aDifferent festival Program 1 // Incarnations: A Series of Beginnings
February 17th, 2017 // 6:00 PM // Woodland Pattern Book Center
720 E Locust St Miwaukee, WI 53212
//festival homepage //Program 2//
Big Balls (Triptych), Laurel Beckman
1 minute, video, 2015
Synopsis:
"Big Balls" links war games, extreme contest reality tv (WipeOut), shooting targets, and Marcel Duchamp’s film, Anemic Cinema. The triptych works to in/form mediated depictions of achievement, bravado and violence. There are overt illusions to dimensionality, goals, randomness, and idealized satisfaction.
Artist Bio:
Laurel Beckman’s video-animations and public projects investigate perceptual phenomena, stage & screen space, science & consciousness, and affect. Beckman’s projects have screened in festivals, public spaces, museums and galleries throughout the world in over 30 countries including the USA, Peru, Canada, Italy, Palestine, France, Australia, India, Brazil, Switzerland, China, Iran, Spain, and the Netherlands. She is a professor of Experimental Video/Animation and Public Practices at the University of California Santa Barbara, USA.
Kat the Baker, Hannah Raye White
4 minutes 39 seconds, video, 2016
Synopsis:
A familiar process, the transformation of sugar, butter and chocolate, presents itself as a site for challenging assumptions about reality. Knowledge is questioned by pointing to the authority of the frame, the context by which conclusions are made. An animal and a human encounter one another through a shared ritual by peeling back layers of experience.
Artist Bio:
Hannah Raye White is a filmmaker engaged in rendering abstract theoretical concepts into concrete representations. The paradox inherent in the act of bringing life to otherwise inanimate objects and using puppets to depict depth and dimensionality aligns with her interest in shining light on unexposed ideas about being. By exploring the processes of perception, she allows for consideration of concepts such as seeing, breathing, and feeling. Her work pauses, isolates and expands upon what are frequently brief moments of perception, in order to attend to deep and automatic processes found within these brief exchanges. Her creation of a hand-made world becomes a representation of human perception as a construction. She is currently an MFA candidate in the Film, Video, Animation, and New Genres program at UW Milwaukee.
Suitcase, Gili Avissar
2 minutes 16 seconds, video, 2015
Synopsis:
I bend myself to fit inside a suitcase and start wearing one costume over another, rapidly changing identities as I embrace a pile of clothes and cling to it. The suitcase functions both as a home, as a means of transport, and as a shelter.
Artist Bio:
Gili Avissar, a multi-disciplinary artist, was born in Haifa, 1980. He lives and works in Tel Aviv. Avissar has earned a B.F.A and M.F.A from the Bezalel Academy. Avissar has exhibited widely, across Israel and abroad. His art encompasses sculpture, painting, drawing, installation, photography and video. His videos, which often feature reworkings of his sculptures and installations, were screened in the UK, the USA, Germany, etc. Avissar has won various grants and art prizes, among them are the Rabinovich Foundation for the Arts (2012, 2010); The Israeli Ministry of Culture and Sport (2012); The Isracard and Tel Aviv Museum of Art Prize (2010);. Works by Avissar are kept in collections in Israel and abroad, among them the Ahouvi Collection, Israel, and the Philara Collection,Germany.
UpCycles, Ariana Gerstein
7 minutes, film and video, 2016
Synopsis:
A very long process starting with original Super 8 film. Next came hand processing, printing onto 16mm and then 35mm. Back down to 16mm, building imagery along the way including cutting and taping the film. Finally, printed via JK onto a DSLR and finished digitally with sound. Explores the scale of the frame and the changing ratio or the screen.
