Media City Film Festival 2014 catalogue

Haden Guest (USA) is a film historian, curator and Director of the Harvard Film Archive, overseeing its cinematheque, collections and preservation program.

A specialist in post­war avant­garde cinema, he is curating an expansive Gregory Markopoulos retrospective at the HFA later this year as well as the ongoing “Cinema Dialogues – Harvard at the Gulbenkian” series about trans­ national trends in contemporary cinema.

He is also co­curating a major retro­ spective about the history and future of 16mm films for the 2014 Viennale. g

COMPETITION

Gye­joong Kim (Korea R / Canada) is a filmmaker and co­founder of EXiS (Experimental Film and Video Festival in Seoul, Korea), where he curated extensive programs of the work of Hollis Frampton, Nam June Paik and John Cage. He holds an MFA in Film & Video from CalArts and relocated to Toronto in 2013, where he has worked as a member of the program committee for the Toronto Reel Asian International Film Festival and served on the jury of the Images Festival.

JURY Aily Nash (USA) is a curator and writer.

She is on the selection committee for the New York Film Festival’s Projections section, and has curated for MoMA PS1 (NYC), Anthology Film Archives (NYC), Image Forum (Tokyo), and others. Her writing has appeared in the Brooklyn Rail, Artforum.com, Film Comment, de Filmkrant and elsewhere. She is the film curator at Basilica Hudson, co­editor of Talent Press at Berlinale Talents, and teaches at Parsons The New School for Design in New York.

Media City Film Festival & MOCAD present

MUSIC OF ALVIN LUCIER WITH CHARLES CURTIS 16MM PROJECTOR PERFORMANCE BY BRUCE MCCLURE Tuesday, July 8, 8PM Admission: $US 5 (free for MOCAD members and Media City passholders) Performing will be the American composer Alvin Lucier, who uses electronic devices such as tape recorders and oscillators to explore the characteristics of sound waves and the acoustic properties of space. Lucier will be joined by cellist and composer Charles Curtis, who has woven a unique career through the worlds of classical performance and musical experimentation.

Brooklyn足based light and sound artist Bruce McClure will present one of his rarely足seen projection performances, using multiple 16mm film projectors.

Performance includes four compositions of Alvin Lucier:

Charles Curtis Solo cello with slow sweep pure wave oscillators. 2002

On the carpet of leaves illuminated by the moon Solo cello with pure wave oscillator, 2000

Glacier Solo cello, 2009

Slices Solo cello and pre­recorded orchestra, 2007 ————— Alvin Lucier (opposite; Nashua NH 1931). Studies at Portsmouth Abbey School, Yale University and Brandeis University. Conductor of Brandeis University Chamber Chorus 1962­70; co­founder of Sonic Arts Union (1966).

More than 25 recordings on Lovely Music Records, Nonesuch and other labels since 1968. Pioneer in many areas of music composition and performance, including the notation of performers’ physical gestures, the use of brain waves in live performance, the generation of visual imagery by sound in vibrating media, and the evocation of room acoustics for musical purposes. Recent works include a series of sound installations and works for solo instruments, chamber ensembles, and orchestra performed at venues including the Venice Biennale and the Donaueschingen Music Festival in Germany. Awarded Lifetime Achievement Award by the Society for Electro­ Acoustic Music; Professor of Music at Wesleyan University since 1970.

Charles Curtis (left; Laguna Beach CA 1960). Studies at Juilliard. Formerly principal cellist of the Symphony Orchestra of the NDR (Hamburg); guest appearances with the San Francisco Symphony, National Symphony at the Kennedy Center, Symphonisches Orchester Berlin, etc; numerous performances at international music festivals including Sound and Music London and Festival d’Automne, Paris. Frequent collaborations with composers including La Monte Young, Éliane Radigue, Christian Wolff and others. Professor of Music at the University of California, San Diego since 2000.

Tastefully Taut against Germanium Satin Bruce McClure, USA, projector performance for 3 modified projectors and 6 film loops, 2013 Bruce McClure (Washington DC 1959). Studies architecture at Virginia Tech, licensed to practice in New York State in 1994. Assistant to John Cage at the Mountain Lake Workshop (Virginia) in 1983, 1988 and 1990. Begins working with stroboscopic discs in 1994余 creates more than thirty 16mm projector performances since 1995. Presentations at International Film Festival Rotterdam, Wexner Center for the Arts (Columbus), two editions of the Whitney Biennial (New York), etc. Tours with Throbbing Gristle (2009)余 awarded Guggenheim Fellowship (2011). Lives in Brooklyn, New York.

13th consecutive appearance at Media City, festival Grand Prize in 2005.

Photo credit: Robin Martin

Having ceremonial power they vote themselves, town, port, and garrison. A barefaced palpitating pulpit, a spinning society, and fortunately sirens are enthusiastically attached. Lavishing lagan of a lighthouse ladders up the old time turner, earning and gets his wick on a piece of railing.

In the heliotropical noontime following a fade, transformed and pending versions revised, a metallurgic re-glow of beaming is at bat swinging at the bared board bombardment screen, tastefully taut against germanium satin tending to tele-frame. Step up to the charge of a light barricade. Down the photo-slope in synchopanick pulses, the autonomic thropic mussles glitter-a-glatter-a-glutt, borne by carrier valves.

Spray gun rakes split them in a double focus and the fire spot of a sun gunner traverses an illustration rutilant in sunk and sundered lines.

Shlossh! He lifts the life wand and the dumb speak; let us leave theories there and return to here's here.

Henry Hills: Kino Da! Retrospective screening with the artist “Henry Hills is a polymath, drawing in ideas from multiple disciplines… the avant­jazz and neo­art music of John Zorn, Elliott Sharp and Zeena Parkins, cut­up audio­workers like John Oswald and Christian Marclay, as well as the L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E poets, all of whom share with Hills an obsession with micro­syntax, the isolation of discrete units as signifying elements from which to construct discontinuous tapestries, crazy­quilts of shape and gesture.”

