Using direct ink and emulsion transfer processes, optical printing and micro-photography, the films of David Gatten investigate the physicality of text, printing and film-the fine line between the legible and the illegible-while embodying the solitary acts of reading, filmmaking and film viewing. Moxon’s Mechanick Exercises uses rephotographed cellophane-tape transfers to meditate on the dissemination of the word and the development of movable type. The Enjoyment of Reading and The Secret History of the Dividing Line-each, according to Gatten, part of a series of films “about letters, libraries, ghosts and lovers during the early eighteenth century”-use similar techniques to investigate divisions of landscapes, objects, ideas and people. As a bonus, Gatten will screen his latest, as-yet-untitled film, generated from da Vinci’s Codex on the Flight of Birds. (Steve Polta)