August - December 1999
All programs curated by Astria Suparak and accompanied by program notes, unless otherwise noted. Unmarked screenings took place at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York, free of admission charge and open to the public, projected on 16mm, Super-8mm, 3/4" and 1/2" video.

Date
Title
Program information
Press
December 11, 1999



Event postcard; "Westway to the World" DVD cover; Fischli & Weiss, "The Way Things Go"
 "Vertigo!go!"

@ Smackmellon Studios, Dumbo, Brooklyn

WFMU 91.1 FM Benefit: Verti-Go! Go!

Featuring performances by:
Thurston Moore with White Out
DJ Spooky and Vinicius Cantuaria with special guest Carl Hancock Rux
MC Fab Five Freddy
Brian Dewan
DJ Scud, Aphasic
DJ Olive, Toshio & RAC
DJ I-Sound
Jaiko (from Vampyros Lesbos
Bindlestiff Family Circus
Visuals:
Jen & Kevin McCoy
Brian Dewan

Film and Video Room:
Programmed by Astria Suparak.
- 5pm: "Westway To the World" (Don Letts, 2000, 60min). Sneak peak of the new Clash documentary.
- 6:30pm: "Broken Music" shorts program: Christian Marclay, Voice Crack, Sonic Youth/Chris Habib, Steina Vasulka, Ken Butler.
- 8pm: Luis Recoder will present performative films, Spaceborne and Driftwork.
- 8:45pm: Shorts program: Joost Rekveld, Martin Arnold, Leslie Thornton, Jennifer Reeder.
- 10pm: "The Way Things Go," by Fischli & Weiss.
- Bruce McClure: Sound and light reflections.
- 10:30pm: "The First Greyness to Emerge" by Warren Ng and Recoder.
- 11pm: divider (Steven Aldridge, Jason Merritt, James Wolcott) performance/installation.
- 1am: booby trap (Max Panzner, Rolyn Barthelman): video test.

Time Out NY:
"WFMU knows how to throw a party. Leave it to the world's best free-form radio station to put together the largest ensemble of obscure experimentalists since, you know, EVER. Here's the lowdown on what to expect on this sure-to-be-fateful eve: Get there at 5pm, drink as many free beers as you can before the open-beer bar closes at 6pm, and watch a screening of the brand new Clash documentary, Westway to the World..."
(Full article is below)

Time Out NY:
" ... Then toes will start a-tappin' to a DJ marathon featuring the finest in lo-fi, chaotic, sampling abstractions (that you can dance to!) from DJ Scud and Aphastic, the cream of the British crop; DJ Steinski, the godfather of the collage hip-hop style; DJ I-Sound on the aggressive, chop-up turntablism tip; and then cool down to the sexy European '60s sounds from the long-running Vampyros Lesbos party crew. Aaah.

Now we move on to the live portion of the evening, with more local noise superstars than you can shake a rusty, pointed metal stick at (and believe me, I've tried!), including wacky zitherist Brian Dewan, big papa Thurston Moore with noise ensemble White Out, and free-jazz staple Dorgon.

Plus, there'll be tons of films, videos, and installations [programmed by Astria Suparak] in the huge Smackmellon space to stare at blearily while DJ Spooky provides back up for Brazilian guitarist Cantuaria and spoken-word deep guy Rux. Finally, Desco Records, NYC's home of the "heavy heavy funk" sends over the Mighty Imperials to make us all shake our rumps to the funky stuff old-school style. And did I mention the whole shebang is hosted by the always fabulous Fab Five Freddy? All this for a measly ten bucks that goes straight to WFMU, the only radio station that doesn't take a cent from the Man." -A. Kellner
December 8, 1999


Show poster		 Guest:

"CINE-POVERA: Propositions on film by Luis A. Recoder"		 Bay Area artist and filmmaker RECODER to present: A.) Conceptual Films, B.) Process Films, C.) Appropriation Films, D.) Performance Films, E.) Accumulation Films, F.) Ready-Made Films, G.) Films Nouveaux...

Before the curtain unveils the white of the screen our transparency thickens through folds in the fabric. Folding the picture, not unlike the ribbon’s folding onto itself, tightly spooled./Before the end of a reel when surface noise signals the end of a scene, a gaze, a gesture./When two light sources brighten the screen./When sound echo’s the picture, or in a more disturbing encounter, picture echo’s sound./Snags of the apparatus no longer accidental but like so many punctuations rhythming along a temporal register./Cine-Povera: at the limit of cinema's dream of illusion (illusion of dream), aperture in the screen through which another screen has been erected, bathing our transparency in a different light, subdued and scattered, refracting wildly. /Michel Leiris: "Through this latticework, I would glimpse something flickering, zigzags of lightning inscribed on a screen that was neither night nor day."
1) "1977 Leader," 1999
2) "Pulverulent," 1999, 15-18 min.
3) "Variable Density," 1999
4) "Bare Strip," 1998
5) "Stratum," 1999
6) "Moebius Strip," 1998
7) "Fulcrum," 1997
8) "Pulsus Alternans," 1999		 Village Voice:

"Wednesday Night FIlm Series at Pratt: Prepositions on Film by Luis Recoder. His bi-packed film projection pieces were the talk of the NYFF's avant-garde series. He promises several new pieces with live performance elements." -A. Taubin
December 1, 1999


K. Resetarits, "Egypt"
"REPORT" Unconventional narratives.

1) JOHN BALDESSARI, "Ed Henderson Reconstructs Movie Scenarios," 1973, 24:04, video, USA.

