The MOMA’s current exhibition New Order: Art and Technology in the Twenty-First Century is a collection of pieces which blur the lines between the two categories: Art and Technology. The exhibition consisted of various forms of media, sometimes even within just one piece. The artists included in this exhibition are all working to explore technology as something which is physical and tangible, not merely unseen codes and waves. It was very interesting to see the various ways artists are working within, and expanding upon, the place of technology in the future of art.

Of the works on display, I think my favorite, by far, was Made in ‘Eaven by Mark Leckey. The piece was a combined work of film and an accompanying sculptural component. The sculptural component was an EIKI 16mm projector which was positioned to project the film onto the wall in front of it. It is clear that the projector was meant to be seen as a feature of the piece, being that it was placed in a highly visible area and the film was not projected from a ceiling mounted projector. The inclusion of the projector in the piece led to the initial mischaracterization of the projected image as having been captured on film. After further inspection, it was clear that the image was a digital rendering of the artist’s studio and had merely been transferred from its digital form to 16mm.

What interested me so much about this piece was its backwardness. Today, it is so normal to transfer images from their analog form to a more easily handled digital form, but I have never seen this process take place in the opposite direction.

Another of the pieces I really enjoyed was Augmented Objects by Camille Henrot. This piece was made of various domestic objects covered in layers of tar. The artist purchased these objects from various places, including eBay, and then covered them in tar, making them effectively unusable. The statement for the piece described this act as “thwart[ing] the normal flow of objects, commodities, and digital networks of exchange.”

I was intrigued by the objects which were still recognizable, such as the old hair dryer and the TV antennas, but were obviously stunted by their transformation. It made me think about the way technology so quickly becomes obsolete, replaced by something faster, smaller, more functional. These objects also become useless, much in the same way that Henrot has stripped the usefulness from her objects. I also felt as if there was a gender component to be read in the work, being that many of the objects chosen were “domestic” in nature. Do these objects become relics of the domesticized woman of the past? Or does woman’s escape from isolation in the private sphere have an effect on the flow of these objects?

 

 

On Saturday, April 27, 2019, I attended an exhibition of the Karrabing Film Collective’s work which is currently on display at MoMA PS1. The Karrabing Film Collective is a group of indigenous artists, filmmakers, and activists living in the Northern Territories of Australia. According to the museum’s program, the collective makes use of its films and installation art as a “form of grassroots resistance and self-organization.” This exhibition is the first time that the collective’s work has been displayed in its entirety within the United States.

The Karrabing Film Collective consists of around 30 members of all ages, from children to elderly people. Since having been established in 2011, the collective has produced an impressive body of work which consists of nine short films, both single and multi-channel, as well as accompanying sculptural installations. Each of the films and sculptures set their aim on addressing issues facing indigenous people in Australia. Their films, which are semi-scripted, incorporate elements of both documentary and fiction filmmaking. Though dramatized, and often satirized, the collective’s films are informed by their lived experiences within settler colonialism.

One of the films, which I was able to see in its entirety, was the single-channel film When the Dogs Talked (2014). The film was projected on a wall inside a small gallery room. In the center of the room were five chemical waste containers. The containers, which were one of the sculptural elements included by the collective, also functioned as seating for the film. This is a significant symbol, being that the indigenous people were expelled from their lands and have been forced into areas which are in dangerously close proximity to chemical waste areas.

The film, which was divided into chapters, was one of their more narrative works. The film centers around a large group of indigenous people living in a house in the country. The film opens as the camera pans through the home. There are sleeping bodies covering every inch of the frame. As the rest of the house sleeps, one of the adult women quietly sneaks away and is seen walking out into the country. The rest of the house is awoken by a knock on the door, a department of housing has come to evict the group if they are unable to speak to the homeowner. It then becomes clear that the woman they need to speak to is the same one who had left the home in the early morning and now the group has no way to contact her. The rest of the film follows the group as they travel out into the wild Australian countryside in search of the woman. While they are on this search, the elder members relay traditional stories to the younger members of the group. This film, like a majority of the groups work, addresses the relationship between the indigenous people, the land, and the interference of colonial institutions.

On February 20, 2019 I had the opportunity to attend a screen at the Ludlow House organized by the Filmmaker’s Coop. The screening was an accompaniment to the fall 2018 issue of Framework, a film and media journal highlighting artists pursuing new cultural and political perspectives in their art. Four experimental filmmakers, all of whom are in some way associated with the coop, had been asked by Framework to participate in their issue by creating a visual essay based off of their work. At the screening, each artist showed a portion of the work from which they drew to create their visual essay. The resulting screen was four very different artists, displaying four very different pieces of experimental film.

The first artist presented was Michelle Handleman. Michelle is a filmmaker who uses video and live performance in her work. The piece screened on this particular evening was a snippet from an installation currently on view at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art called Hustlers & Empires. Hustlers & Empires is a three-channel video installation which intertwines the lives of three “hustlers” from various time periods. The piece included dialogue and musical numbers, all written by Michelle and her cast. The format she chose to show at the screening included video from inside the gallery, so we were able to see the actual installation, as well as clips from the video itself.

The second artist was Bette Gordon, showing the first 15 minutes of her feature film Variety, originally released in 1984. Variety is the story of a young woman living in New York City who takes a job selling tickets at an X-rated movie theater in Times Square after she is unable to find any other job. Desperate for employment, this sweet, innocent, Midwest transplant soon finds herself completely enthralled by the movies inside. I am not exactly sure what about this film qualifies it as “experimental,” but it was included in this screening of experimental works.

The third artist (and my personal favorite) was Rob Roth. Rob screened footage of a performance called Soundstage which was done in 2018. The performance included a live performance on-stage partnered with pre-recorded video footage. Rob, though he had not originally planned on actually being in the piece, performed live, while a pre-recorded actor, Rebecca Hall, was projected on screens around the stage. It was extremely impressive because Rob (on-stage) was interacting with Rebecca (in the pre-recorded video) as though they were acting with one another.

The final piece was by MM Serra. This piece, titled Enduring Ornament, was a found footage film made up of about 4 discarded 16mm peep show films from the 1940s which MM acquired after the closing of an adult bookstore in Times Square. She altered the film through optical printing and alternative processing. The result is often a very obscured image with amazing texture and movement.

I enjoyed this event very much. It was interesting to see some of the various ways artists are creating experimental work. Each piece was unique from all the others, so it was cool to see them back-to-back. This event really opened my eyes to the unlimited possibilities of experimental filmmaking.