Artist Bio:
Ariana Gerstein, works in experimental and experimental documentary forms. Her films have been screened and awarded prizes at festivals worldwide including International Documentary Film Festival in Amsterdam, European Media Arts Festival in Germany, Media City in Canada, New York Film Festival, SXSW in Texas. She has presented at institutions such as the Museum of Modern Art in New York, San Francisco Cinematheque, the Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art, Pacific Film Archives in Berkley, and other locations. Her work has been awarded grants by New York Council for the Arts, New York Foundation for the Arts, National Endowment for the Arts, and a Rockefeller Media Arts Fellowship. Her experimental documentaries Alice Sees The Light (a poetic meditation on light pollution) and Milk in The Land (an essay film on attitudes towards milk consumption as a mirror on evolving American values) were nationally broadcast on the award winning P.B.S. series P.O.V. (Point of View). She teaches at the State University of New York at Binghamton in the Department of Cinema.
Tempesta a “Les Fonts” d’una memòria (Storm in the sources of a memory), Rrose Present
4 minutes 47 seconds, video, 2015
Synopsis:
In this series I work with the devices of democratic image and information. I was recently installed in the village where my mother was born. One night I experienced the spectacle of the fireworks of a storm. I filmed my first storm in "Les Fonts" (sources) with all devices that had "hand": mobile, tablet .... I edit the images and sounds that offered me the various devices to create a visual and auditory rhythm. As if the lightning storm discovered the ghosts of the memory of my origins, like snapshots to return to the present without the original clarity and sharpness.
Artist Bio:
Rrose Present - was born in Barcelona. She graduated in Fine Arts at the University of Barcelona. Master of Philosophy in Contemporary Art of the University of Barcelona and the Miró Foundation. In her work combines video-art, video-experimental and theoretical reflection about image written in images from a critical "poetic" gaze. "Les vidéos de Rrose Present – un clin d’œil à Duchamp – sont courtes et allusives. A travers elles, l'artiste nous fait jeter un regard critique, amusé et sensible sur nos modes de fonctionnement. En ce sens Rose ne fait pas seulement un art critique, avec la lourdeur que cela implique trop souvent, mais un art qui provoque la réflexion, qui rend "pensif", à travers la prise de distance..." Yves Michaud , Critique d'art et philosophe 2014
9 vistas 9 oídas de Georgia, Camilo Martín-Flórez
9 minutes, video, 2016
Synopsis:
This an audiovisual piece composed of 9 views and 9 sounds from the Republic of Georgia made in 2016, lasting 36 seconds on static shot and in direct sound, and recorded with a low resolution device. Its a meta-cinematic piece that also contains a voice-over that brings together the 9 views and 9 sounds in a single reminiscence that delves into the office of recording, cutting and pasting an audiovisual. "I spent my life recording. I do not make expanded cinema, neither international cinema, nor interactive cinema, nor transmedial cinema, nor purist cinema: what I do is record, I record everything and leave it here as it is."
Artist Bio:
Camilo Martín-Flórez is a filmmaker, film-researcher and a full-time professor in the Department of Communication and Humanities at Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education in Mexico City. He holds a BFA and an MA in Film Studies from Concordia University, Canada, as well as an MFA in Documentary Cinema from the University of Barcelona, Spain. Camilo Martín-Flórez has worked in various academic research centres worldwide and his productions have been selected in various film festivals in Latin America, North America and Europe. Currently, Camilo is conducting a historical research on Colombian National Cinema for his PhD degree in Film Studies at the University of Reading, England.
THE SURFACE USED TO REMEMBERING THE FRAGMENT, Pawel Stasiewicz
4 minutes 52 seconds, animation, 2016
Synopsis:
„The surface used to remembering the fragment” is a work about things from the past, since childhood until now. About surfaces which are used for storage of remembering in a human being. About areas in which events are recalled from memory, and images from diffrent moments on timescale can be created. About forgiving and scrambling of memories. The text is accompanied by simple drawings made on two squares of a simple ruled notebook, and sounds from a taperecorder of a loading Atari game „Last starfighter”- game about fighting in space.
