Light Industry: Nathaniel Dorsky + Susan Howe
Tuesday, July 24,19:30h
155 Freeman Street, Brooklyn, NY

One of America’s preeminent contemporary poets, Susan Howe has published a series of writings, since the 1970s, that combine autobiography and historical research—on such topics as Emily Dickinson, Charles S. Peirce, and the 17th century utopian sect The Labadie Tract. In addition to their roles as scholarship and memoir, Howe's works are also notable for their highly idiosyncratic page design, frequently involving complex typography, line placement, and other visual patterning that point to the influence of her initial training as a painter. Identified with the Language poets early in her career, Howe has created a body of essays and poetry that invoke deep emotional resonance while operating at the highest levels of formal experimentation.

For this event at Light Industry, Howe will read selections from her writing, chosen with the work of filmmaker Nathaniel Dorsky in mind, particularly Devotional Cinema, his series of lectures on the possibility of film as a meditative, curative and transcendent experience. The reading will be followed by a screening of Dorsky’s Alaya, a silent study of grains of sand, captured from a multitude of viewpoints, that transforms its relatively simple subject matter into a mesmerizing, ever-shifting landscape.

Filmmakers' Choice: Deborah Phillips
Monday June 25th, 19h
Arsenal – Institute for Film and Video Art
Potsdamer Straße 2, 10785 Berlin
Introduced by Deborah Phillips

I looked for films in which colors, textures, light and time were more important than people and stories. More and more, my research became a journey of discovery into the East European part of the Arsenal Archive. We begin with a film that observes nature, Viragat a Napnak. In Exú, which features magical compositions by Christoph Janetzko, reality is consumed. Painting in movement Encounter and animated buttons Guzik lead on to my animated painting film in different dimensions Untitled colourmation whereas Eye music in red major, a classic of pure color and light, paves the path to one of the most interesting portraits of an artist: Witold Lutoslawski. Heat shimmer is a subtle example of the three-color separation process, which brings us back to the observation of nature. (Deborah Phillips)

History, Memory, Return
Abraham Ravett, Baba Hillman, Michael Rice
Wednesday June 13, 20h
Les Voûtes
19 rue des Frigos 75013 Paris

This programme focuses on the concepts of memory and return, proposes to introduce the films of three artists from Amherst and Massachusetts through varied works combining two projections, performance and found footage. How does the body experience memory? How does memory become body experience? How do we decipher or do we interpret the visible and invisible maps that memory, landscape and return draw on the body?

Abraham Ravett was born in 1947 in Poland, grew up in Israel and moved to New York in 1955. He lives and makes films in Amherst three decades. He received first prize at the Venice Biennale and the Ann Arbor Film Festival. His films were shown at the Museum of Modern Art, Image Forum in Tokyo, the Anthology Film Archives in New York, Scratch Projection, the San Francisco Cinematheque, and the LA Forum.

Baba Hillman grew up in Venezuela, Mexico and Japan. Her films were shown at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles at the Anthology Film Archives in New York, ICAIC (Havana), the Rencontres Paris, Berlin, and the European Media Art Festival (Osnabruck).

Michael Rice is a young filmmaker who works in Amherst. His films will be screened in France for the first time.