2) KATHERIN RESETARITS, "Ägypten" (Egypt), 1997, 10 min, 16mm film, Austria.

3) HOLLIS FRAMPTON, "Hapax Legomena II: Poetic Justice," 1972, 31 min., 16mm, silent, USA.		  

November - December calendars.

November 17, 1999


Cover of booklet of poems and drawings by LP, given out at show.		 Guest:

Luther Price


Back of booklet.
PRICE (Cambridge, Mass.) to present new Super-8 films including a New York Premiere. "Recently I've gone back to my domestic roots and the consumption of flesh. Cancer is taking over my family...In the past year, I've lent myself to several short films. They all seem to cling desperately to the moment in the same way. But time is fleeting, tomorrow was yesterday. My past year's work has been a true work-in-progress, every day another frame."

1) "Meat Situation 04," 1999, 18fps, color, sound, 4 min. (original)
2) "Eruption Erection," 19990, 18 fps, color, sound, (original), 9 min.
3) "Meat Blue 03," 1999, 18 fps, color, sound, (original), 12 min.
4) "run," 1994, 18 fps, color, sound, (print), 15 min.
5) "Home," 1999, 18 fps, color, sound on cassette, (original), 13 min.
6) "I'll Cry Tomorrow," 1999, 18 fps, color, sound on cassette first, then switch to sound on film, (original), 12 min.
7) "Home Part 2," 1999, 18 fps, color, sound, (original), 7 min.
8) "Dead Ringer," 1999, 18 fps, color, sound, (original) (Work in Progress), 6 min.
9) "Ritual 629," 1999, 18 fps, color, sound on cassette, (original), 12 min.
November 10, 1999

P. McCarthy, "Family Tyranny" 		"Sexuality Malfunctioned" (Performance) Anxiety, ambivalence, anticipation. Some works use found footage and pornography.

- PAUL McCARTHY & MIKE KELLEY, "Family Tyranny," 1987, 15:03 min, video.
- PEGGY AHWESH, "The Color of Love," 1994, 10 min, 16mm.
- LUTHER PRICE, "Sodom," 1989, 20 min., Super-8mm.
- LAURA PARNES, "Performance", 1995, 4 min, video.
"Talent Show," 1996, 4 min, video.
- JENNIFER REEDER, "Lullaby," 1999, 18 min, video.
- KAREN YASINSKY, "No Place Like Home", "Drop That Baby Again," 1999, 11 min. total, film on video.
November 3, 1999


Program notes. 		"CAUSE/FFECT"
Igloo. 		kinetics + chemistry + progress.

Swiss artists FISCHLI & WEISS create a domino effect from simple household objects a la Rube Goldberg. Also work by TERRY FOX, a member of the West Coast performance art, video and Conceptual Art movements of the 1960s and 70s; San Francisco's MARK WILSON "does not so much analyze motion as isolate and imply it." (-B. Frye); and learn "How To Build an Igloo" (in 10 minutes! 1943, National Film Board of Canada).

1) "How To Build an Igloo," National Film Board of Canada, 1949, 11min., 16mm.
2) "Children's Tapes," Terry Fox, 1974, 30 min., video.
Playful, quick things. Like naive science experiments a la elementary school. Kitchen utensils and water and the occasional victim fly.
3) "Motion Studies," Mark Wilson, 1995, 7 min. 16mm @ 18fps.
4) "The Way Things Go," Peter Fischli & David Weiss, 1987, 30 min, 16mm.

October calendars.

Date
Title
Program information
Press
October 27, 1999


B.I.T., "Suicide Box" 		"PAINT IT BLACK" An evening of dark films and videos from New York, San Francisco, and Europe. Optical printing and video manipulation create dense layers of nausea. Meditations on media and culture. The use of technology for subversive purposes. Dis-ease.
1) The Bureau of Inverse Technology, "Suicide Box," 1996, 13 min., video.
2) Aaron Scott, "Solaris," 9 min., video, silent.
3) Yvette Brackman, "Camp," 1998, 6 min, video.
4) Laura Parnes, "Wrong Place, Wrong Time," 1998, 6 min., video.
5) Eric Heist, "Audience," 1997, 6 min. excerpt from 30 min. loop, video.
6) Mark Taylor, "He Would Have Loved Me To Death," 1993, 10 min.
7) Aaron Scott, "Prelude: Final Exit," 16mm, 6 min., b/w.
8) Matthias Mueller, "Pensao Globo," 1997, 14 min. 16mm.		  