— Michael Sicinski Henry Hills (Atlanta GA 1948) Studies at San Francisco Art Institute. 20+ films since 1975; extensive screenings at international venues and festivals; in permanent collections of Museum of Modern Art (New York), Lincoln Center Performing Arts Library (New York), Kino Arsenal (Berlin), etc. Frequent collaborator with the L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E poets and with composer John Zorn and choreographer Sally Silvers. Former faculty in film at Pratt Institute and San Francisco Art Institute; since 2005 Professor at the film academy FAMU in Prague, Czech Republic.

Kino Da! 16mm, 3 min, 1981 A portrait of North Beach Communist café poet and gentle comrade, Jack Hirschman. Shot in sync with wind­up Bolex.

Porter Springs 3 16mm, 7 min, 1977 My most “painterly” work, basically one image: reflections of trees on the lake broken by a line of waterlilies, an hallucinatory love poem.

Goa Lawah 16mm, 5 min, 1991 Goa Lawah is a sacred bat cave on the east coast of Bali.

Radio Adios 16mm, 11 min, 1982 A monologue in twelve plaited strands; an extremely precise, condensed and intensely rhythmic Busby Berkeleyish spectacle of language over a fair range of vocal timbre.

SSS 16mm, 7 min, 1988 Movement improvised on the streets of pre足gentrified East Village, synched to music improvised for the project by Tom Cora, Christian Marclay and Zeena Parkins. Beauty emerging from rubble.

Electricity HD, 7 min, 2007 The cityscape of Prague viewed through the rhomboidal electricity足catchers on the tops of moving trams.

Failed States HD, 10 min, 2008 Boys love to spin until they collapse. Is the world then spinning out of control?

Money 16mm, 15 min, 1985 An historical document of the early days of language poetry and the downtown improvised music scene, with John Zorn, Charles Bernstein, Arto Lindsay, etc.

Renaissance Center / GM Tower Nicky Hamlyn, England, 16mm, 4 min, 2012 Made while Hamlyn was artist­in­residence at Media City and the Art Gallery of Windsor in spring, 2012, and first shown at the festival the same year.

A time­lapse film shot from the third floor of the AGW, at a rate of one frame every thirty seconds, compressing forty­eight hours into four minutes. An artificial animation of the repetitively cycling GM logo sequence and naturally occurring movements, such as clouds reflected in the tower’s windows.

This grid of flat planes breaks the reflections up into rectangular fragments that resemble film in both its appearance and manner of operation.

Nicky Hamlyn (London, England 1954). Studies at Reading University. Workshop organizer at London Filmmakers’ Co­op 1979­81. 50+ films since 1974; screenings include solo shows at Double Negative (Montréal), San Francisco Cinematheque, etc. Co­ editing a book on Austrian filmmaker Kurt Kren (Intellect Books, 2014). Lives in Lewes, England. Eighth year at Media City including 2012 artist’s residency.

44 / 85 Foot’­age Shoot’­out Kurt Kren, Austria, 16mm, 3 min, 1985 Made while Kurt Kren was living in Houston, Texas. He was asked to shoot and deliver a film for a festival given four day’s notice, which he did. Claiming the result was “a rape” and “probably my last film”, Kren removed his name and copyright from the work.

“I asked whether he [Kren] had ever seen a print. ‘Yes, it’s great’, he replied.”

— April Rapier Kurt Kren (Vienna, Austria 1929­1998). Co­founder of Vienna Institute of Direct Art and Austrian Filmmakers Cooperative. Works at National Bank of Austria from 1947; dismissed following “Kunst und Revolution” action of 1968. Lives in Germany and USA 1971­89. 56 extant films from 1956­96; screenings at festivals and museums worldwide including Cannes International Film Festival, Museum of Modern Art (New York), Documenta 6 (Kassel), National Film Theatre (London UK), etc. Fourth presentation at Media City including retrospective screening (2006).

Sound That Kevin J. Everson, USA, HD, 12 min, 2014 Employees of the Cleveland Water Department on the hunt for leaks in the infrastructure in Cuyahoga County.

Fe26 Kevin J. Everson, USA, HD, 7 min, 2014 Two gentlemen making a living hustling metal in Cleveland, Ohio.

Kevin J. Everson (Mansfield OH 1965). Studies at University of Akron and Ohio University. 80+ films since 1997. Screenings at Centre Pompidou (Paris), Museum of Modern Art (New York), Whitney Museum (New York), etc余 Guggenheim Fellowship (1996), Rome Prize (2001). Lives in Charlottesville VA. Fifth appearance at Media City余 current Mobile Frames filmmaker足in足residence.

O Porto Clarissa Campolina, Julia De Simone, Luiz Pretti & Ricardo Pretti Brazil, HD, 21 min, 2013 One port on top of another. One city on top of another. The camera can excavate invisibilities, buried and forgotten realms. Urban sites reveal a political project hidden under an idealized discourse of “progress� that repeats itself over the course of history.

Clockwise from top left: Clarissa Campolina (1979, lives in Belo Horizonte), Julia De Simone (1982, lives in Rio de Janeiro), Luiz Pretti, Ricardo Pretti (1982, live in Fortaleza). First film in collaboration. First appearance at Media City.

Atlantis Ben Russell, USA, S16mm > HD, 24 min, 2014 Loosely framed by Plato’s invocation of the lost continent of Atlantis in 360 BC and its re­re­resurrection via a 1970s science fiction pulp novel, Atlantis is a documentary portrait of Utopia — an island that has never / forever existed beneath our too­mortal feet. Herein is folk song and pagan rite, religious march and reflected temple, the sea that surrounds us all. Even as we are slowly sinking, we are all happy and content.

Ben Russell (Somerset, England 1976). Studies at Brown University and The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. 30+ films since 1997; screenings include solo presentations at Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, International Film Festival Rotterdam, Museum of Modern Art (New York), etc; Guggenheim Fellowship (2008). Lives in Paris, France. Fourth appearance at Media City, festival Grand Prize in 2009.

Slit Me a River Christine Negus, London, HD, 5 min, 2013 A tale of Bubbly Creek, a section of the Chicago River that was once polluted with animal entrails.

To Avoid Falling Owen Eric Wood, Windsor, HD, 4 min, 2013 A unique process of re­projection produces self­portraits that are blurry, vague and ambiguous.

Fiberglass Taylor M. Kirby and Kaylee M. Johnson, Detroit, HD, 3 min, 2013 Playing with the idea of “getting ready”.

