Thursday, December 27, 2012

A Phoenix in Winter

Mass MoCA is an artspace housed in an old, enormous industrial complex in North Adams Massachusetts, nestled at the base of the Green Mountains and just above the Berkshires...it is crazy that I had never been there until just a few days ago! This space tends to be on the cutting edge of contemporary art with a strong lean towards performance, fostering residencies and events (ranging from the in progress to the rock concert) throughout the year. The progressive-ness of the space was definitely on view during my visit spanning everything from a Sol LeWitt wall drawing retrospective to the latest in Canadian video art (more on that soon!). But the thing that makes this space so appealing for so many artists is its size, featuring a nearly football field sized warehouse that is a daunting exhibition space for many...but not Chinese artist Xu Bing whose current exhibit, The Phoenix, just opened and who is so prolific, whose ideas are so big, he will be having a second show opening in April testing the limits of artistic gargantuanism! I would normally scoff at this idea, of an artist's bloated ego needing to fill up a hall this big twice over, but after seeing Bing's first round of art I was so inspired, so awe-struck, so full of ideas, that it definitely left me wanting even more.

Bing is mostly known for his work with language; inventing his own Chinese symbols, casting type faces, creating scrolls in reference to his heritage. His foray into large scale sculpture is a thing that was so arresting that I stood silent in it's presence trying to figure out a way to articulate the work to others, the piece communicating more through form than any blog post ever really could. Walking into the space that houses The Phoenix sculptures you are first confronted with crates, large packing boxes stamped with Chinese symbols that, presumably, were used to ship the giant birds across the globe. This seemingly simple detail of displaying the shipping method adds both an element of reveal, snaking you around into the exhibition space (like a good Serra), but also a nod to origin, manufacturing, communication, language and industry: these crates contain worlds and these worlds are so foreign yet hold the defining objects of so many other worlds within.

After walking through the crates you round the corner to see the actual sculptures, large, mythical birdlike creatures that rise from the ashes to be reborn as a new and beautiful animal. These Phoenixes hang above the large hanger feeling space, suspended so that they can be walked under and around, lightly floating while in actuality hulking with a dense weight, evoking a strange tension when you move closer and realize the composition of these beasts. Bing's birds are made from the refuse of construction sites in Beijing. Everything from used compressor cans, to saw blades, to sanding pads, to hard hats, all expertly patched together to form the image of these fire-birthed birds. It is so incredible, so complex, such an intricate puzzle- in both construction and content! Communist China recently had an industrial boom, a contradiction I don't quite get (their economy is some hybrid "socialist market economy" which seems to benefit the government but seems ultimately detrimental to workers, and one that the country regards with both skepticism and . This movement could be seen as a forward motion for the nation but is also highly arresting, detrimental to many Chinese workers. These birds are obvious, honest representations of the mythic past of a people whose world has changed and grown, concretized into a present that is ladened with contradiction, and whose future is precariously balanced on the wings of Bing's work.

Many contemporary Chinese artists deal with issues of reconciling a specific cultural past with the new culture of industry. Ai Weiwei and Stephanie Syjuco are two prime examples. And the recent, under-the-radar documentary Chimeras also deals with this issue by following a young, emerging Chinese photographer and a famous contemporary artist as they try to balance the changing cultures and expectations of their home, quietly displaying the clash of making relevant work in the face of tradition and the role that an "art star" system has in this particular politically motivated society- is it a mimic of the East? A new definition of what it means to be Chinese? Are the economic rise and the social structure compatible? The scope and scale of Bing's rendering of these questions will leave a permanent mark on his culture- especially since he was recently named Vice President of the Central Academy of Arts in Beijing, a feat that seems so unlikely in the wake of other recent treatment of thought provoking artists from the region. At first I thought the Phoenixes were a huge departure from Bing's language centered work, moving to an image in order to communicate with our image savvy digital society, but now I realize that they are an obvious extension. Each tiny fragment that composes these sculptures holds a meaning and history just as weighted as the entire image itself, the words of industrialization, the people behind the building, making up the sentences and identity of a highly spiritual cultural symbol...unlike the legendary Phoenix, and unlike the East's phantom vision of China, Bing's Phoenix is a solid representation of a culture that will always seem to remain intangible to others, at odds with itself, and always able to be reborn. More photos here.