October 20, 1999


B. Baillie, "Castro Street"

G. Matta-Clark, "Conical Intersection"

 "On: location"

 Films about places and site-specific actions, investigations and de-constructions.

1) Kurt Easterwood,"Of significant importance," 1991, silent, 6 min.
2) Linda Christanell, "Moving Picture," 1995, 11 min. Austria.
The effects of seasons and time on Berlin, San Francisco, and Austria are documented by KREN and CHRISTANELL.
3) Alan Berliner, "City Edition," 1980, 10 min.
4) Bruce Baillie, "Castro Street," 1966, 10 min.
Lush juxtaposed images of Standard Oil Refinery and a red lumber company in Northern California as seen by BAILLIE inspired by Eric Satie ("...a film in the form of a street").
5) J. Hoberman, "Cargo of Lure," 1974, 14.5 min., silent, 18fps.
HOBERMAN (film critic from the Village Voice) goes "Up the Harlem River, looking East. Is the film the reflection of reality or the reality of the reflection?"
6) Margot Niederland, "Broken Angel," 1991, 11 min.
Journey through Arthur Wood's architectural anomaly built out of an abandoned buildling on 4 Dowing Street in Clinton Hill, Brooklyn.
7) Kurt Kren, "To W+B," 1976, 8 min. Austria.
8) Gordon Matta-Clark, "Conical Intersection," 1974, silent, 18:40.
MATTA-CLARK non-u-mentally cuts and carves through buildings in Paris.		 Village Voice: "Astria Suparak has cleverly curated a program of films that focus on landscapes and cityscapes. Among the stand-outs are Gordon Matta-Clark's documentation of his cut-up buildings, J. Hoberman's view of the Harlem river, and Bruce Baillie's film of heavy industry ravishing a piece of Northern California." -A. Taubin
October 12, 1999


Show flyer.

"Broken Music"

@ The Knitting Factory, Alterknit Theater

Knitting Factory program guide.

Guest Curator: Astria Suparak. Misusing/altering technology for the use of music. Or using musical instruments/equipment in alternative ways.

- 2 videos by New York sound artist and vinyl saboteur Christian Marclay, one in homage to Jimi Hendrix.
- Sonic Youth performs a Fluxus composition by George Maciunas: "Piano Piece #13 (for Nam June Paik)."
- Co-founder of The Kitchen and video pioneer Steina Vasulka's "demo tape on how to play video on the violin."
- Hanzel + Gretzel's video music project on techno voyeur Scanner alias Robin Rimbaud, who accesses phone conversations with a scanner to use in his DJ performances and recordings. Scanner defines himself as an 'electronic flaneur,' saying, "Human kind is just a 12-inch monitor." (1998, 5:30, English spoken, French subtitles)
- A rare screening of a film by Swiss electronics duo Voice Crack, including live footage of them playing "cracked everyday electronics."

See "Broken Music" webpage. 		See reviews here.
October 6, 1999


Y. Rainer, "Film About..."		 "A Film About a Woman Who..."

By Yvonne Rainer, 1974, 105 min, 16mm, b/w, USA.

A meditation on ambivalence. Includes music by Philip Corner. This shaped and structured film mirrors the complexities and difficulties with which we attempt to communicate with one another: "It seems to say," observed one viewer, "that speaking is like walking on volcanic silence." The film uses interrupted or stylized action and stills, and re-enactments from movies such as Psycho and Pandora's Box. Film About a Woman Who... is cinematic syntax that isn't clothed in narrative continuity, but speaks through naked image and text.

  

September calendars.

September 29, 1999  Mauricio Kagel  Rare films by the Austrian-based experimental composer. Three early comedies on cultural trash by the multimedia composer Kagel, who founded the Cologne Ensemble for New Music (1959), and the Cinematheque Argentine (1950). Kagel's early films (1965-68) are influenced by the French and German avant garde of the 1920s: from Rene Clair's "Entr'acte," Bunuel's "Un Chien Andalou" and "L'Age d'or," Hans Richter's "Vormittagsspuk" and abstract films, as well as from E.S. Porter's "The Great Train Robbery" (1903). Kagel's films are rebelliously "educated" happenings. Like Eric Satie, their director believes he must deny education although he cannot live and work without it...

