SNAP!CRACK!POP! (IMAGE, SOUND,PERFORMANCE)
Organized by Marianna Ellenberg
Tuesday, May 20, 2003, 9:30 PM, $5.00, The Robert Beck Memorial Cinema, Collective Unconscious, (212.254.5277), 145 Ludlow Street, NYC, between Stanton & Rivington Streets. Take the F train to the 2nd Ave stop/Delancey St Stations

From sleep to noise, synchronicity to cacophony, music video to process art, this evening peers into the lens and out of a wire, investigating various ways the image plane and the soundscape can be inter-woven, cut up, manipulated and restored. The corners of pop and underground, spiritual liturgy and punk abrasion collide in multi-layered video memories, filmic intervention, documentary distortion and low-tech animation. Includes: Jem Cohen , Cody Critcheloe, Robert A. Greene, Henry Hills, English Kills, Christine Khalafian, Jennifer MacMillan, Seth Price, Keith Sanborn, Virginia Valdes & Laurent Brondel and performances by Marianna Ellenberg/James Fei and Chris Jordan/Jeremy Novak.

MONEY, Henry Hills (16mm, 15 min, 1985)
MONEY (1985) is an historical document of the early days of "language poetry" and the downtown improvised music scene. A manic collage film from the mid-80s when it still seemed that Reaganism of the soul could be defeated. Including such downtown luminaries as John Zorn, David Moss, Christian Marclay, Arto Lindsay, Yoshiko Chuma and Abigail Child.

GONNA FAINT, Cody Critcheloe (Video, 3 min, 2002 )
SSION stands on the shoulders of every single underground manifestation since the dawn of time, inverting their prototypes and mastering the irrelevance of rebellion in an enlightened tradition the "new breed" has dismissed.

NIEUW JAZCX SWINGJE, Seth Price, (Video, 3 min, 2002) Nieuw Jaz??x Swingje overlooks the history of the musical movement 'Swingbeat', as its called today in the biggest NJS stronghold, the Netherlands: high production overhaul… go to the essay: http://distributedhistory.com/nuswing.htm.!!!!

FOR THE BIRDS, Keith Sanborn, (Video, 8 min, 2000)
Part three of a cycle of digital video works I'm beginning to call-after
Bataille-"Theory of religion, theory of ecstasy." The other two parts are Mirror and The Zapruder Footage?. This tape is inspired by the 11th century Sufi mystical text The Conference of the Birds. It is a text which explores transparency and opacity, multiplicity and unity, narrative and insight,the mundane and the ecstatic. "Seek the trunk of the tree and do not worry whether the branches do or do not exist."

THE REHOBETH TRILOGY, PART II, Robert A. Greene
(DV,4 min,2002 )
One banal moment in a small North Carolinian Methodist Church is slowed, extended and transformed into a simultaneously hyper-real and abstract meditation on spirituality and the fleeting/disappearing concept of transcendence.

A MESSAGE OF LOVE, English Kills, (Video, 4 mins, 2003)
Sometimes bricks succeed where words fail.

WE LIVE IN A PLACE WHERE THERE IS NO FEAR (Video, 6 min, 2003) Virginia Valdes. With performance by Laura Quatrocchi and composition by Laurent Brondel.

WITNESS, Jem Cohen (S8mm/video,11 mins, 1987)

SAGITTARRIUS, Jennifer MacMillan(16mm,4 min,2002)
"Remember me, I used to live for music . . . " -L. Cohen
Archival footage of horses is optically printed and re-edited to "Blues Section Club" by The Maledictus Sound, circa 1968 France.

MARK SET BURN, Christine Khalifian (16mm, 8 min,2002)
Getting rid of hair is a learned behavior for women in order to be
generally accepted as feminine/sexual/dainty beings. Ironically, the more we take off our bodies, the more we resemble the frail little girls we have already outgrown. Repetitive motions and molecular images converge as visual commentary on the practice of waxing.

PERFORMANCE:

EXERCISES IN SEETHING AND SOOTHING, Marianna Ellenberg & James Fei (Video and live sound, 6 min, 2003)
Images of teeth, nails and indescript body parts are animated, speeded up and slowed down through Super 8mm techniques and digital effects to create a sensuous portrait of self-consumption. Live soundtrack by James Fei on analog electronics: homemade electronics and voltage controlled
oscillators/filters are configured in self-oscillatory states, producing irregular rhythmic bursts at frequency extremes.

JEREMY NOVAK AND CHRIS JORDAN
An audio/visual set of three compositions based on varying degrees of structure and non-structure:
1. Controlled chaos crescendo evoking the Gyre cycle of life and death
2. Digital dialogue converted to embellished threaded performance
3. Anti-structure exploration

FOR MORE INFORMATION ON THE PROGRAM, CONTACT:
Marianna Ellenberg, mellenbe@earthlink.net
FOR MORE INFORMATION ON THE ROBERT BECK MEMORIAL CINEMA, GO TO: WWW.RBMC.NET

PERFORMANCE BIOS:

JEREMY NOVAK is a member of Dymaxion, which is to say that most of the time he is a member of himself, but sometimes he asks for help. As the offshoot of a record collecting fetish, Dymaxion has made several records for others to collect, and has produced a record for Takako Minekawa. In performance as a live act, Dymaxion's musical family of friends has performed with Stereolab, Cornelius and The Pastels, among others. Future goals include the musical application of Robert Bresson's strategies in filmmaking, and making beats that stay crisp in milk.

Works by JAMES FEI have been performed by Bang on a Can All-Stars, Orchestra of the S.E.M. Ensemble and Noord-Hollands Philharmonisch Orkest. In addition to sound installations and improvisatory work, Fei also performs with his Alto Quartet, the electro-acoustic Maestros, and a duo with Kato Hideki. http://www.jamesfei.com

For the past eight years CHRIS JORDAN has been creating a multitude of projection installations, dealing specifically with the individual's role with technology in society. His emphasis has been on creating a positive, collaborative dialogue aimed at dismantling technological isolationism. His work touches on the common threads between individuals and technology. With a strong relational and metaphoric aesthetic, his work transcends the technology employed by creating approachable interactive projected motions from daily life.

MARIANNA ELLENBERG is a filmmaker and editor, who's works have been shown at Millennium Film Workshop, Ocularis and the Visual Studies Center in Rochester, NY. This is her second curated film and performance show. Along with Jennifer MacMillan, she is currently organizing Open Zone, a forum for new works by local NYC filmmakers, at Ocularis this June.