Presentiments Miranda S. Dershimer, Ann Arbor, 16mm > HD, 8 min, 2013 Found footage, hand­drawn and rayogram techniques are used in a narrative comparing the lives of fig wasps and humans.

Road Funner Jason Sudak, Detroit, 16mm, 3 min, 2013 A partially erased Road Runner cartoon goes meep! meep! vrrrRRR, screech, ping! and CRUNCH.

Drilling Brach Goodman, Detroit, HD, 2 min, 2013 A fragmented documentation of the things I’ve grown to love.

Process Control 1: Burning Light Josh Romphf, London, 35mm, 4 min, 2013 Archival nitrate film is scanned and bound to a polygonal mesh whose vertices morph based on the decomposition of the source image.

Dust Refracted Gerald McKay, Ferndale, HD, 4 min, 2013 Glimpses of the afternoon, bending through fragmented visions.

Lunar Phases Matt Rossoni, London, 16mm, 7 min, 2013 An empty­projector performance conjures lunar events.

White Noise Anna van Schaap, Grosse Pointe Park, HD, 8 min, 2013 About communication, or the inability to communicate directly.

A Park for a City Nicole MacDonald, Detroit, HD, 34 min, 2013 Belle Isle Zoo, closed and boarded­up, now a no­man’s land of flora and fauna left undisturbed to form an ecology of its own design.

Corrida Autotopia Brent Lee and Owen Eric Wood, Windsor, HD, 5 min, 2014 Huron Church Road, one of the busiest truck routes in North America.

Host or Ghost Christine Negus, London, HD, 1 min, 2013 Found footage of a balloon­filled sky, a perverse and watery heaven.

Toros Robert Fenz, USA, 35mm, 4 min, 2014 Shot in Spain in 2013; part of a three­film suite also including Toros – Window (screening in International Program 4).

Robert Fenz (Ann Arbor MI 1969). Studies at Bard College and CalArts. 12+ films since 1992; screenings at two Whitney Biennials (New York), solo screenings at Locarno Film Festival (Italy), Museum of Modern Art (New York), Cinématheque Française (Paris), etc; Guggenheim Fellowship (2004). Lives in Los Angeles, California. Fourth appearance at Media City including retrospective screening (2009); Grand Prize (2004).

Envío No. 26 Jeannette Muñoz, Chile, 16mm, 6 min, 2013 Envíos (“Letters”) are moments in photography and film that I dedicate and send to particular persons. Thoughts, sensations, images transmitted by the Envíos are fragments of life made possible through encountering those persons. In the Envíos these fragments return, or move towards another place of reference. Each Envío is a consignment in a small cardboard box, consisting of a film reel or photography and accompanying text.

Envío 26 is for Fernando Orrega and Reinhardt Schulz and was filmed in El Volcan, Chile.

Jeannette Muñoz (Santiago, Chile 1967). Studies at Universidad de Chile. 30+ films since 2000; screenings at Kino Arsenal (Berlin), “Views from the Avant­garde” at the New York Film Festival, International Film Festival Rotterdam, etc. Lives in Zürich, Switzerland.

Third appearance at Media City.

Orizzonti Orizzonti!

Anna Marziano, Italy, HD, 12 min, 2014 Apulia, Italy, 2013.

Anna Marziano (Padova, Italy 1982). Studies at Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia (Rome) and at Le Fresnoy (Tourcoing, France). Five films since 2009; screenings at Experimenta (Bangalore, India), Torino Film Festival, “Wavelengths” at the Toronto International Film Festival, etc. Currently lives in Berlin, Germany. Second appearance at Media City.

Sister City Dani Leventhal, USA, HD, 5 min, 2013 “Moments of paradoxical experience — of being a superhero or being for sale — channelled into reverberant conduits, divided by panes of glass or suspended in watery solitudes… Sister City, like water, seeks its own level, cresting and displacing continuous bursts of life, spiritualized, succulent and ultimately alone.” — Deirtra Thompson Image copyright the artist coutesy Video Data Bank: vdb.org

Dani Leventhal (Columbus OH, 1972). Studies at the University of Illinois and Bard College. Works in drawing and in video since 2003, screenings at MoMA PS1, “Views from the Avant­garde” at the New York Film Festival, International Film Festival Rotterdam, etc; drawings in permanent collections of Museum of Modern Art and Yale University. Lives in Columbus, Ohio. First appearance at Media City.

Nec spe nec metu Friedl vom Gröller, Austria, 16mm, 3 min, 2013 “Her eyes are wide, not sure of what they are seeing. The neck supporting the face is pure structure, skin alone covering the skeleton and resembling the bark encasing the roots of a thousand­year­old tree eroding from out of the earth… Light streaks across the image from which heads emerge and disappear, like ghosts or abstractions. The camera is the centre of instability, shaken by jolts or twitches…” ― Sylvia Szely Friedl vom Gröller (London, England 1946). Studies at Graphic Instruction and Research Institute Vienna. Photography exhibitions at Centre Pompidou (Paris), Frankfurter Kunstverein, etc; Austrian State Prize for Photography (2005). 40+ films since 1968; screenings at Austrian Filmmuseum, International FIlm Festival Rotterdam, Anthology Film Archives (New York), etc. Founder of School for Artistic Photography and School for Independent Film, Vienna. Lives in Vienna, Austria. Fifth appearance at Media City including retrospective screening and exhibition in 2010.

Warum es sich zu leben lohnt Friedl vom Gröller, Austria, 16mm, 2 min, 2013 “Instead of eyes it is the mouth that serves as the open organ at the center of this image. Why is life worth living / why life is worth living: it is a question and an answer at one and the same time. Why is it really worth it? Why do we suffer pain? Perhaps to watch and to see, even with our eyes closed.”

— Sylvia Szely

Gente Perra Anja Dornieden & Juan David González Monroy Germany / Colombia, 16mm, 25 min, 2014 A film based on fragments of the story “La Gente Perra” by Colombian writer Gomati D. Wahn (1923­1993). The story takes place 3000 years in the future and follows the character of The Admiral as he searches for the land of the Dog People. As is typical of Wahn’s style, the story is assembled from altered existing texts, in this case, historic accounts of the discovery and conquest of what was once known as The New World.

