[Frameworks] abstraction and politics

[Steve Polta]

In 2012, as part of its CROSSROADS film festival, San Francisco
Cinematheque presented a program which was deliberately focused on recent
films that used abstraction to address political issues. See:
http://www.sfcinematheque.org/crossroads2012_p2/

*Seeking the Monkey* *King* by Ken Jacobs is entirely abstract visually but
uses textual intertitles to specifically comment on capitalism, the current
economy, the Occupy movement, etc. The works in the program by the Moyah
Pravda Newsreel Collective were filmed at Occupy Oakland and describe this
collective protest action but are also casually and formally "lyrical"
poetic documents in the style of home movie-influenced small gauge
avant-garde film work. *Awe Shocks* by Anja Dorneiden and Juan David
Gonzalez Monroy pairs kaleidoscopically fragmented, visually dazzling,
modified porn footage (to some unrecognizable) with an antiquated lecture
on capitalism to comment on the commodification and rationalization of just
about everything. Christine McPhee's *Penumbra Blind* is similarly
abstracted and prismatized footage shot during Gulf of Mexico/Deep Water
Horizon oil spill clean-up. The films in this show by Katherin McInnis and
Deborah Stratman are less visually abstract than these but (describing
Stratman's *Village, silenced*) use discordant sound/image relationships to
comment on the contemporary trend of fearful oppression, restriction of
speech and general creeping dread while McInnis' flicker film rushes over
boom/bust capitalist cycles and news-as-propaganda.
And—speaking of personal data intrusion—some program note type info on this
program is available on Cinematheque's Facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/events/370213549681291/




On Sun, Oct 6, 2013 at 7:59 PM, Kelly Sears <kelly.sears at gmail.com> wrote:

> Dear frameworkers,
>
> I would love to pick your collective brain about some film/videos that use
> abstraction to address political, social, or cultural histories.   I would
> double love it if anyone had any suggestions of writings on this topic as
> well.  I'm interested in learning more about how this visual strategy and
> lack of the figurative or representational could be used in a
> political/critical way.
>
> Many thank yous.
>
> Kelly
>
>
>
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