For my final outside screening, I saw Neil Beloufa’s The Colonies at Moma.

Out of all of the experimental films I have seen this year, Beloufa’s was the only one that I felt really infused other disciplines into his work.  His exhibition was more of an art installation than it was an experimental film.  He was given a large space to set up his work and used it wisely.  Each section had something slightly different to see.  There were spheres of art, videos, and crafted seating.  Beloufa played a lot with texture, size, and color.

 The clash between rising urban societies and their waste was a theme that ran throughout the piece.  The Colonies was also somewhat interactive because you could actually sit on some of the art and watch pre-recorded videos.  In addition to the videos, there were hidden cameras that recorded the viewers of the exhibit.  The cameras are very ‘big brother is watching’ and admittedly I initially had not even noticed them.

The focal point of the piece is his center video display.  It is a moving display, that uses plastic and glass to project several different videos at a time.  The translucent screens give off a beautiful iridescence and are definitely the first thing people noticed when approaching the exhibit.  Beloufa has several videos screens throughout the exhibit, but some are subtitled in another language and therefore might be hard to understand for most.  However, the theme of trash translates anyway.  All throughout the exhibit there are flattened beverage cans.  Additionally, the art pieces and seating were also made of upcycled/recycled materials.

The Colonies was interesting work from the emerging artist and I am interested to see what he comes up with in the future.

Moma is running Beloufa’s exhibition through June 12.

For the second outside screening I went to Moma to see Bouchra Khalili’s The Mapping Journey Project. 

Projected on several screens are different stories of people who have had to travel illegally throughout South Asia, Africa, Europe, and the Middle East.  Each screen tells a different person’s story map.  The projections are of a map of the areas the person traveled.  The individual narrator would trace out their journey and explain how and why they traveled to each destination.   All of the stories were subtitled, but Moma also provided benches for seating and 3 headphones per projection.  The projections were situated in diagonal rows and while viewing one story a person could see what was happening on another screen.

I think this curiosity about what each screen held kept people moving from projection to projection.  From far a way it would almost look like each screen was showing a loop of the same clip, just at different times.  But each map was specifically curated for each narrator.  The journeymen came from all different types of backgrounds and ages.  There was even one with a young Somalian girl.

The length of the stories varied a bit, but they were all relatively short and easy to re-watch several times.  The commentary people gave about the videos while watching them gave an added layer to experience, that might please some or anger others.  Personally, I did not mind the extra chatter and interactions with other Moma guests.  There was no real way to quietly intake each person’s story, and depending on their situation I often found the need to decompress between viewing another map.  Luckily, the videos were short and it was easy to re-watch one if had missed a part during my first view.

Unlike traditional film, this viewing was open and spaced apart; you were forced to move from place to place.  Just like the narrators, there was nothing sedentary about the experience.  Even though there was not a lot of movement on the screen, the distances traveled and the many lines created by the chaos of their journey was visually striking.  The shapes created by the mappers, and more importantly the geopolitical reason why these people had to make such travels left a lasting impression.

Khalili’s exhibition will run through August 28 and is highly recommended.

For the first outside screening assignment, I went to the Anthology Film Archive.  They had a paired showing of the experimental short, Film, written by Samuel Beckett and the kino-essay, Notfilm, by Ross Lipman.  Notfilm is an experimental documentary about Samuel Beckett’s experimental silent short, aptly named, Film.  Beckett’s Film, was directed by Alan Schneider and starred an aging Buster Keaton, it explored Bishop Berkeley’s idea of ‘esse est percepi,’ which means, to be is to be perceived. The short deals with perception and is told from two sides: one of E, the eyes of the camera, and of O, Keaton, our main character.  O’s perspective is marked by a blurred lens, giving the film viewer a sense of O’s blindness.  E’s perspective is not altered, but in contrast to the blurriness of O, appears extra clear and sharp.  Film matches Beckett’s style of unconventionality.  Silent era icon Buster Keaton, known for his face and deadpan expression is predominately filmed with his back to the camera.  While this might frustrate some Keaton fans, others might see it a nice departure from his earlier work.  Keaton himself was confused by Film and Beckett even described it as an ‘interesting failure’.  The short is worth the watch, especially for Avant-garde fans.  But do not expect a thought provoking bewitching experience as one would find with Waiting for Godot.

Lipman’s Notfilm takes Beckett’s meta film experiment and ratchets it up about fifty notches.  The kino-essay, almost plays as a Beckett love story. However, Lipman integrates the stories of different cast, crew, and Beckett enthusiasts. Lipman provides the majority of the voice narration; there are also rarely before heard tapes of a Film production meeting. The never before heard tapes and commentary from the people who knew Beckett and Keaton best are the charm of the film. Longtime collaborators, Beckett and Schneider came from the stage, and their laborious journey to the screen was quite touching and relatable to emerging artists. The 125-minute documentary is quite lengthy. But, the experimental quality of the editing certainly keeps the audience awake. The editing style resembles a pre-teen having free range on their computer and using every different type of transition possible. The mixture of conventional documentary techniques such as commentary, visual cutaways, and voice over narrations intermingled with blacked out screens, white flashes, and jump cuts was quite jarring. But, I feel that the non-conventionalism of the documentary matched the mania of the short film. However, three quarters of a way through, the film starts to meander. Lipman must have known how the daunting the film would be to some viewers because Notfilm comes complete with its own intermission. Although the intermission and varying act structure inter-titles seem to be a homage to the great playwright, they serve to parcel the seeming unyielding amount of information in the film. Information that after a while became highly repetitive.

 

One of the high notes about the film is that it does not glorify Beckett or Keaton. And openly admits to the failure of Film. The kickstarter-funded film appears to be a dream come true for film enthusiast Ross Lipman. Film and Notfilm are definitely recommended for theater and film enthusiast. The films commentary on film, the tireless art of creating, and of the inevitable aging process make them timeless must sees.