Anja Dornieden ([Heilbad] Heiligenstadt, [East] Germany 1984), Juan David González Monroy (Bogotá, Colombia 1983). Eight films in collaboration since 2010; screenings at International Film Festival Rotterdam, Ann Arbor Film Festival, Visions du Réel, etc. Live in Berlin, Germany.

First appearance at Media City.

Necrology Standish Lawder, USA, 16mm, 12 min, 1970 “The sickest joke I’ve ever seen on film.” — Hollis Frampton

Standish Lawder (Connecticut 1936 ­ California 2014).

Studies at Ludwig Maximilian University (Munich) and Yale University. More than 25 films beginning in 1963; screenings at Whitney Museum of American Art (New York), Museum of Modern Art (New York), Ann Arbor Film Festival, etc; permanent collection of Museum of Modern Art (New York); Guggenheim Fellowship (1972). First presentation at Media City.

Blight John Smith, England, 16mm > HD, 16 min, 1996 The building of the M11 Link Road in East London, using images and sounds of demolition and road building in conjunction with the spoken words of local residents. Made in collaboration with the composer Jocelyn Pook.

John Smith (London, England 1952). Studies at the Royal College of Art. 50+ films and media artworks since 1972余 solo screenings at International Kurzfilmtage Oberhausen, Tampere Short Film Festival (Finland), etc余 major group exhibitions at Venice Biennale, Tate Britain, etc. In permanent collections of Tate Gallery, Kunstmuseum Madgeburg, etc. Lives in London, England. Third appearance at Media City.

The Age of Stone Ana Vaz, Brazil, 16mm > HD, 29 min, 2013 A voyage to the far west of Brazil leads to a monumental sculpture petrified at the centre of the savannah. Age of Stone imagines an alternate history inspired by the epic construction of the city of Brasilia. Following geological traces, the film unearths a legacy of exploration, prophecy and myth.

Brasilia belongs to a glorious past which no longer exists. That type of civilization disappeared thousands of years ago…

Ana Vaz (Brasilia, Brazil 1986). Studies at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (Australia) and at Le Fresnoy (Tourcoing, France). Three films since 2009; screenings at Curtas Vila do Conde (Portugal), Visions du Réel (Nyon, Switzerland), “Views from the Avant­garde” at the New York Film Festival, etc.

Currently artist in residence at École de Beaux Arts in Lyon, France. First appearance at Media City.

Utskor: Either / Or Laida Lertxundi, Spain (Euskadi), 16mm > HD, 8 min, 2013 The town of Utskor in northern Norway. Memories of a political past entwined with domestic, familial moments under a midnight sun.

Laida Lertxundi (Bilbao, Euskadi, Spain, 1981).

Studies at Bard College and California Institute of the Arts. Eight films since 2007余 screenings at numerous festivals including solo presentations at 2012 Whitney Biennial (New York), San Francisco Cinematheque, 25 FPS (Zagreb), etc. Currently lives in Los Angeles, California. First appearance at Media City.

Deep Sleep Basma Alsharif, Palestine, S8mm > HD, 17 min, 2014 A hypnosis­inducing pan­geographic shuttle built on brainwave­generating binaural beats. A journey from the ruins of an ancient civilization embedded in a modern civilization in ruins (Athens), through the derelict, anonymous buildings of Malta, to a site of post­civilization (the Gaza Strip). Shot while under self­hypnosis, this performance­film guides the corporeal into the cinema in an act of bilocation across limits of time and geographical borders.

Basma Alsharif (Kuwait, 1983, to Palestinian parents). Studies at Mälmo Art Academy (Sweden) and the University of Illinois at Chicago. Nine films and videos since 2006; screenings at numerous festivals and at Manifesta 8 (Murcia, Spain), 9th Sharjah Biennial (UAE), Wexner Center for the Arts (Columbus), etc. Currently lives in Paris, France.

Second appearance at Media City.

Let Us Persevere in What We Have Resolved Before We Forget Ben Russell, USA, HD, 20 min, 2013 “John Frum prophesied the occurrence of a cataclysm in which Tanna would become flat, the volcanic mountains would fall and fill the riverbeds to form plains, and Tanna would be joined to the neighbouring islands of Eromanga and Aneityum to form a new island. Then John Frum would reveal himself, bringing in a reign of bliss, the natives would get back their youth and there would be no sickness; there would be no need to care for gardens, trees or pigs. The Whites would go.” — Peter Worsley, The Trumpet Shall Sound: A Study of Cargo Cults in Melanesia Ben Russell (Somerset, England 1976). Studies at Brown University and The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. 30+ films since 1997; screenings include solo presentations at Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, International Film Festival Rotterdam, Museum of Modern Art (New York), etc; Guggenheim Fellowship (2008). Lives in Paris, France. Fourth appearance at Media City, festival Grand Prize in 2009.

Lunar Almanac Malena Szlam, Montréal, 16mm, 5 min, 2013 Moons in a journey through magnetic spheres, influencing subtle energies on Earth.

Malena Szlam (Santiago, Chile 1979). Studies at Universidad de Artes y Ciencias Sociales and Concordia University. 15 films and media installations since 2000; screenings at Jihlava International Documentary Film Festival (Czech R.), [S8] Mostra de Cinema Pereférico (A Coruña, Spain), Viennale (Austria), etc. Member of Double Negative Collective (Montréal), lives in Montréal, Québec. First appearance at Media City.

Sea Series 14, 15, 18 John Price, Toronto, 35mm, 9 min, 2013­14 The most recent films in Price’s ongoing Sea Series. Sea Series 14, 15 and 18 form a cycle of films depicting the waterfronts of Hamilton and Toronto, shot from opposing vantage points across Lake Ontario using a telephoto lens.

John Price (Raritan Township NJ 1967). Studies at Concordia University. More than 50 films since 1992; screenings at numerous international festivals and venues including solo presentations at International Film Festival Rotterdam, Pacific Cinematheque (Vancouver); Pleasure Dome (Toronto), etc. Lives in Toronto, Ontario. Sixth appearance at Media City.

