" TEAR IT UP, SON "
CONNECTIVITY THROUGH CINEMA WITH ROSS NUGENT *IN PERSON*

SUNDAY JUNE 28, 2015 @ THE CENTER FOR PERFORMANCE RESEARCH
361 MANHATTAN AVENUE, BROOKLYN. OFF METROPOLITAN G OR LORIMER L
DOORS 7PM – SHOW at 7:30PM – $6 SUGGESTED DONATION – FILMS, DRINKS & DISCUSSION.

Total running time, 70 minutes. Additional time for discussion / Q & A with the artist

MONO NO AWARE is excited to present the work of Ross Nugent as part of the CONNECTIVITY THROUGH CINEMA screening series. Nugent’s films sing and sleep in the backwoods of Pennsylvania. These works provide a glimpse into a special place where VW buses spin stories without words, where raw steel is slowly domesticated in a gentle molten glow, and mud slangin’ monster-machines navigate the forest with the grace of an elk. The program will present films, assorted video, and commentary giving a greater context to the artists work including a special reprise of Spillway Study/Carpe Diez, Ross’s performative triple projection piece, shown at the third annual MONO NO AWARE exhibition in 2009.

FULL PROGRAM:
Hopper Repair (2010, 16mm, 4.5 minutes, color, sound)
A portrait of cultural detritus dedicated to my cine-mentors; magical hours peering through the windows, because rust never sleeps. A “happy birthday” film for Jefferson Presents… microcinema.

Tear it up, Son! (2011, Super-16 transferred to HD, 9 min, b/w, sound)
Backwoods ballyhoo straddling the Ahiah/Pennsyltucky border, sanctioned by $10 and a sign-yer-life-away waiver. Attended by up to 10,000 motherlovers some Fridays, this is Yankee Lake Truck Night. Yours truly was able to slip into the muck with a Bolex and nary a “whatcha shooting?” Yes, a simple thumbs-up for mud-slinging hot-dawgers passing by my rig, or my own intonation, “where ya from?” (to wit: OH, PA, NY, TN, KY, WV, MI) was enough to keep me rolling.

Steel Mill Rolling (2014, 16mm, 12 min, color, sound)
Equal parts landscape, industrial and portrait film, Steel Mill Rolling is a document of a functioning steel mill in Western Pennsylvania where my family has worked for nearly 100 years. This plant operates with a fraction of the laborers it once employed, and the operations are relegated to specialized processing. The steel slabs transformed at this mill in Farrell, PA come primarily from Russia, where the government subsidizes their production. It is a contemporary portrait of the steel industry, considering the economic, political, and environmental realities of multinational steel manufacturing. Isaac Sherman provided the musical score.

Whatever It Takes (work-in-progress, 16mm X 2 and HD video, 10 min, sound, live performance)

Spillway Study/Carpe Diez (2009, 16mm X 3, 8 min, b/w + color gels, live performance)
This three-projector piece was created as a color separation project using 16mm Kodachrome nature photography footage from the late ‘70s as its source. The original was optically printed onto three strands and arranged to simultaneously abstract and call attention to the forces at hand. Dedicated to naturalist filmmaker Tom Diez (1933-2014)

ABOUT ROSS NUGENT:
Hailing from the wilds of Western Pennsylvania, Ross Nugent is a moving-image artist creating experimental, observational documentary and expanded cinema works. He earned an MFA in Film Production from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and currently teaches both media production and history courses at Pittsburgh Filmmakers. Ross has worked extensively as a film and video programmer; currently he is an advisor for MONO NO AWARE, a Brooklyn-based film education and exhibition group. This fall he joins the faculty at Thiel College (Greenville, PA) as Assistant Professor of Communication.

MONO NO AWARE’S 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.

This event is sponsored, in part, by the Greater New York Arts Development Fund of the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, administered by Brooklyn Arts Council (BAC).