About the show:
New York Experimental, The Tank’s monthly experimental film, video, and live media performance series, is pleased to present an evening of works ranging from intimate explorations of obsessive behavior to meditations on physical intimacy. Filmmakers include: Roy Cross, Brian DeLevie, Philip Hartigan, Taly & Russ Johnson, Nick Kinling, Ellen Lake, Paul Owens, and Kenneth White.
Screening Program:
I Like to Kiss (2007, 35mm, b/w) | Roy Cross
A woman and a man like to kiss, so they kiss. Shot on 35mm and processed by hand in a rewind tank and kitchen sink, the film has a shimmering quality.
Whispers of Contradiction (2006) | Brian DeLevie
An attempt to examine the inherent “contradictions” in sacred and scientific narratives, and the way in which the tensions of those contradictions are simultaneously “held” and resolved within a “contemplative” dimension of experience—a dimension that both accommodates and transcends the dissonance of apparent conflict. Ordinary awareness apprehends the internal contradictions within any assertion as a “problem” to be solved. Contemplation permits the possibility of “both/and” perception, rather than our usual fixated mode of “either/or.” In a time when religion, art and science are the contentious locus of heated national politics, it is a possibility that provides refreshing inspiration.
Surge (2007) | Philip Hartigan
one artist's response to the latest chapter in the Iraq war. It combines stop-motion animation with a reading of three poems by the British WWI poet, Wilfrid Owen, to suggest that the fate of the common soldier is the same in every age.
Side Effects (2007, digital video) | Taly & Russ Johnson
Only two developed countries, the USA and New Zealand, allow drug companies full television access to advertise their product. This video is built and layered upon a montage of TV drug ads in the United States. Exploring the commercial overload with visual spontaneity , the artists are magnifying the words that actual ads quickly gloss over to transgress the normal commercial sequencing. Aesthetically transforming ads, the artists are interested in the visually crass in transition.
Waiting Room (2007, digital video) | Nick Kinling
Waiting Room makes the mundane interesting by exploiting the camera's ability to challenge our conventions of perspective and ultimately analyze the environment in a new and fascinating way.
Trina's Collections (2003, 6:00 min, digital video) | Ellen Lake
This short documentary celebrates Trina Robbins (writer/producer of Go Girl! Comics) and her eclectic collections: girl action figures, super heroines, vintage aprons, rubber bath tub toys, saints, tikis, hawaiiana, and more.
The Forest (2005, 6 min, Super 8/16mm/ digital video) | Kenneth White
The Red Riding Hood tale envisioned as a creation myth in self-destruction. What happens when all characters know each other’s roles? Starring Maureen Jowett as Grandmother Lacan.
Moist Directives (2006, 2.5 min, digital video) | Kenneth White
An exploration of the buzzing lines of power that cut and create landscape.
Nightside (2007, 27:00 min, 16mm, b/w) | Paul Owens
A quasi-western adventure film with an underlying sense of dread and an experimental edge. The film is set far in the past and follows a young orphan (known simply as “the boy”) as he leaves his dwelling deep in the woods for the first time. Along the way he encounters many people, most of them no longer living. Owens is also the director of the just-completed Blip Festival: Reformat the Planet, a feature length documentary which explores the music movement known as Chip Tunes, a genre built around creating new, original music using old video game hardware.