Thursday, December 20, 2012

The Library of Congress or It's Okay America!

Being that the Holiday Season is upon us I have been watching a lot of A Christmas Story. Yes, I said a lot. For me it is the single best American movie, quite possibly, ever. There is humor, and love, and the cruelty of childhood/life all wrapped in a nice little Red Ryder BB gun package- it seems so simple but the depths of what the story covers are heartbreakingly beautiful, a pure American classic! Which is why when I found out that the Library of Congress just added the film to the National Film Registry I suddenly got really interested in this "Library of Congress?"

So, guys, the Library of Congress is awesome, did you know this? I mean, I am a library person in general but, after poking around the collection for a little while today I uncovered some pretty wondrous gems all collected for the preservation & advancement of America. Actually, the L of C began as a resource for Congress so that they could have access to information to perform their constitutional duties but as the collection expanded it seems that their mission statement did too: "...to further the progress of knowledge and creativity for the benefit of the American people." The fact that our own government desires for it's people to possess qualities of knowledge & creativity is a thing that I think we tend to overlook when arts funding cuts have swept the nation in recent days and so many other pressing disasters have taken priority...


As a film person I immediately managed to find a ton of early Edison recordings tucked away in the online archives available for your viewing pleasure- and in some cases, download! It also appears that long before the sneezing panda us Americans had a tradition of loving films of animals doing wacky things- immediately deeming a roller skating monkey worthy of precious film stock! There is also Fiddle Tunes of the Old Frontier: The Henry Reed Collection which encompasses all types of information about early American folk music (including music, fieldnotes, transcriptions and tons of other resources)  and, one of my personal favorites, the WPA poster archive (some of which are seen here!)- can you imagine a time when the American government supported artists this way?

Digging through the holdings of the Library of Congress made me value our national culture a little bit more. It made me respect our (and consider myself more part of an "our") creative endeavors of all kinds- from Richard Linklater's Slacker (another new addition to the L of C holdings!) to recordings of traditional Native American songs (<--this one is exquisite), this resource is a thing full of lives that we should all take advantage of, especially when our current media is zeroed in on the tragedies...It is what we build as a society that we should focus on, not what gets destroyed. So, if you ever have a moment, I suggest poking around the Library of Congress site to restore some of your faith in humanity, media, & the potential good that government can build and also to inspire yourself to build too. And, if you weren't already convinced of the awesome powers of the Library of Congress, check out this story about another recent aquisition: a series of one Dallas filmmaker who made 200 (!) versions of the same kidnapping caper comedy which he filmed in different communities using locals throughout southern and central areas of the U.S. bringing a home movie, community building feel to the masses through the wonder of film!

Saturday, December 15, 2012

Slow Blog Apology, Fast Life Exhaustion

Well...I am a bad blogger right now. But, it's because I am busy. Busy doing what you may ask? Well: currently I am a reader for the Electric Literature Recommended Reading series, a screener for a NY based film fest, writing an article on the future of film for a magazine (OMG I am so excited to share this with you when it is finished!), employed by a goat milk caramel farm, and waitressing at a pretty bad-ass restaurant hidden in the shadow of a mountain in a tiny, rural New England town..! Some days I feel like I am getting lost up here on the banks of the Connecticut River Valley but other days I feel like I am hiding out with James Tate and all of the other little reclusive pockets of thinkers, makers, and fellow puritan punks dotting the mountainsides in front of winter fires. Blogging will continue though...also, how do you guys feel about a radio edition of the blog?

In other news...here are a few links of interest for you:

1. Things to do to help out the suffers from the (most recent) national tragedy involving guns
...and another, this one a different take on a largely overlooked component of these types of incidents, that of mental illness.

3. My favorite collection of poetry on the web.

4. Reprints of Leonard Maltin's film mag Film Fan Monthly are now available for $5 an issue! Little time capsules of cinematic history, a great gift for any film lover!

Thursday, December 6, 2012

Worst Art Show of 2012

Well...I usually don't write about art I don't like. So that is the disclaimer I am going to start with....and now I am ready to present the contenders for Worst Art Show of 2012!

