——UPGRADED——
The torso of a man. His arms reach into the off-screen space and pick up photographs, which he then places for us to see in the middle of a glass panel positioned between him and the spectator. The speed of the procedure increases, until 24 photographs per second become visible, thus turning into a cinematic trajectory driving down the Pasadena freeway.
♦♦ Amos Vogel’s “Film as a Subversive Art“♦♦
Loosely based on William A. Seiter’s 1948 film One Touch of Venus, Steven Arnold’s first film is a macabre, decadent work presenting mannequins and models that travel through strange universes.
Assemblage is an experimental film that shows Merce Cunningham’s dance company performing in a public square in the San Francisco bay. Through special effects, the bodies of the dancers appear superimposed against the architecture of the plaza. Colorized by artist Charles Atlas and with a soundtrack created by John Cage, David Tudor, and Gordon Mumma, Assemblage is a psychedelic collage of movement, time, and space.
Snow Job: The media hysteria of AIDS deconstructs the representation of AIDS in the popular media where distortion and misrepresentation amount to a “snow job” promoting increased homophobia, sexual discrimination and repression of gays.
FEAR OF BLUSHING bursts forth with irrepressible hand-painted color, corroded emulsion and a menacing soundscape of looped voices, distorted instrumentals, samples & rhythm. Fleeting visions and voices erupt out of the ominous abstraction in unusual juxtapositions, suggesting a cinematic free-association marked by anxiety, pleasure and shame. Best appreciated in the immediate; the 7200 painted frames fly by at an average of 12 per second.
Walk down a lane continuously. The film tries to destroy time by the cyclical reworking of a short period of time. Gradually the image becomes less discernible and the flashing positive and negative images force the viewer to stare rather than looking at the film. As the film progresses the viewer becomes trapped in a short period of time.
In voice-over Eric M Nilsson discusses the choices people involved in the creation of films make, their attempts to create meaning and what the future may hold for the medium and its roll in society. The filmmaker juxtaposes a range of still and moving images, often in humorous ways, in this self-reflecting short film: “Making these images adds up to a total cost of 274 SEK per second, this regardless of quality”. The film was made as a part of the project ‘Sverige 80’, initiated by the Swedish Film Institute, aimed at supporting the creation of high-quality short films.
Jack Smith’s third feature film was originally titled “The Kidnapping of Wendell Willkie by the Love Bandit,” in reaction to the 1968 Presidential Campaign. Willkie was a liberal Republican who ran against FDR in the 1940’s. It mixes B&W footage of Smith’s creatures with old campaign footage of Willkie. The climax of the work appears to be the “auctioning” of the presidential candidate at the convention.