Canadian Pacific I David Rimmer, Vancouver, 16mm, 5 min, 1974 Vancouver harbour with its railyards, mountains and passing ships is a vista in fluid transformation as three winter months are reviewed and condensed to ten minutes. What interested me about these shots were the horizontals: the train tracks, the water, the mountains and the sky and the way in which these four elements would shift, change and fuse.

David Rimmer ((Vancouver BC 1942). 40+ films and media artworks since 1967; screenings at major venues and festivals for artist’s film worldwide; permanent collections of Museum of Modern Art (New York), Centre Pompidou (Paris), National Gallery of Canada (Ottawa), etc; Governor General’s Award (2011).

Lives in Vancouver, British Columbia. First appearance at Media City.

Brouillard Alexandre Larose, Montréal, 35mm, 5 min, 2012 A path that extends from my family’s backyard into Lac Saint­Charles in Québec City, condensed in multiple temporal layers.

Alexandre Larose (Lebel­sur­Quévillon QC 1978).

Studies at Concordia University. 7 films since 2004; screenings at Centre Pompidou (Paris), Art Gallery of Ontario (Toronto), Artspace Sydney (Australia), etc.

Lives in Montréal, Québec. Third appearance at Media City.

Watercolor Vincent Grenier, Ithaca NY, HD, 13 min, 2013 Water flows under an expressway and a railway. The path under these bridges never seemed particularly attractive until last summer when I lingered and started to take pictures, emerging from concerns about space, the pictorial plane and a particularly interesting intersection between man­made structures and a changing, surprising nature. Watercolor exists between these necessary worlds, as time unfolds and remains difficult to comprehend.

“Islands. O for God’s sake they are connected underneath.” – Muriel Rukeyser Vincent Grenier (Québec City QC 1948). Studies at San Francisco Art Institute. 40+ films and digital works since 1974; solo screenings at Images Festival (Toronto), Museum of Modern Art (NewYork), Cinéma Parallel (Montréal); etc; permanent collections of Art Gallery of Ontario (Toronto), National Gallery of Canada (Ottawa), etc; Guggenheim Fellowship (2010). Lives in Ithaca, New York. Seventh appearance at Media City.

Watershed Charlie Egleston, London, 16mm, 13 min, 2014 A watershed moment invites an exploration of perception and the transitory nature of things.

Charlie Egleston (Kitchener ON 1973). Studies at University of Western Ontario and York University.

Twelve films since 2001余 screenings at International Film Festival Rotterdam, WNDX Winnipeg Festival of Film and Video Art, International Kurzfilmtage Oberhausen, etc. Lives in London, Ontario. Fifth appearance at Media City.

Brimstone Line Chris Kennedy, Toronto, 16mm, 10 min, 2013 Three grids are placed along the Credit River in rural Ontario. They become devices through which the stationary camera, pointing upstream, delineates the landscape. They motivate the movement of the zoom, which intensifies our sense of the field of view, narrowing vision and flattening space. Framed momentarily, the river flows past.

Chris Kennedy (Easton MD 1977). Studies at Queen’s University and the San Francisco Art Institute. 17 films since 2004; screenings include solo shows at Canadian Film Institute (Ottawa), La Plata Semana del Film Experimental (Argentina), Los Angeles Film Forum, etc.

Programmer at TIFF Cinematheque Free Screen; Executive Director of LIFT. Lives in Toronto, Ontario.

Second appearance at Media City.

Conservatory Stephen Broomer, Toronto, 16mm, 4 min, 2013 Stamens and pistils are lit in rapid succession behind the dome of the Palm House at Allan Gardens in Toronto, creating alien scenes in the conservatory.

Stephen Broomer (Toronto ON 1984). Studies at York University and Ryerson University. 25 films since 2010; screenings at “Wavelengths” program at the Toronto International Film Festival, Berlin Directors Lounge, “Views from the Avant­garde” at the New York Film Festival, etc. Lives in Toronto, Ontario.

First appearance at Media City.

Toros – Window Robert Fenz, USA, 35mm, 1 min, 2014 Shot in Spain in 2013; part of a three­film suite also including Toros (screened in International Program 2).

Robert Fenz (Ann Arbor MI 1969). Studies at Bard College and CalArts. 12+ films since 1992; screenings at two Whitney Biennials (New York), solo screenings at Locarno Film Festival (Italy), Museum of Modern Art (New York), Cinématheque Française (Paris), etc; Guggenheim Fellowship (2004). Lives in Los Angeles, California. Fourth appearance at Media City including retrospective screening (2009); Grand Prize (2004).

NOT AND OR Simon Payne, England, HD, 18 min, 2013 Black and white quadrilaterals spinning in virtual space, alternating with similar shapes re足filmed from a screen in real space. The second half of the film is the same as the first, but flipped, reversed and re足filmed again through successive generations: adding while taking away. The screen is not a lesser frame than any other through which one might interact with the world, although where one ends up is open to question.

Simon Payne (Southampton, England 1975). Studies at Kent Institute of Art and Design and Royal College of Art. 17 films and media installations since 2001余 screenings at Pacific Film Archive (Berkeley), European Media Arts Festival (Osnabr端ck), Tate Britain and Tate Modern (London), etc. Editor of Sequence magazine published by no.w.here. Lives in London, England.

Fifth appearance at Media City.

Kingdom Come: Rituals Vika Kirchenbauer & Martin Sulzer, Germany, HD, 7 min, 2014 Aerial footage shot by pigeons equipped with lightweight digital cameras.

The viewer gets only a fractured impression, though immediately identifiable, of a political demonstration.

Our habits of analyzing images lead us to ascribe a subjectivity to their creator — but we do not see what the pigeons see, nor are the pigeons aware that they are filming. This is a precise perspective for looking at the space and surroundings of what signifies the German political centre.

Vika Kirchenbauer (Rüpurr, [West] Germany 1983); Martin Sulzer (Schweinfurt, [West] Germany 1977).

First project in collaboration, individual work since mid­2000s; presentations at Göteborgs Konsthall (Sweden), Tampere Short Film Festival (Finland), Kurzfilmtage Oberhausen (Germany), São Paulo International Film Festival (Brazil), etc. Both live in Berlin, Germany. First appearance at Media City.