1. MoMA. Meta Monumental Garage Sale by Martha Rosler
Well, guys, just in case you didn't know: a garage sale is, apparently, art! Yes. I get the whole "anthropological artifact" angle. The questioning of community & commerce. The class issues inherent in the need to hawk one's own wares. The idea of skewing commodity/art object/trash/treasure/aura/curation...all that, whatever....but really? Rosler has been staging her garage sales for decades now and, frankly, I find her approach kind of offensive...take this quote from this interview (an interview which I couldn't bear to read all of): "...I saw many so-called garage sales—a phenomenon I was completely unaware of. I was struck by the strange nature of these events, their informal economic status and self-centeredness, but also the way they implicated the community in the narrative of the residents' lives." I'm sure everyone loved it when Rosler showed up at their garage sale and looked upon them as strange, unearthly events that she- the artist- could inevitably use as a medium, taking a pure American ethos and putting it on view as her own personal "art." Bullshit! I may also be a bit sensitive here since I know that Rosler is a difficult artist, going through a quick clip of assistants each with their own horror story to boot, making any realness or genuine-ness in this piece strike me as even more ego-driven and false...And, speaking of realness...MoMA: $25 ticket price to go to a garage sale...?

2. New York City Gallery. Hot Potato by Ben Gocker.
The first time I saw work by Ben Gocker it was in the Miami art fair hub bub and I remember thinking "O...cute...I guess?" The second time I though "Yeah..." The third "Ug, really?" and then I started to read the "press release" to this show and I wanted to vomit. Immediately.  Multidisciplinary artists- mostly those with degrees in nonart- often brilliantly fool the art world...with a background in library science everyone assumes that, since he has (probably?) read books there is meaning behind Gocker's objects. But, after hearing the artist at a group show which he was a part of, joke about his own meaningless-ness, chuckling away at the absurdity of the awful sculpture of crap he presented. This work is cutesy pseudo intellectual garbage at it's best and, well, it is a thing we need to shut down people! I don't want to see the pastel machinations of a cloying white man-boy anymore...! Especially when the government is making robots with the ability to think about murdering on their own!

3. MoMA PS1. Just Knocked Out by Laura Faveretto.
"A sense of resignation to the forces of decay and obsolescence runs throughout her work—most visibly in her minimal cubes made of confetti, which decompose during the period of their display." Well....so...basically the confetti block is like the trash left after a parade but without the candy, moving floats, or marching bands...? I saw this exhibit. It was terrible. At one point I saw a man turn to his partner and say "You MUST see the next piece. It is ah-MAZE-ing!" Do you know what it was? It was the scrubbers from a car wash spinning around. Yup. That was it. And, even though they photograph well, there was nothing interesting about them whatsoever....If it was her own obsolescence and resignation (see laziness) that the artist was grappling with in this exhibit then job well done! Decay, change, monument & form (and the biggest cop out of the current contemporary sculpture landscape "play") all lurked around as potential themes/meaning but in the end all attempts just left me without feeling, engagement, or wonder...which, again, I think might be the point but was so un-fulfilling that I left this exhibition with a sense of dread, so un-stimulating in every way...it felt like the negative space my brain enters when I have spent too long in Ikea. And there weren't even Swedish meatballs to make up for it....! Un-nourishing on all counts!

Ok...so these are the most offensive art shows of 2012! And I am not saying that these artists are the worst artists by any means! Rosler's war-centric collages are beautiful, haunting, pop-y, vital wonders! Faveretto is also responsible for large kinetic social sculptures that (potentially) sound incredible- weaving a rope out of her own hair, hanging it in a gallery and allowing the viewer to move it around as it whips into an interactive creative frenzy! And Gocker...well, um...I guess I kind of like the way he makes those sculptures look like drawings...maybe-cough-Dubuffet-did-it-best-why-bother-o-it's supposed to be a comment on that probably-so-lame-art-about-art is so bad-cough? Either way, these shows are some kind of blaring warning signal to me that art institutions/galleries need to step up the game! Think of it this way: if a poor American family decided to go see some art, to gain cultural appreciation from the minds-and hands- of our current creative thinkers are these the things they would want to see? Are these ideas progressive? Inspiring? Interesting? Will this art stop wars? Spur children into action? I kind of don't think so...or maybe it will, what do I know?! But, I do know that I personally want to expect more from both the viewers and also those making the work on view. I want the elite-ism of art (even the garage sale has an inherent snobbery to it for goodness sake!) to cease. I want those profiting from it to give back more to their communities. And those funding it to hold the content accountable. For the insides of the book to be valued just as much as the way they look on a shelf. If the world does end at the end of 2012 (which it probably won't guys! Just an FYI!) I certainly do not want these shows to be the artifacts of our minds that are left behind...! So, 2013 anyone...?

