A History of Collage Animation IV
Length: 71′
Earmarked for Collision is the most extensive retrospective of collage animation presented to date. The multi-part program features the pioneers (Robert Breer, Harry Smith, Stan Vanderbeek, Sandor Reisenbuchler, Terry Gilliam, Larry Jordan), the modern masters (Lewis Klahr, Osbert Parker, Janie Geiser, Martha Colburn, Winston Hacking) along with an assortment of ‘one hit wonders’ by George Griffin, Theodore Ushev and others.
Lost Motion uses small cast metal figures, toy trains, decayed skyscrapers, and other found objects to follow a man’s search for an elusive woman. From an illegible note found on a dollhouse bed, through impossible landscapes, the man waits for a train that never arrives. His wanderings lead him to the other side of the tracks, a forgotten landscape of derelict erector set buildings populated by lost souls. Dream merges with nightmare in this post-industrial land of vivid night.
An associative roller coaster ride about the consequences of addiction to crystal meth (a kind of turbo speed), especially among young people in the American countryside. Martha Colburn also draws a parallel with the life of the Puritans in the 17th century in what was then the land of hell and damnation. What the God-fearing and addicts have in common is that they can change from living beings into supermen and then degenerate into zombies.
Close-ups of electrical circuit boards and images of bright red flowers are interwoven in a rapid-fire montage, short-circuiting the memory of what we see. The circle of life versus the circuits inside a computer all get mixed up in a Structuralist game that suggests a recycling of textures, patterns and colours.
A descent into the maelstrom of anguish that tormented Arthur Lipsett, a famed Canadian experimental filmmaker who died at 49. A diary transmuted into a clash of images and sounds charting a prodigious frenzy of creation, a tableau depicting an artist’s dizzying descent into depression and madness: with Lipsett Diaries, Theodore Ushev renews his filmmaking aesthetic and explores what happens when genius is on a first-name basis with madness.
Mid-century advertising comes to life in a surreal mash-up of interstellar dimensions.
Hypnotic and haunting, Steers’ disquieting dreamscapes combine images of Lillian Gish from silent era films, with fragments of 18th and 19th century illustrations. A Victorian era dollhouse provides a lens to view videos of transmogrifications and dream-like narratives. Steers’ collages, video and sculptural work will appear together in this show in which wonder, horror and beauty coalesce.
A kiss, a happy couple. But then, the woman is kidnapped, and the man sets off to save her. A dramatic rescue story full of wild chase scenes begins. On its surface, Fast Film tells a simple story. The catch is that all its scenes were taken from 300 different works produced in the course of film history, which is also the number of identity changes its heroes undergo.
A History of Collage Animation IV
Length: 71′
Earmarked for Collision is the most extensive retrospective of collage animation presented to date. The multi-part program features the pioneers (Robert Breer, Harry Smith, Stan Vanderbeek, Sandor Reisenbuchler, Terry Gilliam, Larry Jordan), the modern masters (Lewis Klahr, Osbert Parker, Janie Geiser, Martha Colburn, Winston Hacking) along with an assortment of ‘one hit wonders’ by George Griffin, Theodore Ushev and others.
Lost Motion uses small cast metal figures, toy trains, decayed skyscrapers, and other found objects to follow a man’s search for an elusive woman. From an illegible note found on a dollhouse bed, through impossible landscapes, the man waits for a train that never arrives. His wanderings lead him to the other side of the tracks, a forgotten landscape of derelict erector set buildings populated by lost souls. Dream merges with nightmare in this post-industrial land of vivid night.
An associative roller coaster ride about the consequences of addiction to crystal meth (a kind of turbo speed), especially among young people in the American countryside. Martha Colburn also draws a parallel with the life of the Puritans in the 17th century in what was then the land of hell and damnation. What the God-fearing and addicts have in common is that they can change from living beings into supermen and then degenerate into zombies.
Close-ups of electrical circuit boards and images of bright red flowers are interwoven in a rapid-fire montage, short-circuiting the memory of what we see. The circle of life versus the circuits inside a computer all get mixed up in a Structuralist game that suggests a recycling of textures, patterns and colours.
A descent into the maelstrom of anguish that tormented Arthur Lipsett, a famed Canadian experimental filmmaker who died at 49. A diary transmuted into a clash of images and sounds charting a prodigious frenzy of creation, a tableau depicting an artist’s dizzying descent into depression and madness: with Lipsett Diaries, Theodore Ushev renews his filmmaking aesthetic and explores what happens when genius is on a first-name basis with madness.
Mid-century advertising comes to life in a surreal mash-up of interstellar dimensions.
Hypnotic and haunting, Steers’ disquieting dreamscapes combine images of Lillian Gish from silent era films, with fragments of 18th and 19th century illustrations. A Victorian era dollhouse provides a lens to view videos of transmogrifications and dream-like narratives. Steers’ collages, video and sculptural work will appear together in this show in which wonder, horror and beauty coalesce.
A kiss, a happy couple. But then, the woman is kidnapped, and the man sets off to save her. A dramatic rescue story full of wild chase scenes begins. On its surface, Fast Film tells a simple story. The catch is that all its scenes were taken from 300 different works produced in the course of film history, which is also the number of identity changes its heroes undergo.