Artists' Television Access
Weekly Newsletter
Coming Up This Week
Thursday, September 9, 2010, 7:30 pm, $6
“Faubourg Tremé—The Untold Story of Black New Orleans”
A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition Film Showing & Discussion
A documentary film about the radical Black history of New Orleans 
on the 6th anniversary of the Hurricane Katrina tragedy
“Faubourg Tremé: The Untold Story of Black New Orleans” was largely shot before the Katrina tragedy but edited afterward, giving the film both a celebratory and elegiac tone. It is a film of such effortless intimacy, subtle glances and authentic details that only two native New Orleanians could have made it.
During slavery, Faubourg Tremé—a neighborhood near the French Quarter—was home to the largest community of free Black people in the Deep South and a hotbed of political ferment. Black and white, free and enslaved, rich and poor co-habitated, collaborated, and clashed to create much of what defines New Orleans culture up to the present day.
The film tells the history of the radical roots of this New Orleans community where during slavery, Black people could earn their freedom and purchase a house. Where sit-ins, almost a century before Rosa Parks, won the integration of public transportation.
The film concludes with the new challenges facing the Black community after the Katrina disaster. It does not just commemorate, but reminds us that U.S. society still confronts the same battles that the residents of Tremé have waged through two centuries—demands for economic justice, voting rights, equal education, decent public services, in short, full citizenship for African Americans. 2007, 67 min.
Friday, September 10, 2010, 8:00 pm, {{unknown}}
THE INVISIBLE FOREST
Vertical Pool and A.T. A. presents:
(2008; 111 min)
a film by Antero Alli (in person)
A theater director, Alex (played by the director of the film, Antero Alli), brings a troupe of nine actors to a remote forest to engage in paratheatrical work. For those of you unfamiliar with this term, it refers to a range of practices, inspired by Polish theater pioneer Jerzy Grotowski, in which the techniques of theater are used, not to create works of art to be performed for an audience, but solely for the personal and spiritual development of the participants. Since, in real life, Alli is engaged in paratheatrical research, it becomes obvious that the film’s fictional story is constructed out of documentary elements.
The work they are doing is an attempt to realize French poet and playwright Antonin Artaud’s vision of an explosive, transformative form of theater which he called the “Theater of Cruelty.” Alex is tormented by repeated nightmares in which he is taunted by the ghost of Artaud. He avoids sleeping for days in order to prevent these dreams from coming back. The film alternates between many levels of reality: depictions of the theater troupe’s forest work, Alex’s “video diaries” in which he tries to make sense of his deteriorating mental state, dream sequences featuring Clody Cates’ astonishing performance as the (female) spirit of Artaud, and extensive sequences in which Alex desperately seeks help through hypnosis, administered by a therapist, played in a sensitive performance by Garret Dailey. A sense of disorientation is increased throughout the film when, for example, Alex frequently falls into a trance in the doctor’s office and seems to wake up in his tent in the forest, or vice versa.
In the fascinating dialogues with the doctor, both Alex and the doctor challenge each other to expand their own world-views. Alex understands the cosmic Void as being a source of potential energy which creates everything, and the doctor finds this difficult to grapple with. The doctor understands some basic mechanisms about emotion which Alex has been ignoring at his peril. Subtly, the dialogue critiques the limits of both psychotherapy and art as avenues of self-exploration. “The Invisible Forest” is full of treasures. It is able to depict those elusive mental states which prove so hard to remember or describe when we awaken from dreams. This film incites and dares the viewer to let go of concepts and accept the risky adventure of following the free, unimpeded energies of the body and mind. (DAVID FINKELSTEIN, filmthreat.com)
Read the review in its entirety at:
http://www.filmthreat.com/reviews/23033/
Gallery Exhibitions
Thursday, September 30, 2010, 12:00 am
Works by Loren Means
Artist Loren Means hand paints super 8 film stock, enlarging individual segments to create stand-alone works: “My images arose from my attempt to make motion pictures from a fine art perspective. I began painting on the surface of 8mm and Super8 film. I was fascinated by the fact that a minuscule brushstroke could expand into a monumental shape when projected on a screen. Within these brushstrokes the images organize themselves as a result of catalytic interactions between acrylic, oil- and water-based paints and bleaching agents such as acetone as well as remnants of the original film emulsion. The end results are excerpts from a continuum of images.”
Window Installations
Thursday, September 30, 2010, 12:00 am
Pablo Guardiola: Marco Polo
Opening reception for the artist
Monday, September 13th, 7 – 10pm
Marco endlessly searches for Polo. Polo will eventually become Marco. This repeats.
Marco Polo is the anti-Ulysses; he is not trying to get back home. He is
not trying to find a new one. Each city encourages movement.
Upon arrival it’s always useful to find an emergency exit.
Pablo Guardiola is an artist who lives and works in San Francisco. For more information, please visit: http://www.pabloguardiola.com.
About Artists' Television Access
Artists' Television Access is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) artist-run
screening venue and gallery located in the heart of San Francisco's Mission
District. ATA is supported in part by Grants for the Arts/San Francisco Hotel
Tax Fund, The Christensen Fund, individuals members, donors and volunteers.
CELEBRATING 25 YEARS OF EXPERIMENTAL MEDIA: Join ATA as a member and receive exciting gifts, including the 2008 DVD compilation, T-shirts, and free admission to screenings and more! Artists on the 2008 DVD compilation include: Yin-Ju Chen, Mike Rollo, Marthaxiv, Sam Manera, Wago Kreider, Federico Campanale, Paul Clipson and Carl Diehl. http://www.atasite.org/membership/
How to Reach Us:
Artists' Television Access
992 Valencia Street (at 21st)
San Francisco, CA 94110
(415) 824-3890
ata@atasite.org
Gallery is open before and after screenings for viewing.
Screenings start at 8pm unless otherwise noted.
Directions: Take Bart to 24th Street Mission. Walk 1 block east to Valencia and 3 blocks north. ATA is located between 21st and 20th Streets.