Friday, November 30, 2012

...The End of the World As We Know It?

I have been so busy it is ridiculous...more soon on what I have been busy doing! But in the meantime...if you watch/listen to these recent recordings of animals I am thinking the Mayans might have been onto something...!

Saturday, November 17, 2012

The New Cinematic Language...Maybe?

So, in that last post? The one where I refuse to lament the death of "cinema" because, well, I really don't think it's dead? I have continued to think of what our new idea of cinema should be in our blockbuster digital generation...most film scholars tend to harken back to the French New Wave, the weighty semiotics scholarship, the philosophical angst of Fellini & Allen & Bergman. But, so much has changed! Existentialism, post modernism, Freudianism- are all things that we know and have in our film lexicon, they were the foundation for that cultural era elevating certain films into subjects & objects not just passing, fleeting things... so, what is our new vocabulary then? What is it that defines the new school of cinematic discourse that is yet recognized, amorphously being spoken in classrooms and on blogs and is the thing that will glue together whatever this new era of film thought/speak is? We aren't talking like the old film days because these film days are different! So, I came up with a few ideas...sort of comparisons of new schools and old schools (namely the 60s cinema heyday tears are being shed for!) of filmmaking that maybe we should look into as a new, new wave...a nouvelle, nouvelle vague perhaps! Anyway...what do you guys think? O, and on a side note, Italo Calvino's Six Memos For the Next Millennium really should be the text we are looking towards if everybody wants to get all academic and chatty about stuff...

1. Neuroscience/Science instead of Psychology/Philosophy
Jung, Freud, Lacan, Irigary, Derrida, PostStructualism, Feminism, Marxism- the list of theoretical frameworks goes on & on once academia got it's grubby little hands on the film world and began to comprise the language that people used to discuss the theory of film. And it made sense given the issues and climate of the day as Vertov compared our eyes to the movie camera...but now? The projector is no longer the same as our eye, it is closer to our brain firing light pulses along pixels as information is transmitted in a different, digital way. Also, our issues are different too: climate change, economic meltdowns, instantaneous technological advancement...It only makes sense that the Neuroscience of film, of how our own synapses are reacting to these new formations of images seen before us, is an emerging field... Our internet identity/outer projection of ourselves and the everchanging science swirling around us (not only inside of our heads!) is what makes the new protagonist!

2. Technology Outside the Film instead of Inside the Film
This article over at the Creator's Project (a pretty nice resource by the way!) about the newest forms of filmmaking is really crazy when you look at it in terms of cinematic studies...nearly every innovation described here has nothing to do with the film itself! They are all extrasensory additions that exist outside of the movie screen- the 3d glasses, the smoke machine, the (literally) surround sound speakers. For awhile techonological advancement came primarily in the form of special effects (remember how excited we all once were for real effing looking dinosaurs in Jurassic Park?) but now, the techonology is acting as an external, experiential bridge between film and audience and marking a transformation that, no doubt, should lead to a larger discussion on expanded cinema/sensory overload/the movement of film off of the screen, etc.....

3. Archetypes & Environments instead of Characters & Places or Fake Can Be Just As Good As Real...maybe?
I don't really know how to phrase this one...maybe what I am thinking of is the extreme smoothness of today's actors, gliding through real and green screened worlds with ease as they represents some sort of universality...as opposed to the highly lit eyes of Elizabeth Taylor in overly elaborate sets or the Breathless/cinema verite model with no sets at all with each character's inner life the struggle they must endure...maybe that is it? Maybe all of this technology, globalization, the internets and all have made new cinema a creamy lie of sorts? Everything can be air brushed or constructed, a falseness that the audience either deciphers (like I tend to do- the first time I saw Titanic on the big screen I noticed a little green screened man running down a flight of stairs and the stairs were just a wee bit off in size from the computer rendered scale of the stairs, marking the beginning of my life long attune eye seeking out the cinematic lies...) or get lost in. I guess the increase in comic book movies, and even the increase in magical realism people are all hyped up about lately, are just another layer to the extreme unreality we now have in movies- a far, far cry from the highly realistic, personal stories that lead the 60s film dialogue... which sort of leads me to the last theme of this new cinematic age....

