The images in this film come from an extensive collection of out-dated raw stock that has been processed without being exposed, and sometimes rephotographed in closer format. Each pattern of grain takes on its own emotional life, an evocation of different aspects of our own being.
Category: Experimental
A child is confronted with the (ever young) old age of the world, its hazards, its cinema and music, shot in seven days in Rome, Fiumicino, Ciampino and Cinecittà. What will happen on July 12, 1995, in Rome? What will become of July 12, 1995, in Rome?
——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.