Internationale Kurzfilmtage Oberhausen catalogue
Includes:
Jeff Chapman, "Not Microwavable", 1995
Gabriel Fowler, "Hit on the Head with 1000 Anvils", 2001
Miranda July, "God's Love", 2002
JoEllen Martinson and William Scott Rees, "Digits", 2003
Patrick Martinez, "Untitled (after the visible human project)", 2002
Jim Munroe, "My Trip to Liberty City", 2003
Mike Olenick, "Son of Samsonite", 2002
Paper Rad, "Welcome to My Homey Page" excerpt from pjvidz#1, 2002
Kon Petrochuk, "Anabolite See", 1985
Sandy Plotnikoff, "Hoodies", 2003
Jon Rubin, "Among the Living", 2003
Jon Sasaki, "Circle Game", 2002
Jennifer Schmidt, "Scan-Tron", 2003
Alex Villar, "Temporary Occupations", 2001
\ \ Stills, artists' bios, info: http://www.astriasuparak.com/letsgettested.htm
Running time: 70 minutes
Tour Dates:
PHILADELPHIA, PA: April 22 @ Swarthmore College, Science Center 101
PHILADELPHIA, PA: April 23 @ Saint Charles Rollerskating Rink, Christian
Street. Skating after
OBERHAUSEN, Germany: May 3 @ Internationale Kurzfilmtage Oberhausen
NORMAL, IL: May 7 @ Thai Film Festival. Illinois State University
SANTA FE, NM: June 23-26 @ GirlsFilmSchool, The College of Santa Fe, Moving
Image Arts Dpt
NEW YORK, NY: mid-September @ Eyebeam new media arts organization. tba
\ \ Other programs and tour dates : http://www.astriasuparak.com/dates.htm
\ \ Bookings : email suppressed
With support by Novel Amusements, Electronic Arts Intermix, New York, LTTR.
__________________________________________________________________
For info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at <email suppressed>.