4. Pre/Live Editing instead of Post Editing
...another concept I can't entirely explain but...here we go: The jump cut. We all know about the jump cut. It was a highly controlled, inexplicable, blaring "look at the editing, a person made this" decision that really changed the way people viewed the craft of film. Nowadays expanded cinema (notably the live editing of Sam Green's Utopia project and the over abundance of live music/film projects of late) are kind of commonplace, as is the cell phone camera, the flip camera, and the accessibility of filmmaking in general: the editing of films is tending to happen live! This is so strange! Of course even live performances of films are occurring with a basic outline but, still, the human element involved in film editing has become a more involved thing, a DIY ethos prevailing, oftentimes in camera editing  the elaborate staging that occurs in-camera to achieve special effects done in post mixed with the seeming off the cuff but highly controlled first person camera of many a handheld masterpiece)...a thing that I find strange when thinking of how cut off from others our internet lives have become...? Even though cinema is accessible now, the choices and human made decisions are more prevalent than ever even though they are often providing the vector base for whatever weird false world directors choose to overlay on top of these decisions! The human hand is present but masked, now film community run with that one!

So maybe that's a primer on how I see our new filmspeak shaping up? Or maybe I am way, way off? Either way, I would love to hear what those out there in the film community think...?? Holler over! (Also, I have a feeling I will be editing this when I am less groggy...hehe...nighty-night dear readers! Made a few awake changes!)

Sunday, November 11, 2012

How V/H/S Can Resuscitate Cinema

Every so often, maybe out of boredom or maybe out of fear, the current community of film writers/critics like to declare that the "death of cinema" is upon us. Whether it is discussed in terms of digital projection replacing film on film or pop culture Hollywood blockbusters edging out more thought provoking arthouse cinema, it seems cinephiles are always on the lookout to spark this topic/boost readership. I hate feeding this discussion, my initial reaction was to just write a post whose only text was "who cares" but, as someone who loves film, I feel the need to address the issue when so many are often eagerly ready to put the toe tag on what I consider an important part of my life....

I think the main issue that makes this line of questioning happen is the relatively newness of film culture. When critics, like Andrew O'Hehir over at Salon who might be the flint for this most recent spark, nostalgically talk about the 60s film heyday of people talking about French New Wave at parties, the flood of film theory and film journals and film professors, the intelligentsia's preoccupation with this medium as art, the medium was a new thing really! We'd been painting in caves for thousands of years, perfecting the art of painting into increasingly complex forms, but film, this new mode of expression was one whose first onset resulted in people running away from a train out of fear...and them slowly evolved into a control, a craft, an art that created the perfect condition for it to be studied and explored as a complex, flourishing form of expression. In timeline/historical sense alone it makes sense that the 60s were a time when humans began pushing the boundaries of film resulting in a very specific culture of interest....and then there was tv.

One thing that O'Hehir seems skeptical about is the crossover of movie makers to television, a thing that was a topic of discussion at a panel I attended at the last Sundance film fest where producer Christine Vachon imparted that the money available to creatives for television is causing progressive moving image makers to flee for this medium (take her own production of Gus Van Sant's HBO miniseries Mildred Pierce- a work that also moved from the classic big screen of Hollywood!). TV is definitely not film, but it is another relatively young medium that I think maybe we should embrace, especially if there is financial support, as a film culture since sharing the voices & concerns of directors is really the heart of making a films! Or is tv just not serious enough...?

...and then, as Jason Bailey writes for The Atlantic, do we think film culture is dead because it's maybe slightly less intensely serious? Why does entertainment have to be exclusive to thought provoking content? This is not to say that a heft in topics is unwanted....it still boggles my mind the lack of politically, socially, or psychologically engaging works that are being produced in such a turbulent global era....but what is it that we really want out of film talk? In the 60s I think the preoccupation with film studies was to validate something new and to give important issues of the times or subjects of interest a platform but what is it we want a current film culture to do? To say? To think? Entertainment alone doesn't cut it. And neither does an impenetrable heaviness that often results in boredom.

