This program is derived from CROSSROADS 2017, presented by San Francisco Cinematheque in slightly different programmatic form in May 2017 at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Curated by Steve Polta.
SCREENING:
Anton Ginzburg (Russia/US): Displacements
Jamilah Sabur (US): Moon Tendon
Ariana Gerstein (US): Skin in the Game
Pere Ginard (Spain): This Bogeyman
Emmanuel Piton & Emilie Morin (Canada): Space
J.M. Martínez (US): Cyclical Refractions
Anton Ginzburg (Russia/US): Ultraviolet
Displacements (2015) by Anton Ginzburg; digital video, color, silent, 5 minutes, exhibition file from maker
Displacements is an homage to American artists Robert Smithson and Nancy Holt, documenting visits to the locations of Spiral Jetty and Sun Tunnels and engaging with their 1971 film Swamp, which viscerally confronts issues of perception and process. (Anton Ginzburg)
Moon Tendon (2015) by Jamilah Sabur; digital video, black and white, sound, 12 minutes, exhibition file from maker
A love letter to the moons of Saturn. Moon Tendon is a perceptual play with texture, space and locomotion. Sabur’s stream of consciousness work, presents Galileo as a life-sized doll-like figure with bells in his mouth; and incorporates open source NASA footage of a hurricane on Saturn swirling inside a large, mysterious, six-sided weather pattern known as “the hexagon.” An encounter with Galileo’s Acceleration Experiment and his writings to the Duke of Tuscany about his observations of Saturn’s rings in 1610 influenced the arrangement of the video. Alternating between found footage, a constructed set and recruiting Robert Smithson’s Spiral Jetty to perform on. Moon Tendon features Tendon, a score created by American composer Jon Forshee on UPIC, a computerized musical composition tool, devised by Iannis Xenakis. (Jamilah Sabur)
Skin in the Game (2017) by Ariana Gerstein; digital video, black and white, sound, 5 minutes, exhibition file from maker
A way of working, from many pieces, marked by light, by pressure, sliced. An editing process that is extremely non-linear, sculpted. Beginning with outtakes from previous films and found footage which has been cut, painted, turned into a glass-mounted collage, re-scanned, animated, edited from analog to digital. (Ariana Gerstein)
This Bogeyman (2016) by Pere Ginard; digital video, color, sound, 3 minutes, exhibition file from maker
The bogeyman is a common allusion to a mythical creature in many cultures used by adults to frighten children into good behavior. This monster has no specific appearance, and conceptions about it can vary drastically from household to household within the same community; in many cases, he has no set appearance in the mind of an adult or child, but is simply a non-specific embodiment of terror. (Pere Ginard)
Space (2015) by Emmanuel Piton & Emilie Morin; digital video, color, sound, 5 minutes, exhibition file from makers
A crossing in space, material deforms and transforms. The film is destroyed, burnt, pierced to reveal new configurations, a new sensitive space. (Emmanuel Piton & Emilie Morin)
Cyclical Refractions (2016) by J.M. Martínez; digital video, color, sound, 3 minutes, exhibition file from maker
Spheres of reality in conflict. Nature being structured in the mode of logic and science, human affairs in the mode of story and narrative. Branching out through the forking canopy a chorus of groaning trees beckons and the light refracts illuminating portals for one to enter. Imagery was achieved in camera and in real-time with a homemade lens made from Dichroic prisms and shards. Sound was recorded on site with contact microphones attached directly to the trees or placed inside existing holes within the trunk. (J.M. Martínez)
Ultraviolet (2015) by Anton Ginzburg; digital video, color, sound, 25 minutes, exhibition file from maker
Ultraviolet explores the issues of perception and phenomenology at the intersection of nature and technology. The film is divided into three parts that correspond to the musical structure and composition. The film was conceived as an ongoing dialogue with its soundtrack composed by Michael Pisaro. The relationship between the cinematic image and the live sound is an experiment in a tradition of expanded cinema. It starts with very high frequencies for the first part and then works its way down into the guitar range. The film addresses the aura of representation through the video footage of various landscapes. Waterfalls, treescapes and mountains have been recorded by various devices—from airborne camera at night to cinematic HD footage and low resolution iPhone video clips. It is intercut by analog video signal recordings, reminiscent of the abstract color-field paintings. (Anton Ginzburg)
pictured above: Skin in the Game by Ariana Gerstein