- Mauricio Kagel, "Antithèse," 1965, 19 min., 16mm.
- Mauricio Kagel, "Solo," 1967, 26 min., 16mm.
- Mauricio Kagel, "Duo," 1967/68, 41 min., 16mm.
September 22, 1999


W. Wegman video still.
"BODY/LANGUAGE" Performance-based video art from the 1970s to the 1990s.
"There's too much action here, my interest is in language. Language can over-analyze things, break things down, over-complicate things." - V. Acconci.
Conceptual, performance-based and seminal videotapes from the 1970s with an emphasis on language, contrasted by recent work by Zhuang Huan, who does radical, often painful actions in silence.

1) William Wegman, "Selected Body Works," 1970-74, 12 min., b/w.
Includes Stomach Song and Deodorant Commercial. Don't miss Wegman's hilarious one-liners and absurdist sight gags.
2) Dennis Oppenheim, "My Father's Socks" (1972, 5:50), "Mittens" (1974, 4:21) with his daughter, "Disappear" (1972, 5:57). b/w.
3) Zhuang Huan, "Performance works 1994-98," 38 min.
4) Richard Serra, "Boomerang," 1974, 11:07.
5) Vito Acconci, "Home Movies," 1973, 32:19.
In the meta-document, "Home Movies," Acconci describes his past works and art-making strategies from 1969-1973 via a slide show and his periodic, conspiratorial whisperings to an absent person. Autobiographical within the context of his art-making, H.M. reveals the psychological circuit that propels much of V.A.'s work.
September 15, 1999


G. Deutsch, "Film ist."; G. Holthuis, "HKG".		 "Energy Transformation in Modern Cinematography" Recent Experimental Films from Northern Europe.

East Coast Premier! This beautiful, extraordinarily edited "Film ist." by Gustav Deutsch (1998, 60 min., 16mm, Austria) consists almost entirely of excerpts from various scientific and educational films. These films are about the acrobatic flights of pigeons, the intelligence testing of apes, stereoscopic vision, hurricanes and impact waves in the air. They depict paper projectiles penetrating bubbles of air and bullets passing through ostrich eggs. The viewer can sense the singular poetry of scientific film which often makes use of "experimental" editing techniques: extreme slow or fast motion, perforation of the film material, telescopic and microscopic shots, solarization and x-rays. The way in which the parts are organized in a sequence and a rhythm is reminiscent of modern poetry or the photographs of the artist John Baldessari.

Evening begins with Gerard Holthuis' "HKG" (1999, 15 min, The Netherlands). Music by David Byrne. While landing at the Hong Kong Airport (located in the heart of the city), you can read the newspapers on the street, many travelers have reported. Airplanes become mysterious chrome creatures.
September 8, 1999


"Archangel" poster 
 "Archangel" By Guy Maddin, 1990, 83 min, 16mm, b/w, Canada.

A film like no other, this weird, wild and extraordinary photoplay form canada's Guy Maddin is both melodrama and deadpan parody. With striking black and white cinematography and stylized set design, Maddin tells a tale of obsessive love in the arctic Russian town of Archangel. A Canadian flyer, his memory obliterated by mustard gas, mistakes a beautiful nurse for his long-dead love, and the subsequent complications of character and plot are as earnestly daft as the look of the film. A true original, Archangel has to be seen to be believed. "For those interested in the wilder possibilities of what film can do, this is an absolute must." - The Seattle Times

 

Date
Title
Program information
Press

August 18, 1999


M. Arnold, "Alone..."; FMC flyer.

"Playgiarism"

@ Anthology Film Archives

Anthology program guide.

Personal Selections Series for the NEW YORK FILM-MAKER'S COOPERATIVE. Guest Curator, Astria Suparak.

1) Julie Murray, "Conscious," 1993, 10 min, silent.
2) Lewis Klahr, "Her Fragrant Emulsion," 1987, 10 min.
3) Lana Lin, "I Begin To Know You," 1992, 2.5 min.
4) Joyce Wieland and Betty Ferguson, "Barbara's Blindness," 1969, 17 min.
5) Ken Jacobs, "The Doctor's Dream," 1978, 23 min.
6) Martin Arnold, "Alone: Life Wastes Andy Hardy," 1998, 15 min.
7) M.M. Serra, "Just For You GIrls," 1997, 2 min.

 Village Voice:

"Found footage collage was the most overused avant-garde genre of the 90s, but this program includes some of the most intriguing recent and historical works." -A. Taubin


About:
The Pratt Film Series was a weekly program dedicated to showing media work not easily accessible to the public, and to forging ties across art disciplines including performance, music, painting, sculpture, technology, animation, theater, and architecture.

Over the last three years work from eighteen countries, spanning nearly the history of cinema (1901 to works in progress and premieres), have been exhibited here. We also featured guest filmmakers and performers, traveling film and music festivals, and collaborations with other New York City venues.

Astria Suparak, Pratt Film Series Director 1998-2000

Wednesdays, 8:30pm
Dekalb Ave, betw. Hall + Classon St.s
A/C train to Clinton-Washington