Artist Bio:
Paweł Stasiewicz was born in 1982 (Zyrardow, Poland). Visual artist, video, and stop-motion animator. Creator of art-objects and sounds. Works mainly with found objects, and everyday materials, and text. Laureate of Szpilman Award 2014 (Berlin). Awarded Minute Trophy Award for a movie „No signal” 07.2014 (Cotia, Brazylia). He participated among others in festivals: Amy Johnson Festival, Hull, UK / The Streaming Festival, Haga, Netherlands / CÓDEC - Festival de Vídeo Y Creaciones Sonoras, Mexico / VIDEOMEDEJA, Museum of Contemporary Art of Vojvodina, Serbia / SIMULTAN Festival, Romania / GENERATOR, 6th Cairo Video Festival, Cairo, Egypt/ International Film Festival ZOOM - ZBLIŻENIA, Jelenia Góra, Poland / Outer space, Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, Canada. His works were exhibited in: konnektor - Forum für Künste, Germany / FOFA Gallery, Canada / KARST, United Kingdom / Roman Susan Gallery, USA / Starter Gallery, Poland / Bayer Gallery, Stara Zagora, Bulgaria / Biennale WRO 2015 Wroclaw, Poland, and others. Lives and works in Poland.
Rooms, Stephanie Hutin
4 minutes 43 seconds, video, 2016
Synopsis:
Memory loss, confusion, peace, and performance. A time capsule in rhythmic form.
Artist Bio:
Stephanie Hutin is a Franco-American artist and filmmaker based in Los Angeles by way of Miami, Florida. Hutin focuses on the performative aspects of animation, which often lead to community-based happenings, interventions, comedy, films, videos, curatorial projects, writings, and lectures, meant to challenge the way frame by frame works are read. Ignoring formulaic ideas about creating time-based media, Hutin strives to rewire and restructure rapid animation processes. In 2001, Hutin co-founded Big Skills, a platform for experimental design, film, and animation projects with her partner Florencio Zavala, she performs various radio personalities on a radio project Call With Questions, and has been the front-woman for art-rock performance group Jennifer The Leopard (J Lep) since 2007. Currently, Stephanie is exploring her alter-ego Carmen's adult life, through video actions and cut-out animation. Her work has been shown in galleries and film festivals internationally, notably at the Museum of Modern Art, Anthology Film Archives, The Echo Park Film Center, The Wexner Center, Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions, the Roy and Edna Disney/CalArts Theater, and Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
Domain and Range, Simon Welch
6 minutes 10 seconds, video, 2015
Synopsis:
An anecdote about a dead lizard in a French vineyard accidentally run over by the winegrower’s tractor serves as a pretext to explore family history which in turn raises questions concerning the relationship between art and deterministic belief systems and between man and nature, etc. The notion of transformation is explored both in terms of the content of the film and the effect of filming itself. The title refers to a mathematical concept related to set theory.
Artist Bio:
British artist and filmmaker based in France since 1994. Studied Fine Art (painting) at Liverpool Polytechnic in the 1980s. Subsequently studied Visual Arts at Strasbourg University to PhD level. Regularly shows films in international film and video festivals and exhibitions.
He Begins, She Returns, Anna Kipervaser
2 minutes 12 seconds, video, 2015
Synopsis:
It all ends in tears. And then.
Artist Bio:
Anna Kipervaser is a Ukrainian-born multimedia artist. Her work spans multiple disciplines including experimental and documentary moving image works in both 16mm film and HD video. Anna is also painter, printmaker, curator of exhibitions and programmer of screenings showcasing the works of contemporary international artists. Her moving image work has screened at Full Frame Documentary Film Festival, Anthology Film Archives, Crossroads Film Festival at the San Francisco Cinematheque, Big Sky Documentary Film Festival, Milwaukee Underground Film Festival, Chicago Underground Film Festival, Athens International Film and Video Festival, Indie Grits Film Festival, Montreal Underground Film Festival, Haverhill Experimental Film Festival, Spectacle Theatre, Muestra Internacional Documental de Bogota, and 12Gates Video Art Fest. She holds a BFA in Painting from the Art Academy of Cincinnati, Class 2003, a Graduate Certificate in Middle East Studies, and, an MFA in Experimental and Documentary Arts from Duke University, Class 2015. She just completed a cross-country summer tour called Lightship 103 showing her experimental works at galleries, microcinemas, basements, and school houses! She currently lives and works in Durham, North Carolina.