Film Ismaïl Bahri, Tunisia, HD, 10 min, 2012 A series of five short films using the same procedure: a strip torn from the newspaper is coiled and then placed on a surface covered with a film of black ink. At the the ink’s touch, the paper unfurls and frees itself from the gesture which created it, revealing what remains of the inexorable passage of current events.

Ismaïl Bahri (Tunis, Tunisia 1978). Studies at the Art School of Tunis and Sorbonne Paris 1. Works in video and drawing since 2002; exhibitions and screenings at British Film Institute (London), Centre Pompidou (Paris), Venice Biennale (2011), etc. Lives in Lyon, France and Tunis, Tunisia. First appearance at Media City.

Main Hall Philipp Fleischmann, Austria, 35mm, 5 min, 2013 Designed by Josef Maria Olbrich in 1898, the main exhibition hall of the Vienna Secession is generally regarded as one of the first White Cube Spaces of art history. Using 19 specially designed cameras, Main Hall adds a purely cinematographic gesture to the space’s history by having it look at its own architecture.

“Main Hall meets Viennese modernist with modular inscription and the poetry of the impersonal… the result is paradoxically alive with artifact, incident, and the human touch. No ornament, no crime.” — Michael Sicinski Philipp Fleischmann (Hollabrunn, Austria, 1985).

Studies at Akademie der bildenden Künste Wien and Die Schule für unabhängiger Film Friedl Kubelka (Vienna). Six films since 2006; screenings at Berlinale, Anthology Film Archives (New York), Vienna Secession, etc. Lives in Vienna, Austria. Second appearance at Media City.

Passages Shinkan Tamaki, Japan, 16mm > HD, 12 min, 2013 The winds asked me to go on a journey.

Shinkan Tamaki (Utsunomiya, Japan, 1982). Studies Science Education at Saitama University. Eleven films since 2006余 screenings at International Film Festival Rotterdam, KLEX (Kuala Lumpur), Experiments in Cinema (Albuquerque), etc. Co足founder of [+], an experimental film screening series in Japan. Lives in Tokyo, Japan. First appearance at Media City.

Murmurations Rebecca Meyers, USA, 16mm, 6 min, 2013 Bird calls, a forest muffled with snow, the soughing of willows, the flutter of wings. A reverie wrapped in fur.

Rebecca Meyers (New York City, USA, 1976). Studies at Cornell University and the University of Iowa. Eight films since 2000; screenings at “Wavelengths” at the Toronto International Film Festival, “Views from the Avant­garde” at the New York Film Festival, London International Film Festival, etc. Lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Fourth appearance at Media City.

Tidal Island Neil Henderson, England, 16mm > HD, 15 min, 2014 Time足lapse footage of an artificial island off the Lincolnshire coastline.

Constructed in the 1970s as an experimental freshwater reservoir, Outer Trial Bank is accessible only at low tide across an expanse of mud flats and is no longer marked on Ordnance Survey maps. The camera was set up at low tide, leaving it in position to capture a view normally only seen by seabirds, who nest in their thousands on the island.

Neil Henderson (Worcester, England 1973). Studies at Slade School of Fine Art. 10 films since 2000余 screenings at Tate Britain (London), Camden Arts Centre (London), National Institute of Art History (Paris), etc. Lives in Whitstable, England. Second appearance at Media City.

Gradual Speed Els Van Riel, Belgium, 16mm, 52 min, 2013 “Carefully positioned, the camera begins on a single frame, the shutter held open, and then is imperceptibly increased in speed, quickening the frame rate and thus changing the exposure time for each successive frame, which slowly produces a visible moving image whose speed eventually falls into step with real time. For a film whose title describes the relatively simple mechanism used to create it, Gradual Speed ushers a series of startling transfigurations which brilliantly engage with the extended time spent with people, animals, events and objects in whose company the filmmaker sketches larger concerns of love, fixity, representation and loss.” — Julie Murray Els Van Riel (Gierle, Belgium 1965). Studies at National Radio and Film Technical Institute, Brussels.

More than twenty films and media installations since 2000; screenings at Courtisane (Ghent), Los Angeles Film Forum, Ann Arbor Film Festival, etc. Lives in Brussels, Belgium. First appearance at Media City.

Semi足detached in and out of Their Serial Story Bruce McCLure, USA, 2 x 16mm, 17 min, 2013 Two modified projectors, one with a 50mm lens and the other with a 75mm lens. A loop of 3 emulsion to 4 base is on the projector with the 50mm lens and a loop of 3 base to 4 emulsion is on the projector with the 75mm lens.

Bruce McClure (Washington DC 1959). Studies architecture at Virginia Tech. More than 30 projector performances since 1995 presented at International Film Festival Rotterdam, Wexner Center for the Arts (Columbus), two editions of the Whitney Biennial (New York), etc余 Guggenheim Fellowship (2011). Lives in Brooklyn, New York. 13th consecutive appearance at Media City, festival Grand Prize (2005).

Spray gun rakes and splits them from a double focus, a rutilant scanning fire spot traverses illustrated, sunk and sundered lines. In fact, under the closed eyes of the inspectors, traits featuring chiaroscuro coalesce, their contraries eliminated in one stable somebody. It sounds of isochronism, negative and positive each opposite but equal in duration. To get outside of their serial story; their own length, to see it smarts, full lengths or swaggers. Similarly as by providential warring experience of a jolting series prearranged down a long lane of generations, more generations and still more generations. The ghost of resignation diffused a spectral appeal, similar in origin and accurate in an effect of a beam of sunshine across a plate. Crimes might be made by anyone before a suitable occasion; for it or them had so far managed to happen along!

Occupants carry out mental companionship while the farther back we manage to wiggle the more we need the looan of lens to see as much as the hen saw.

A Study in Natural Magic Charlotte Pryce, USA, 16mm, 3 min, 2013 Witness an alchemist’s spell: the transmutation of light into substance.

A glimpse of gold.

Charlotte Pryce (London, England 1961). Studies at Slade School of Art and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Nine films and several “optical objects” since 1986; screenings at International Film Festival Rotterdam, “Views from the Avant­garde” program at the New York Film Festival, Ann Arbor Film Festival, etc. Lives in Los Angeles, California. First appearance at Media City.

