“BREAK THE MACHINE NEW YORK : FILM SCREENING & BOOK RELEASE”

SUNDAY MAY 15, 2016 @ GOWANUS DARKROOM
160 7TH ST. SUITE 212, BROOKLYN. OFF SMITH/9TH ST G/F OR or
4TH AVE/9TH ST. G/F/R. DOORS 7PM – SHOW at 7:30PM – $6 SUGGESTED DONATION – FILMS, DRINKS & DISCUSSION.

TRT, 50 min. Additional time for discussion / Q & A with the artists.

Join us in welcoming artist and author Kathryn who will be sharing a program of moving image work featured in her new book Break the Machine. Attendees from the Color Photograms will screen their films from the workshop along with other local artists.

PROGRAM :

Starfish Aorta Colossus, Lynne Sachs and Sean Hanley with poetry by Paolo Javier, 2015
(Digital, stereo, unsplit regular 8mm, 4 min. 30 sec.)

Susie’s Ghost, Bill Brand in collaboration with Ruthie Marantz, 2011
(16mm, optical sound, filmed with various out-of-date film stocks with a Bolex, finished A&B rolls to answer print. Wild sound recorded on digital recorder and composed in Final Cut Pro, 7 min.)

Altitude Zero, Lauren Cook, 2005
(16mm, stereo optical track, painting/bleaching/scratched emulsion/collaged images/found footage, 5 min.)

TUSSLEMUSCLE, Steve Cossman, 2009
(16mm, color, optical track, collage and optical printing, 4 min.)

Scalp Message, Kenneth Zoran Curwood, 2013
(16mm, silent, optical printing, multiple exposures, backlit animation, 5 min.)

Bagatelle, Joel Schlemowitz, 2016
(16mm, camera roll film, silent, 3 min.)

Doubt (7,8,9), Josh Lewis, 2013
(16mm, color, chemigram process, silent, 8 min.)

Notes (From the Perlin Papers), Jenny Perlin, 2006/10
(16mm, optical sound, hand-drawn stop-motion drawing, 2 min. 25 sec.)

ELONA EM EVAEL/LEAVE ME ALONE, Kathryn Ramey, 2016
(16mm, black and white, optical sound available as a single strand positive or negative or a two projector stereo project played as a loop/installation or as a 5 minute presentation.)

An unfaithful remake of Man Ray’s 1926 “Emak Bakia” made with out the use of a motion picture camera, ELONA EM EVAEL/LEAVE ME ALONE is a nonsensical response to brutality alongside a celebration of silver process. Whereas Man Ray alluded to death with a rending of collars (a funereal tradition in many cultures including Ray’s, Judaism) , ELONA EM EVAEL/LEAVE ME ALONE chooses from a surplus of tragedies the recent Amnesty Internationals Report “Will I be Next?” on US drone strikes in Pakistan and a list of the 101 children killed by them as of April 2015. Juxtaposed with footage of the filmmakers young sons (standing in for Ray’s muse and mistress Kiki of Montparnasse) the film obliquely points to the privilege inherent in the banal peacefulness of my family’s everyday life. The film is black and white hand printed and processed.  It should be played at 24fps with the soundtrack provided by the image.  It can be presented as a two projector “stereo” film or a single strand positive or negative mono film.

ABOUT KATHRYN RAMEY:
Kathryn Ramey is a filmmaker and anthropologist whose work operates at the intersection of experimental film processes and ethnographic research. Her award-winning and strongly personal films are characterized by the manipulation of celluloid, including hand-processing, optical printing, and various direct animation techniques, and have been screened at film festivals and other venues around the world. Kathryn is an associate professor of filmmaking at Emerson College’s Department of Visual and Media Arts in Boston, MA.

ABOUT BREAK THE MACHINE:
For the first time in a single volume, Kathryn Ramey has written a thorough, hands-on guide to the craft and processes of experimental filmmaking, showing you step-by-step the material methods that will help you begin an experimental media practice. From these lessons, following the tradition of Stan Brakhage’s A Moving Picture Giving and Taking Book and Hell Hill’s Recipes for Disaster, you’ll learn to take materials apart and put them together in new ways, use products for purposes other than those intended by their manufacturers, and free yourself from the constraints of conventional media.

MONO NO AWARE SCREENING SERIES:
The CONNECTIVITY THROUGH CINEMA series will present the work of artists, film-makers and curators who are traveling or presenting special interactive programs in-person. Our hope is to engage the community by showing work with a focus on post-screening discussion.