Flicker & Wow 1

March 26, 2017 · Knoxville Museum of Art · 1:30 P.M.

Free and open to the general public.

Empyrean

Kalpana Subramanian
Runtime: 6:20
Format: Digital

An abstract, meditative piece, Empyrean was “filmed” at the altar of celluloid cinema. Using a mobile phone camera, Subramanian intercepted mediated light from the projector during screenings of various 16mm prints of films by Stan Brakhage (1933-2003). The film is part of her larger, art-based research project, Light Mediated: Eyes on Brakhage, which explores the poetics of the moving image.

Kalpana Subramanian is an artist-filmmaker and researcher from India based in the US. She was awarded a Fulbright Nehru Academic and Professional Excellence Fellowship at the Film Studies Program at University of Colorado Boulder and is presently a Ph.D. student at the Department of Media Study at SUNY (Buffalo).

Them Apples

Adam R. Levine
Runtime: 2:40
Format: 16mm

Using the parallel temporal forms of the three-minute pop song and the 16mm camera roll, Them Apples runs The Beatles’ “Back In The U.S.S.R.” through iTunes Visualizer to create an optical sound experiment in which synaesthesia and pop cultural memory are turned back on themselves.

Adam R. Levine is a film and video artist from London, England. His work has screened at the Vienna International Film Festival, Festival des Cinémas Différents et Éxperimentaux de Paris, and Antimatter Film Festival, among others. Adam is Assistant Professor of Art, Film and Media Studies at Amherst College in Massachusetts.

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Karissa Hahn
Runtime: 3:00
Format: Digital

One roll of super 8. A ‘collaboration’ or rather, a collusion of sorts. As for my volition . . . I fall, you falter. Thinking about “A Young Girl Defending Herself against Eros” by William Adolphe Bouguereau, 1880. Thinking about . . . suspense/tension, taking us down with me.

Karissa Hahn is a visual artist based in Los Angeles. Her work has screened at numerous US and international venues, including the New York Film Festival, Light Field in San Francisco, Spectrum in Berlin, and Anthology Film Archive.

Deux Champs (Two Fields)

By Kevin Obsatz
Runtime: 7:50
Format: Digital

In 1953, a young photographer named Victor Obsatz created a double-exposed portrait of Marcel Duchamp by mistake. 55 years later that photo appeared in the pages of Smithsonian Magazine and was featured at a Duchamp retrospective. Deux Champs (Two Fields) is a hand-processed reflection on the distant memory of that day and everything that has happened since.

Kevin Obsatz is a teacher and filmmaker whose work has screened at Anthology Film Archive, the Walker Art Center, and the Olympia Film Festival, among other venues. A distant relative of Victor, Kevin is roughly the same age now as Victor was in 1953.

As Without So Within

Manuela De Laborde
Runtime: 24:20
Format: 16mm

De Laborde has usefully described the making of As Without So Within as “returning to Montessori.” Built from closeup images of handmade “props” (her preferred term), the film reveals, reworks, and illuminates several fundamental components of experimental filmmaking: abstraction, sculpture, and the material of celluloid itself.

Manuela De Laborde is an artist from Mexico City. Her thesis film, As Without So Within, has screened at the Toronto International Film Festival, Winnipeg WNDX (Best International Short), 25fps Festival in Zagreb (Grand Prix), FICM in Morelia, Light Field in San Francisco, and International Film Festival Rotterdam.

Koropokkuru

Akiko Maruyama and Philippe Roy
Runtime: 4:10
Format: Digital

A moving portrayal of an ineffable force that can be humanlike or embody itself within displayed objects. Inspired by concepts from the Koropokkuru folktale within Japanese Ainu culture, as well as The Invisible Man.

Akiko Maruyama is a filmmaker and educator originally from Fukuoka, Japan. She is currently teaching Film, Video and Animation in the NYC area. Philippe Roy is a digital artist and animator originally from South Florida. He now lives and works in the NYC area. Some of his digital work includes GIF art which is the source for projected imagery in this film.