Listening to the Space in My Room Robert Beavers, USA, 16mm, 19 min, 2013 Ostensibly a portrait of a place where the artist had resided until recently, the film conjures not only the memory but also the physical presence of those who have previously stayed there, adhering to a solitary intimacy while simultaneously acting as an ode to human endeavour.

Robert Beavers (Brookline MA 1949, lives in Europe since 1967). 20+ films since 1966; screenings at all major venues for artist’s film worldwide including the 1974 edition of EXPRMNTL (Knokke, Belgium), the Whitney Museum’s “American Century” film series and solo presentations at Museum of Modern Art (New York); Guggenheim Fellowship (1972). Founder of The Temenos, an archive and screening series in Zürich and Greece dedicated to the films of Gregory Markopolous. Currently lives in Berlin, Germany.

First appearance at Media City.

Rose Shiloh Cinquemani, USA, 16mm, 8 min, 2013 An explosive portrait.

Shiloh Cinquemani (Boca Raton FL 1985). Studies at The School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and Tufts University. 13 films since 2009余 screenings at the Harvard Film Archive, International Film Festival Rotterdam, Vienna International Film Festival, etc.

Lives in Los Angeles, California. First appearance at Media City.

To Be Here Ute Aurand, Germany, 16mm, 38 min, 2013 An exploration of the United States, drawing on footage and experiences from New England to New York and the Hopi reservation in Arizona.

To Be Here is the final part of a trilogy including India (2005), filmed in Pune, and Young Pines (2011), filmed in Japan.

Ute Aurand (Frankfurt a.M., [West] Germany 1957).

Studies at Deutschen Film­ und Fernsehakademie, Berlin. 38 films since 1980; screenings at Anthology Film Archives (New York), Museum of Modern Art Yokohama, “Forum Expanded” program at Berlinale, etc. Lives in Berlin, Germany. Fifth appearance at Media City; festival Grand Prize in 2009.

Narcissi Shiloh Cinquemani, USA, 16mm, 3 min, 2013 A Berlin spring still life.

Shiloh Cinquemani (Boca Raton FL 1985). Studies at The School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and Tufts University. 13 films since 2009余 screenings at the Harvard Film Archive, International Film Festival Rotterdam, Vienna International Film Festival, etc.

Lives in Los Angeles, California. First appearance at Media City.

Sequenza Manon de Boer & George van Dam Belgium, 16mm > HD, 14 min, 2014 A collaboration between the filmmaker and the violinist George van Dam, performing the composition Sequenza VIII (1977) by Luciano Berio. Images of the chin, the ears, the hands of the violinist in intimate contact with his violin; the movement and extension of the performer’s body and instrument as physical material uniting two abstractions: the structure of the composition and the experience of its sounds in space.

Sequenza is exhibited out of competition.

Manon de Boer (Kodaikanal, India 1966). Studies at Akademie van Beeldende Kunsten and Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten (Netherlands). Fourteen films since 1998; screenings at numerous festivals and at Venice (2007), Berlin (2008) and Sao Paulo (2010) Biennials; dOCUMENTA 13 (Kassel, Germany), etc.

Lives in Brussels, Belgium. Fourth appearance at Media City.

Short Robert Todd, USA, 16mm, 5 min, 2013 Light sleeps and rises, and sleeps again, along the shoreline of day.

Robert Todd (Boston MA 1963). Studies at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and Tufts University. More than 90 films since 1993余 screenings at many international festivals and venues including solo presentations at Harvard Film Archive, Pacific Film Archive (Berkeley), Cinematheque Ontario (Toronto), etc. Lives in Boston, Massachusetts.

Eleventh consecutive appearance at Media City.

Ginza Strip Richard Tuohy, Australia, 16mm, 9 min, 2014 The Ginza of fable and memory. This is the first film I have finished using the “chromaflex” technique that we developed at Nanolab. This is a very much hands­on colour developing procedure that allows selected areas of the film to be colour positive, colour negative, or black and white.

Richard Tuohy (Melbourne, Australia 1969). Studies philosophy at Australian National University. Numerous Super 8mm films beginning in 1980s, 15+ 16mm films since 2009; screenings at EXiS (Seoul), FLEX (Kuala Lumpur), International Film Festival Rotterdam, etc.

Proprietor of Nanolab, an artist’s film laboratory. Lives in Daylesford, Australia. Third appearance at Media City.

Helga Fanderl: Intensities Germany, S8mm > 16mm A selection of Helga Fanderl’s films, curated by the artist.

By editing in the camera every subject matter finds a cinematic form and rhythm of its own… Every individual film is complete in itself and reflects the process of its creation. Programming my short films in new configurations is a very important part of my artistic practice… As in each individual film, time is structured and rhythms are created within each composed series of films. One could characterize each program as one possible temporary “montage”, exemplifying aspects of the whole body of work.

Helga Fanderl (Ingolstadt, Germany 1947). Studies at the Städelschule (Frankfurt) and Cooper Union (New York). Dozens of Super 8mm films since 1980s; screenings at Deutsches Filmmuseum (Frankfurt), Austrian Filmmuseum (Vienna), no.w.here (London), etc; in permanent collections of Museum für Moderne Kunst (Frankfurt), Auditorium du Louvre (Paris), etc.

Lives in Paris, France. Fifth appearance at Media City.

Berlin Tiger Shiloh Cinquemani, USA, 16mm, 3 min, 2012 A captive tiger.

Shiloh Cinquemani (Boca Raton FL 1985). Studies at The School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and Tufts University. 13 films since 2009余 screenings at the Harvard Film Archive, International Film Festival Rotterdam, Vienna International Film Festival, etc.

Lives in Los Angeles, California. First appearance at Media City.

Sun Song Joel Wanek, USA, HD, 15 min, 2013 A journey from the darkness of early dawn into the brightness of the midday sun in the American South. Filmed entirely on the number 16 bus route in Durham, North Carolina over the course of six months, Sun Song is a celebration of light and a meditation on leaving.

“I would tell the people on this planet that there are forces: their job is to slow you up. You're supposed to keep moving.” — Sun Ra

Joel Wanek (Neligh NE 1974). Studies at Webster University and Duke University. Works in film and photography. Four films since 2011; screenings at International Film Festival Rotterdam, Internationales Kurfzfilmfestival Hamburg, London Film Festival, etc.

