[Frameworks] First Look 20/21 Experimental Films at Museum of the Moving Image

Wed Jul 28 09:46:29 CDT 2021

This weekend Museum of the Moving Image will present experimental programs
as part of its annual First Look Festival of New York Premieres.

The programs will feature new work from *Ken Jacobs* (Double Wow and Other
Films by Ken Jacobs
<http://www.movingimage.us/visit/calendar/2021/08/01/detail/double-wow-and-other-works-by-ken-jacobs>
*)* and *James Benning* (Maggie's Farm
<http://www.movingimage.us/visit/calendar/2021/07/31/detail/maggies-farm>).
Additionally, Are We Here, Together? Experimental Shorts
<http://www.movingimage.us/visit/calendar/2021/07/31/detail/are-we-here-together-experimental-shorts>
playing Saturday, Just 31st at 6:30pm presents new short works from 2020
and 2021 with filmmakers Emily Vey Duke, Cooper Battersby, Talenda Sanders,
Meg Rorison, Peter Burr, Roger Beebe and Ross Meckfessel in person.

Full details on the programs are as follows:

*Saturday, July 31st*
4:00pm Maggie's Farm
<http://www.movingimage.us/visit/calendar/2021/07/31/detail/maggies-farm>

*Dir. James Benning*. United States. 2020, 84 mins. If landscape is a
function of time as James Benning has held throughout his career, then this
serene study of the parking lot, stairwell, corridors, and rear loading
dock of the CalArts building where Benning has worked for 33 years
comprises more than the sum of its 24 three-and-a-half-minute-long shots,
divided sequentially into eight exteriors, eight interiors, and eight
exteriors again, recorded in a single day. The suggested rhythm of the
filmmaker’s own quotidian life over decades merges dreamily with the
real-time rhythms of this institutional space, where sometimes the music of
Bob Dylan and Linda Ronstadt is overheard. *New York premiere*
*Tickets: $15 / $11 seniors & students / $9 youth (ages 3–17) / Free for
MoMI members. Order online.
<https://1282.blackbaudhosting.com/1282/sslpage.aspx?pid=196&tab=2&txobjid=ae19f444-0a32-46f7-bcfe-59a8446ef3ba>*
*After
your purchase, an electronic ticket will be sent via email. All seating is
general admission. Please review safety protocols
<http://www.movingimage.us/visit/safety-2021> before your visit.*

*Saturday, July 31st*
6:30pm Are We Here, Together? Experimental Shorts
<http://www.movingimage.us/visit/calendar/2021/07/31/detail/are-we-here-together-experimental-shorts>

A mining of perception exploring landscapes, cityscapes, bodies, sexuality,
feminism, anti-capitalism, and anti-authoritarianism in search of meaning,
connection, the self, resolve, and greater ideals. These two programs of
shorts conclude with a projector performance by Roger Beebe paying tribute
to the filmmaker Norman McLaren.

*Program 1: In These Times*

*With Emily Vey Duke, Talena Sanders, and Cooper Battersby in person*

Running time: approximately 60 mins.

*We Carry with Us Our Mother * Dir. Olivia Ciummo. United States. 2019, 5
mins. Planetary events and blood red landscapes blend with ethereal sounds
as text leaves clues about difficulties with the mind and body. *New York
premiere*

*Garden City Beautiful * Dir. Ben Balcom. United States. 2019, 12 mins. One
sunny afternoon in the Midwest, suspended in a time between, two commuters
daydream about a life lived otherwise. *New York City premiere*

*Zen Basketball*.
Dir. Mike Hoolboom. U.S. 2020, 5 mins. In a series of simple frames, the
often misunderstood practice of Zen takes shape as basketball bliss. Now in
retirement, the greatest defensive player of the amateur leagues continues
to practice on a remote island, far from the madding crowds. His techniques
and dedication undergo continual refinement, revealed here in this
startling exposé. *North American premiere*

*Eastern State * Dir. Talena Sanders. U.S. 2019, 5 mins. *Eastern State*
brings a found archive of decades of footage documenting the lives of the
patients and employees of one of the oldest mental health institutions in
the United States into dialogue with Barbara Loden's 1970 film Wanda.
Through digital video corruption, VHS artifacting, stroboscopic effects,
direct animation, and overlays, this collage film considers the fidelity of
nonfiction media to lived experiences of isolation. Warning: flicker
effects. *New York premiere*

*Standing Forward Full * Dir. Alee Peoples. United States. 2020, 6 mins. A
helter skelter is an amusement ride with a spiral slide built around a
tower. Like this film, an exorcism attempt of an unrequited desire, itʼs
either moving too fast or at a complete standstill. Disorienting but
exciting. *New York premiere.*

*Curious Fantasies * Dir. Jesse McLean. United States. 2019, 8 mins.The
language and imagery related to celebrity perfumes (both descriptive and
visual) are a starting point to think about consumer desires and the
corruption of branding. “Give us your songs, your smells, and we will give
you everything.” The rich get richer, everyone smells poorer. *New York
premiere*

*BECOMING * Dir. Ariel Teal. United States. 2018, 8 mins. Embodying a body
after trauma. Blowjobs, *Buffy the Vampire Slayer*, and memory are
interwoven in an attempt to process and find bodily autonomy. Content
warning: The film contains text dealing with sexual trauma. *New York
premiere*

*Civil Twilight at the Vernal Equinox * Dirs. Emily Vey Duke, Cooper
Battersby. U.S, 12 mins. “What would another world look like, one that is
carried by this feeling of empathy, of mutual love between humans and
animals, between species? How would our relationship with a largely
domesticated nature and environment change? How would established
relationships of power and strength be redefined with this thought?”—Tasja
Langenbach. *New York premiere*

*Program 2: Perceptual States*

*With Peter Burr, Margaret Rorison, and Ross Meckfessel in person*

Running time: approximately 75 mins.

