Author: Fara

Rick Bahto and Robbie Land in person
 
In celebration of small gestures and displaced meanders, San Francisco Cinematheque presents this rare summer screening, a convergence of two artists who create mysterious and lush explorations of the visual world each with extremely patient, almost reverent senses of place, of memory, and of time. From Los Angeles, but familiar to the Bay Area, Rick Bahto creates Super-8mm films which play like formalist, haiku-like postcards to distant friends, fragmented lyrical correspondence speaking of a melancholy detachment and distance. Similarly, the films of Floridian Robbie Land (in his first-ever San Francisco appearance) represent a strong interest in introspective observance of place—particularly locations in the southeastern U.S.—and its translation, through masterful hand-processing, optical printing and“camera-less” techniques into a cinema of rich texture and color, deep darknesses and, again, tantalizing distance. Films to screen include (by Bahto) For Pablo Valencia, For Karen Johannesen, Study #2: Chicago (a two screen film) and (by Land) Betty Creek, Elaine Drive, Precipice, Bioluminescence and others. (Steve Polta)

 an Evening of Generative Video with Live Improvised scores by two very different the electro-acoustic band’s Cartoon Justice and Eurostasche

 Cartoon Justice will perform live scores for  2 short Buton films by Jorge Davies and for the Kinetic Video’s “Socialmedia Hallucinarium R23” ***, “Primoria 3”, and “Transversions” by Mika Pontecorvo/Meg Schoerke/Neal Elzenga/Kersti Abrams…(live band – cello, guitar, flute, sax, drums, bass, clarinet, voice with an evolving sonic processing architecture and rocks and voices.)

 (*** to participate in the Social Media Hallucinarium go to  http://edgebuzz.tv/halluc.html and enter a topic for the show. )

 Eurostache will perform live scores to “Transversions” series by Pontecorvo/Abrams and a video selection from a  guest experimental film maker to ba announced… Their performance will employ melding circuit-bending, experimental vocals, percussion, scatter-brained bass, acoustic instruments, and gravity bending effects.  The score will be a once performed work using real-time experimental techniques to produce a highly transient and varied sound experience.

 Background:

 CARTOON JUSTICE started in during the dark years of the G. W. Bush Administration as the ‘Political Wing’ of the ambient noise duo Theory Garden. From these political instrumental roots, Cartoon Justice has expanded into a fluid free-wheeling set of players drawing on a range of musical vocabularies and moods to create their unique Shamanic-Noise-Jazz flavor  of electro-acoustic soundscapes and improv …This primitive futurist sound points to their leaders complex adaptive systems approach to the emergent nature of sonic structure and an appreciation for the paradoxical even comical quantum nature of reality… http://edgebuzz.tv/cartoonjustice

 EUROSTACHE was founded in November 2008 and has eight regular members that employ instruments that range from circuit-bent electronics, laptops, toys, a waterphone, and a singing tea kettle, to a cello, euphonium, and clarinet. The core ensemble is frequently augmented with guests from the San Francisco Bay Area.  The group has previously performed at spaces such as Olympia Experimental Music Festival 2011 (Olympia, WA), Vessel Gallery (Oakland, CA), San Francisco State University, CELLspace Gallery (San Francisco, CA), Mama Buzz Cafe (Oakland, CA) and Maker Faire (San Mateo, CA).http://eurostache.com

  JORGE DAVIES is a musician, filmmaker currently living in Joshua Tree, California.  An Argentine native, he moved with his family to the U.S. at age eight.  He’s been making avant garde music and art films his whole life.  His artistic obsession with pure expression is what leads him to feature Butoh and expressive dance in many of his films – both short and feature length.

MIKA PONTECORVO is a San Francisco born  musician, artist, and scientist. He is a founder of Cartoon Justice  His generative process architecture research is the basis of the works of Cartoon Justice. His work has involved creative, scientific, and technical collaborations in Finland, Italy, the Netherlands, Japan, and the US.

 MEG SCHOERKE is a San Francisco-based writer, artist, and professor of english literature. Her continuing pen and inks series forms a post-modern reimagining of classical pen and ink technique.  These works embody a vital contrapuntal interplay between collage and pen and ink expression.

 NEAL ELZENGA is a San Diego born scientist, artist, conceptualist. Neal has made a career of designing and creating systems of subtle elegance and profound conceptual depth. Systems which recast our current expectations of media technology and intelligent systems.

 KERSTI ABRAMS is a San Francisco based Musician, Artist whose visual work opens a window into an internal landscape in stark expressionist terms. This minimalist imagery is a provocative contrast to her rich post-modern approach to her saxophone improvisations..

ATA,  3rd i and CAAM present: The Search: The Seeker: The Spirit

Kirthi Nath makes films that that seem spun from dreams. She has established a body of creative work that fluidly straddles genres, occupying a fertile landscape of cultural poetics, experimentalism, documentary and hybrid narrative. Tactile and dreamlike, her work explores storytelling, memory, desire, spirituality and cultural identities. “The Search: The Seeker: The Spirit”, presents a selection of Kirthi’s works that traces the impact and influence spirituality, meditation and The Artists’ Way has had on her films, both in terms of content and artistic process. The program will also include the premiere of her new film METTA, the third in her series of experimental documentaries about spirituality, a sneak preview from her new film, MOMENTS OF BEING: MAGICAL MESSAGES, as well as a magical raffle — proceeds of which will support her upcoming documentary, STORIES FROM THE PATH: STORIES ABOUT MODERN DAY MINDFULNESS. In the same way that Kirthi’s films are like poetic voyages into the landscape of emotions, tonight’s program also promises to be a journey…towards the cinemagical!

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7 pm: Magical Raffles, Fun Times and Film Program

Info:  www.kirthinath.com