Lives in Oakland, California. First appearance at Media City.

The Paris Poetry Circle Friedl vom Gröller, Austria, 16mm, 8 min 2013 It is because the nightingale Sang all night long; From her sweet noise, In echo and re­echo, The roses have sprung up.

— Die Nachtigall, Theodor Storm, 1885 Friedl vom Gröller (London, England 1946). Studies at Graphic Instruction and Research Institute Vienna. Photography exhibitions at Centre Pompidou (Paris), Frankfurter Kunstverein, etc; Austrian State Prize for Photography (2005). 40+ films since 1968; screenings at Austrian Filmmuseum, International FIlm Festival Rotterdam, Anthology Film Archives (New York), etc. Founder of School for Artistic Photography and School for Independent Film, Vienna. Lives in Vienna, Austria. Fifth appearance at Media City including retrospective screening and exhibition in 2010.

Verses James Sansing, USA, 35mm, 5 min, 2012 An animation made from damp­ and mould­damaged juvenile hall ledgers from the years 1940­1960. The Rorschach­like patterns that have formed over the years overrun the notes like dark shadows, representing the psychological impact of detention on the young inmates.

James Sansing (San Rafael CA 1970). Studies at San Francisco Art Institute. Works in film, painting and sculpture. Eighteen films and media artworks since 1991; screenings at International Film Festival Rotterdam, Cleveland Institute of Art, Los Angeles Film Forum, etc. Lives in San Francisco, California.

First appearance at Media City.

VIS à VIS Abigail Child, USA, 16mm > HD, 25 min, 2013 Inspired by Dziga Vertov’s Lullaby (1937) as well as by Andy Warhol’s Screen Tests (1964­66), VIS à VIS turns black and white portraits into a set of Romances, a notebook of sexualities: lesbian, gay, straight, s/m, solo… a celebration of friends and divergent (d)alliances. Out of the past comes a vision of the future as a set of erotic possibilities.

Abigail Child (Newark NJ 1948). Studies at Radcliffe College, Harvard University and Yale University School of Art. 40+ films since 1970; screenings at all major venues for artists’ film worldwide; in permanent collections of Museum of Modern Art (New York), Centre Pompidou (Paris), etc.

Fulbright (1993) and Guggenheim (1996) Fellowships; Rome Prize (2010). Six volumes of poetry since 1983.

Lives in New York, USA. Third appearance at Media City including retrospective screening (2004).

not far at all Peter Gidal, England, 16mm, 15 min, 2014 Image is of production notations for not far at all, from the artist's notebook.

Peter Gidal (Mount Vernon NY 1946). Studies at Royal College of Art. Cinema programmer (1971足74) at London Film足makers' Co足operative. 30+ films since 1967余 screenings include solo presentations at the Institute of Contemporary Arts (London), Centre Pompidou (Paris), Museum of Modern Art (New York), etc. Author of Structural Film Anthology (1976), Andy Warhol: Films and Paintings (1971), Materialist Film (1988), etc. Lives in London, England. First appearance at Media City.

Im Wiener Prater Friedl vom Gröller, Austria, 16mm, 2 min, 2013 “The film is not about the amusement park that one normally associates with this name. The spectacle in the film takes place in a much more basic sense.

More than the close­ups of anatomical details and the associated sexuality, what is actually “unsettling” about Im Wiener Prater is the gaze forced upon the viewer: this woman looks at us, questioning and self­confidently — now that’s pure cinema of attraction.” — Naoko Kaltschmidt Friedl vom Gröller (London, England 1946). Studies at Graphic Instruction and Research Institute Vienna. Photography exhibitions at Centre Pompidou (Paris), Frankfurter Kunstverein, etc; Austrian State Prize for Photography (2005). 40+ films since 1968; screenings at Austrian Filmmuseum, International FIlm Festival Rotterdam, Anthology Film Archives (New York), etc. Founder of School for Artistic Photography and School for Independent Film, Vienna. Lives in Vienna, Austria. Fifth appearance at Media City including retrospective screening and exhibition in 2010.

Blow Job Andy Warhol, USA, 16mm, 35 min, 1964 “What can be called the condition of spectating is the awareness of being viewed at the same time one is viewing — which is, in the end, an ideological condition.” ― Peter Gidal, Andy Warhol: Blow Job (Afterall Books, 2008)

Andy Warhol (Pittsburgh PA 1928 – New York NY 1987). “I always thought I’d like my tombstone to be blank. No epitaph and no name. Well, actually, I’d like it to say ‘figment’.” — Andy Warhol

CATALOGUE NOTES

Durations are rounded to the nearest minute.

Descriptions are provided by the artists unless another source is cited.

Exhibition formats are those presented at Media City; others may exist.

The opening night performances of Alvin Lucier, Charles Curtis and Bruce McClure, the films of Henry Hills, Rennaissance Center / GM Tower by Nicky Hamlyn, 44 / 85 Foot’ age ­ Shoot’ out by Kurt Kren, Necrology by Standish Lawder, Blight by John Smith, Canadian Pacific I

by David Rimmer, Sequenza by Manon de Boer and George van Dam and Blow Job by Andy Warhol are exhibited out of competition.

All film prints and digital exhibition materials are provided by the artists except: 44 / 85 Foot’ age ­ Shoot’ out (Kurt Kren) and all films of Friedl vom Gröller courtesy Sixpack Film, Vienna.

Sister City (Dani Leventhal), Atlantis and Let Us Persevere in What We Have Resolved Before We Forget (Ben Russell) courtesy Video Data Bank, Chicago.

Necrology (Standish Lawder) courtesy Canyon Cinema, San Francisco.

Blight (John Smith) and not far at all (Peter Gidal) courtesy Lux, London UK. Canadian Pacific I (David Rimmer) courtesy Academy Film Archive, Los Angeles and Moving Images Distribution, Vancouver.

Brimstone Line (Chris Kennedy) courtesy Canadian Filmmakers Distribution Centre, Toronto.

Sequenza (Manon de Boer and George van Dam) courtesy Auguste Orts, Brussels.

Blow Job (Andy Warhol) courtesy Museum of Modern Art, New York.