Hues of the Spectrum Rise from View

By on

Rating: 

Average: 5 (1 vote)

Museo de Arte Moderno Buenos Aires and Media City Film Festival / Underground Mines present: Hues of the Spectrum Rise from View, with works by Joyce Wieland, Daïchi Saïto, Alexandre Larose, Chris Kennedy and others. Introduction by Oona Mosna and dialogue with Malena Szlam and Andrés Denegri, in-person. Curated by Oona Mosna.

Presented in partnership with the Canadian Filmmakers Distribution Centre, Toronto.

"Pulsation of light is the condicio sine qua non for the rhythm of film, as breath is essential for all living organisms. There is an almost lyrical quality to the pulsation of light when the rhythm of its pausing and releasing are understood as a kind of breath. Like a voice that reads a poem or a hand that plays a musical instrument, pausing now and then to listen to the silence. The blank spaces between images are like moments of pause, permitting the viewer to take in the still-resonating image. The alternation of brief phrasings of images with black pauses in All That Rises, or the soft flickers in Trees of Syntax, Leaves of Axis, are what gives life to the films. Breathing in, and breathing out, until the light goes off and we return to the darkness." — Daïchi Saïto, Moving the Sleeping Images of Things Towards the Light

Programme:
- Lunar Almanac (Malena Szlam, 16mm, 4:00, 2013)
“Lunar Almanac initiates a journey through magnetic spheres with its staccato layering of single-frame, long exposures of a multiplied moon. Shot in 16mm Ektachrome and hand processed, the film’s artisanal touches are imbued with nocturnal mystery.” — Andréa Picard

- Handtinting (Joyce Wieland, 16mm, 6:00, 1967)
The film, a poem, hand painted with clothing dyes and pierced with the makers sewing needles, is a study of young girls brought from rural areas in West Virginia to be “educated” in typing at a Job Corps program run by Xerox. "There's nothing out of the way in it, it has mystery and rhythm and some repetitive portraits of some beautiful faces. The editing and the girls are the subject of Handtinting. The editing and the so-called ‘subject matter’ are equal.” — Joyce Wieland

- the acrobat (Chris Kennedy, 16mm, 6:00, 2007)
“Inspired in part by a poem from Toronto poet Ryan Kamstra, the acrobat is a consideration of the relationship of gravity and politics – the beauty and necessity of rising up, but also, perhaps, the significance of allowing oneself to fall. If the force of gravity is in relation to both mass and proximity, how does the force of politics resonate across space and time?” — Chris Kennedy

- 21-87 (Arthur Lipsett, 16mm, 10:00, 1964)
“Throughout this psychophysical reality, inner and outer events intermingle and fuse with each other – I cannot tell whether I am seeing or hearing – I feel taste, and smell sound – it’s all one – I myself am the tone.” — Arthur Lipsett

A commentary on a machine-dominated society, often cited as the influence on George Lucas's conceptualization of "The Force”.

- Watching for the Queen (David Rimmer, 16mm, 11:00, 1973)
“It is as if a re-invention of the motion-picture domain of ‘reality’ was being undertaken. The transformation of a ‘sea of anonymous faces’ into a ‘narrative of personalities’ becomes a distinct possibility as movement and reflexive action are consolidated. In a psychological sense, as we become more familiar with the details of the scene, our attention shifts to identifying reflex actions and changes in the crowd.” — Al Razutis

- Standard Time (Michael Snow, 16mm, sound, 8:00, 1967)
“A joyous-spiritual little film, it contains both Snow’s singular stoicism and the germinal ideas of his other films, each one like a thesis, proposing a particular relationship between image, time, and space. The traits include rigorous editing, attention to waning light, fleeting human appearances (which suggest a forbidding, animistic statement about life: that the individual is a short-lived, negligible phenomenon and that it is the stability of the inanimate that keeps life from flying away), a rich-dry colour so serene as to be almost holy, and a driving beat that is like updated Bach.” — Manny Farber

“Standard Time was the second work to begin to explore the vocabulary of camera movement. It uses horizontal and vertical pans from a tripod. The soundtrack came from using the radio as a musical instrument. I “played” it using the station dial, the volume dial, and the bass and treble. The sound imitates, in a sense, the visual movements in the film.” — Michael Snow

- View of the Falls from the Canadian Side (John Price, 7:00, 35mm, silent, 2006)
In 1896, William Heise photographed the first 35mm motion picture images of Canada at Niagara Falls, known for their beauty and valuable source of hydroelectric power. The four-perforation camera system he used was designed and built by Thomas Edison and William K. Dickson, and the stock was manufactured by George Eastman to Edison’s specifications.

“John Price reconstructed the first Canadian film ever made in View of the Falls from the Canadian Side, using a camera built to the same specifications as the one used in 1896 by William Heise. Price's film seemed to combine the awareness of that history into something utterly new; the camera's unique disposition brings pulsations of light, like ripples of water, over a cluster of tourists who are also positioning their cameras to photograph Niagara Falls… (P)rice captures something of the original awe that Heise must have felt just to marvel at what the camera can reveal.” — Genevieve Yue

- Trees of Syntax, Leaves of Axis (Daïchi Saïto, 35mm, sound, 10:00, 2009)
Using images of maple trees in Montréal’s Mount-Royal Park as the main visual motif, Saïto creates a film in which the formations of the trees and their subtle interrelation with the space around them act as an agent to transform the viewer’s sensorial perception of the space portrayed. Entirely hand-processed, Trees of Syntax, Leaves of Axis is a poem of vision and sounding that seeks certain perceptual insight and revelation through a syntactical structure based on patterns, variations and repetition. The work is a collaboration with pioneering composer / violinist Malcolm Goldstein who performs his original structured improvisation score, Hues of the Spectrum.

- Brouillard — passage #14 (Alexandre Larose, 10:00, 35mm, 2014)
“Using a lens wide enough to condense the human eye’s field of vision into the frame’s 1.33 aspect ratio, Larose creates spectral superimpositions infused with a meteorological mix and the intense lusciousness of the Quebec landscape.” — Andréa Picard

Sea Series #8 (John Price, 16mm to 35mm, 3:00, 2010)
The seaside as a cloudy apparition.

N 48.13808 / W 69.70993 I Baie du Tadoussac
N 48.67206 / W 68.01970 I Métis sur Mer

– –

18/

A Miracle
to place a foot
on solid ground
& know the earth
rotates 1000 miles an hour
at the equater barely
an inch at either pole

the ordinary
rise & fall
of how we breath & move
steps taken
in the rush & crush
of galaxies
dark more than light

--Jerome Rothenberg, A Poem of Miracles

Venue: 

Dates: 

Friday, October 16, 2015 - 19:00 to Saturday, October 17, 2015 - 18:55

Category: 

Dates: 

Friday, October 16, 2015 - 19:00 to Saturday, October 17, 2015 - 18:55
  • Av. San Juan 350
    Buenos Aires
    Argentina
    Phone: 4361-6919
    34° 37' 18.498" S, 58° 22' 14.1744" W