*Black Square * Dir. Peter Burr. U.S. 2020. 7 mins. An assembly of human
figures writhe and squares strobe in rhythm to audio sampled from the
opening of the 1965 Op Art exhibition "The Responsive Eye." Through the
friction of this contrast, a portrait emerges of an anxious divided society
testing the boundaries of awareness. Warning: flicker effects. *New York
premiere*

*Another Horizon * Dir. Stephanie Barber. U.S. 2020. 9 mins. The horizon,
where the sky and the earth meet, is always elsewhere, a promised place
where these two elements come together. A metaphor, an orienting, a promise
of transition, change, transcendence. A place where the corporeal and
spiritual meet, or are cleaved apart. *New York City premiere*

*Zero Length Spring * Dir. Ross Meckfessel. U.S. 2020. 16 mins. A walk
through corridors and rooms culminates in a familial Reiki session—what’s
underneath and within. An apotropaic film, imprinted by rituals and
symbols, basking in ruptures of the body and the earth. Through ASMR brush
tracks and the language of self-help therapy, film surface abrasions and
alleged paranormal photos, the film gives shape to various unseeable
forces. You’re worth it, you deserve love, you can grow. *New York premiere*

*The I and S of Lives * Dir. Kevin Jerome Everson. United States. 2021, 7
mins. The “I” and “S” of “Lives” are the smoothest area of resistance. A
rollerblader (Jahleel Gardner) navigates the letters on the pavement of
Black Lives Matter Plaza in Washington D.C. on a summer afternoon, 2020. *New
York premiere*

*Baltimore * Dir. Margaret Rorison. United States. 2021, 22 mins. A montage
of the underpopulated streets, shuddered storefronts, and crumbling
cornices of Baltimore City suggests a disturbed, mind’s eye recollection of
social neglect and physical decay. *New York premiere.*

*Live Performance Lineage (for Norman McLaren) * Dir. Roger Beebe. U.S.
2019. 15 mins. 16mm projector performance. Lineage is a loop-based
“orchestral” film performance for four 16mm projectors. Using as a point of
departure Norman McLaren’s abstract animations in *Lines Horizontal* as
well as reworked footage from two documentary portraits of McLaren in his
prime and in his later life, the film explores how abstract marks made in a
variety of ways—laser printing and etching, contact printing and
hand-processing—result in strange and surprising sounds. *New York
premiere.*

*Tickets: $15 / $11 seniors & students / $9 youth (ages 3–17) / Free for
MoMI members. Order online.
<https://1282.blackbaudhosting.com/1282/tickets?tab=2&txobjid=d0eccf03-d611-464a-9169-33478e236690>*
*After
your purchase, an electronic ticket will be sent via email. All seating is
general admission. Please review safety protocols
<http://www.movingimage.us/visit/safety-2021> before your visit.*

*Sunday, August 1::*
4:00pm Double Wow and Other Films by Ken Jacobs
<http://www.movingimage.us/visit/calendar/2021/08/01/detail/double-wow-and-other-works-by-ken-jacobs>

*With Ken Jacobs in conversation with David Schwartz*

Dir. Ken Jacobs. United States. 1969–2021, 70-minute program. MoMI’s 1989
Ken Jacobs retrospective celebrated three decades of pioneering work by the
New York avant garde icon. Always inventing new forms and bending
technology to his unique artistry, Jacobs embraced digital cinema and has
become even more prolific in the subsequent three decades. In this program,
two celluloid portraits of his young son and daughter and a digital
exploration of 19th-century stereographic imagery of children laboring at a
thread factory, are presented along with the world premiere of a 40-minute
3D work, Double Wow, whose title evokes the wonderment and impact of so
many of his films. The screening, with First Look favorite Ken Jacobs in
person, celebrates the release of The Ken Jacobs Collection by Kino Lorber
on Blu-ray.

*Nissan Ariana Window* (1969, 14 mins., 16mm)

*Spaghetti Aza* (1976, 1 min., 16mm)

*Opening the 19th Century* *1896* (1991, 9 mins., 16mm)

*Capitalism: Child Labor* (2006, 14 mins.)

*Double Wow* (*World Premiere*. 2021, 40 mins., 3-D)

*Tickets: $15 / $11 seniors & students / $9 youth (ages 3–17) / Free for
MoMI members. Order online.
<https://1282.blackbaudhosting.com/1282/tickets?tab=2&txobjid=2c0caa2a-01d1-49db-8d50-119d4065990e>*
*After
your purchase, an electronic ticket will be sent via email. All seating is
general admission. Please review safety protocols
<http://www.movingimage.us/visit/safety-2021> before your visit.*
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