9 is a secret
well dressed.
Whispering Pines
CHANNELING is an entryway into the spirit realm and the queer body politic: a program of experimental moving image work that calls up the ghosts of the past and the specters of the future. The intent of the program is to re-imagine film and video as occult technologies that allow us to connect with the bodies, experiences, and emotions that are often invisibleghostly, evenin everyday life. The works in the program take a personal approach in dealing with the political and historical problems that haunt the queer experience: the AIDS pandemic (Renwick, DiStefano), the body in transition (Montague),the idealized nuclear family (Pena, Robinson), and the narrow cultural standards of desirability (EMR, Moulton). CHANNELING presents emerging and established artists critically engaging with these concerns on their own campy, poetic, sexual,humorous, and even utopian terms, using a variety of aesthetic approaches such as digital video, homemade effects, saturated 8mm, home movies, animation, green screen, and more.
RUNNING ORDER:
Vanessa Renwick – *9 is a Secret* (2002, 6:00, video)
Elliot Montague – *Well Dressed* (2006, 10:00, Super 8mm on video)
Shana Moulton – *Whispering Pines #7* (2006, 5:00, video)
Michael Robinson – *Carol Anne is Dead* (2008, 7:30, video)
EMR (Math Bass & Dylan Mira) – *Somethings Gonna Soon* (2008, 4:00, video)
Aay Preston-Myint – *Some Ghosts* (2007, 2:00, video)
Jillian Pena – *Compromise* (2005, 10:00, video)
John Di Stefano -* (tell me why): The Epistemology of Disco* (1990, 24:00,video)
Total Running Time: ~68 min.
*9 Is a Secret – Vanessa Renwick* (2002, 6 min)
Renwick recounts a sad time in her life, when a friend was dying and she suddenly became aware of the presence of crows
[Renwick] craft[s] a lyrical and moving essay that works its magic through poetic accretion rather than narrative logic. -Holly Willis, L.A. Weekly
*
Well Dressed – Elliott Montague* (2006, 10 min)
This experimental documentary meditates on the space between two bodies and explores three key bodies in transition: the erotic “cruising” body, the transgender body, and the pregnant body. In depicting moments of change or redefinition for these physical bodies, Well Dressed imagines unexpected points of convergence. Elliott Montague
*Whispering Pines #7 – Shana Moulton* (2006, 5 min)
In this episode of the Whispering Pines series, Moulton’s character Cynthia is confronted with a distorted mirror image that slips between the grotesque and the exotic, depending on her posture. While Cynthia performs her nose-pore cleaning routine in front of the mirror, a sphinx appears and sings a song from the animated movie “The Last Unicorn,” which laments becoming a woman. Electronic Arts Intermix
*Carol Anne Is Dead – Michael Robinson (*2008, 7 min)
“Robinson recycles his family’s home movie version of Poltergeist, made when he was ten, into a raw look at the performative.” Onion City
*Somethings Gonna Soon – EMR (Math Bass & Dylan Mira)* (2008, 4 min)
EMR has created a sigil, a magic sex symbol abstracted from the words TRUST ME (NOT) TO HURT YOU that is spread across rituals of the beast. Discordant sound and psychic image imagine a cross formation, speak from the hole, say nothing. Untie the knot and let down the pony, somethings gonna soon. EMR
*Some Ghosts – Aay Preston-Myint* (2006, 2 min)
Some Ghosts incorporates embroidery and stop-motion animation techniques to create a colorful dreamscape in which an unwitting spaceman looses angry spirits from a haunted medicine cabinet. Audio production was done in collaboration with Alexis Gideon. Aay Preston-Myint.
*Compromise – Jillian Peña* (2005, 10 min)
I locate my video-based work within the dance community with the proposition that dance is an embodied shift that can exist without a represented body as its location. Casting the audience as subject and performer, I desire to generate a hyper-self-awareness in the viewers, who join the performance by gazing at their selves. Jillian Peña
*(tell me why): The Epistemology of Disco – John Di Stefano* (1991, 24 min)
(tell me why) The Epistemology Of Disco is an often humorous, at times sarcastic and poignant look at the role that disco music has played in the formation of gay male identity. The tape challenges the notion of disco as merely a “leisure activity” by positing disco as an important cultural space created as an expression of gay sexuality. Vtape
Please visit http://channelingqueerspirits.wordpress.com for news, tour info, and more information about the artists and works included in the program.
CONTACT INFO
Ethan White ethanawhite@gmail.com
Latham Zearfoss lathamowen@gmail.com
