I attended a screening at Hunter College for the film INAATE/SE by Zack and Adam Khalil. The film is about an ancient Ojibway story, the Seven Fires Prophecy. The prophecy resonates through the generations in their indigenous community within Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. The film includes documentary and narrative aspects with experimental forms. When the film started I thought it was regular documentary, because it was mostly interviews and shots of the landscape but then there was a twist. They had included a narrative aspect to it that was a little trippy as we see kids take some drugs to get closer to their culture and “traditions” and they end up killing the masked priest. I found it interesting when watching it how they try to stay true to their traditions but they sort of have to evolve and become more modern because of the time so it makes it difficult for a culture that is in tune with the Earth and nature.

The use of the found footage I enjoyed as well, as we see parents talk about their old school being burned down when they were children. I could tell that the story of the burning of that school, is a story that has been passed down generations, as most of their culture and traditions have been, I found that to be interesting. There was also a scene where we walk through the were they keep the pieces of art they show in the Metropolitan Museum and we see how they have taken this communities history and put them on display without asking if it was okay with them to do so. I enjoyed the film a lot and made me think about how they are speaking for hundreds of people in their community with this film and how powerful that is, to show people your traditions and culture in a way that doesn’t offend your community, takes a lot of responsibility.

In our visit to the Whitney Biennial there was a piece I enjoyed because of the way it was shown. The piece was called A Very Long Line by Postcommodity which is a production team of Raven Chacon, Cristobal, and Kade L. Twist. The piece focuses on the border between the United States and Mexico which has been a big topic in our current political picture. The video was shown in a small room. There were four projectors each pointed at a different wall. It was filmed inside a moving car. All you see is grass and landscape behind bars and railing. The piece made me feel trapped behind all those bars but the sounds also were disorienting. It was so loud in there, all you hear is wind and breeze as the car travels along the rail. You also hear the passing of other cars as you would on a highway. Each projector showed a different video which was a different part of the border. The videos also played at different speeds so if you were looking at the video in front of you per say, it might be moving faster then the two videos to your left and right. This difference of speed affected your peripheral vision and made the video in front of you seem as if it were really moving. You actually for a quick second could feel transplaced into the area. The installation was designed to disorient which I thought it did really well. It also was designed to create a sort of amnesia feeling or condition to evoke this idea of forgetting ones origins. The origins being forgotten mostly by United States citizens the Indigenous status of people from the Western Hemisphere.

This piece got me thinking of the differences between a gallery installation and a piece that is shown in theater. It got me questioning if this piece would work and give the same feeling if it were shown in a theater and to answer my own question it wouldn’t. What makes the piece work in creating this atmosphere is that being surrounded by the four projectors displaying this video creates a disorienting feeling. If displayed only one screen I don’t think the piece would evoke the same feeling.

This is a link to the piece I found on youtube, you get a better sense of what I was describing but the effect is more moving in person.

https://youtu.be/yeXbIPmFTGE

I attended the BAMcinématek series Migrating Forms and saw the work of Jonathas de Andrade. At the theater there were about 50 people. I found De Andrade’s work interesting because the work centered around a similar theme of urbanization and modernity. They showed five of his works, O Levante (2013), 4000 Disparos (2010), Pacifico (2010), O Caseiro (2016) and O Pixie (2016). The first piece shown was O Levante which translates to Uprising. It was about the rural people racing in the urban streets with horses and carriages. It felt like it was recorded hand held while riding on one of the carriages, it was the 1st Horse-Drawn Cart Race in the Center of Recife (the city where Andrade is from).

The second piece 4000 Disparos was a ten minute clip of a sixty minute loop of male faces shot on super 8. The faces were shown alongside beeping noises that changed in pitch and pace sometimes, and so would the pace of the faces on the screen. While watching it at sometimes the faces all looked the same, you couldn’t get any distinct characteristic because of the speed of the shots. What I think Andradre intentions with the piece was to show how we all are the same, no man is different and that no man is better.

His next piece was an animation also shot on super 8 of an earthquake that removed Chile from South America and makes it into an island. Bolivia gets its water coast back which they lost in the Pacific War. In the animated piece all the problems because of war and violence is solved overnight by mother nature, which is a nice way to have problems be resolved for Bolivia.

The fourth piece shown was O Caseiro which means The Caretaker. The piece was about two men playing side by side on two different screens. It was like the Michel Gondry music video sugar water for Cibo Matto. The piece was in video in black and white. On the left it was a white writer and in the right is a black man I couldn’t tell his occupation. I researched the piece and the video on the left is Joaquim Pedro de Andrade’s The Master of Apipucos showing a day in the life of Gilberto Freyre in 1959. The right screen is in 2016 a caretaker who lives and works in that space. 

The two videos played in synchronization showing how the men differed because of their race and class but were similar. The writer worked by writing in books and laying around in his office full of books while the caretaker worked with his hands fixing radios and cleaning the house. They both appreciated nature as we see both walk slowly through the garden touching the flowers and just living in the space, which I found to be quite nice to watch. 

The last piece shown was O Pixie which translates to The Fish. The piece was about fisherman fishing. It was shot on 16mm and transferred to 2k video. The colors seemed almost painted on the screen it was aesthetically pleasing to me. There was no dialogue to the piece only the ambient sound of the lake they were fishing in. I found it interesting the method the fisherman used when catching the fish. They dominated the fish using a strong grip on them so they wouldn’t be able to squirm away but they also petted the fish. They held it close, affectionately and you could see the fish slowly die. It is the closest the fish would get to a peaceful death. I enjoyed this piece very much. 

If interested check out Andrade’s website to see more of his work http://www.jonathasdeandrade.com.br .