"In five silent 'sketch' films, introduced by San Francisco morning’s newspaper and its date, Japanese filmmaker Tomonari Nishikawa assembles single-frame constructions of cityscapes, of walks down streets, which take on their own quietly spastic frenzy even while evoking other things, such as the many-eyed camera of a Google Street View street car gone into a drunken, propulsive swoon. Lines, circles, numbers, windows, doorways, oval windows and buildings that persist only as angled precipice. Fragmentary glimpses are patterned to create an illusion of persistence of vision, but they are shards upon shards. Weirdly, the effect is both limpid and soothing.
In the mini-DV 'Clear Blue Sky,' ordinary traffic sounds of a warm day rise up against images slightly out-of-focus, or reflected across metal, like a funhouse mirror fashioned from macular degeneration."
Filmmaker in attendance!
Programme:- Sketch Film #1 (2005, 3 min., super 8, 18fps, silent, US)- Sketch Film #2 (2005, 3 min., super 8, 18fps, silent, US)- Market Street (2005, 5 min., 16mm, silent, US)- Sketch Film #3 (2006, 3 min., super 8, 18fps, silent, US/Japan)- Sketch Film #4 (2007, 3 min., super 8, 18fps, silent, US)- Sketch Film #5 (2007, 3 min., super 8, 18fps, silent, US)- Clear Blue Sky (2006, 4 min., MiniDV, sound, US)- Building 945 (2007, 3 min. video documentation, mixed media, US)- Into the Mass (2007, 6 min., dual 16mm, silent, US)- Tokyo – Ebisu (2010, 5 min., 16mm, sound, Japan)- Shibuya – Tokyo (2010, 10 min., 16mm, sound, Japan)- 45 7 Broadway (2013, 5 min., 16mm, sound, US)
Tomonari NishikawaTomonari Nishikawa started filmmaking in 2001 when he was a student at Binghamton University. His works have been screened at film festivals worldwide, including Berlinale, Hong Kong International Film Festival, International Film Festival Rotterdam, Media City Film Festival, New York Film Festival, and Toronto International Film Festival. His film, Market Street, received Film Award at EXiS: Experimental Film and Video Festival in Seoul, South Korea. He showed a series of Super 8 and 16mm films at MoMA P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center in 2010.
Massart Film SocietyProgrammed by Saul Levine, FILM SOCIETY is a screening class for MassArt film students open to those who are interested. We hope to provide access to films and videos not often shown at other venues.
Massachusetts College of Art & DesignFilm Department Screening RM 1 | 621 Huntington Ave. Boston MA 02115Enter MASSART through the South Building, Admissions, on Huntington Ave.Suggested donation is $4 at the door and free to the MassArt community with their ID. Donations are used to give visiting artist something for their expenses of coming to show their work.