Personally, I think film- and all contemporary media- is meant to be a beautiful expression of how we live now. Film should incapusulate a specific idea that the filmmaker thinks is important enough to embody in the complicated medium of film and, by default, ends up being a relic of a particular time and place- both within the film and of the conditions surrounding the making of the film. I think the question we should be asking is not is film dead but why do should we want to keep it alive? Why do we keep blogging and directing and writing? Which brings me to a recent movie I saw.

After much hype and wait, I finally saw V/H/S a film that I really think is a perfect example of a new cinematic era! Set in a framework about a bunch of exploitation filmmaking nerds (a little Jack Ass -ey perhaps?) who are sent to enter a spooky house, retrieve a videotape, and end up watching a series of tapes they find there before entering their own creepy fate,  each film the characters watched was by a different director and each one had a cutting edge use of technology, an artistry, and an interesting story (however lose or vague!). Some leaned on the side of classic haunted house mixed with eerie I Spit On Your Grave-like actors in the attic, others relied on blood and guts (intestines really gross me out! as does some serious flesh ripping, some sort of alien ghost fetus c-section, throat slitting and so on), others had a psychological creepiness that played with internet trust issues (just who is that person you skype with on occasion?), and many had a white-boy chauvinism that is (unfortunately) indicative of our current days too...whatever the story may be the thing that really made me feel like this film is one for the new cinema culture was the construction.

First off, these were shorts within a feature film- shorts/increasingly short attention spans are oftentimes cited as a wound to the death of cinema...but in the case of V/H/S this problem was easily side stepped by compiling a feature film that still contained the buzz and cuts of our videogame addled brains. Then there was the distinct filmmaking itself. Found footage/POV cameras hinting at the current accessibility of the filmmaking medium, that oftentimes played with the medium itself (gorgeous use of manufactured glitch effects surpassing tons of tech art I have seen and adding a depth & texture that is most definitely of the moment..in addition to videochat POV, hidden camera POV, static-y cuts, tons of seamless computer special effects etc.). V/H/S is a layered masterpiece of a horror movie (dotted with jokes too!) and is most definitely a candidate to be studied as an object in a new era of cinematic culture.


Cinema is not dead and it is films like V/H/S that we must see, contextualize and build a new vocabulary of cinematic studies around in order to keep the discussion alive...a thing I think the blogosphere, and plenty of other resources, are doing and will continue to do no matter who declares film culture dead! Films are going to continue to exist, we get to decide how to approach them and we are in charge of what we want that voice to say and how we want to represent our culture through the lens.

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Tuesday, November 6, 2012

Hal Philip Walker for President

Last night I made phone calls on behalf of a local state rep but, more importantly, when I was making these calls I was encouraging people to just plain vote! I think all Democrats are on edge today ever since that monkey president accidentally got elected a few elections back...I hate telling people what to do, that isn't the point of a Democracy of course and I am also not saying the current presidency has gone along as powerfully as hoped for, but Romney? Romney is a rich white heterosexual male who will continue to look out for fellow rich white heterosexual males and I have zero interest in that prospect! I know most of my readers are probably with me on this so all I can ask is that if you know anyone in a swing state who might potentially need a little shove in the right direction please call them, e-mail them, carrier pigeon them and remind them that Romney really only represents a tiny, tiny, miniscule fraction of our country and that what makes our country beautiful is our ability to choose our future, our leaders, and a global representation of our voices. So, on that note, I leave you with a few politically inspired films in hopes that you will be inspired to cast your vote to continue to live in a free, creative, and interesting America!



Abbie Hoffman on The Yippies
Nearly a decade ago I saw a film short called "Pig for Prez" in which a rag tag group of youth turned political party attempted to infiltrate the system by running a pig (yes, a pig) for President...a scandal that was only rivaled by an election following in which they ran "Nobody" for president. A mix of theater tactics & expose meant to shine a light on the absurdity and closed mindedness of the political system of their time, the Yippies (Youth International Party + hippie) was lead by Abbie Hoffman in the late 60s and staged numerous happenings on behalf of a large group of people who weren't being heard above the bombs and who were looking for a stage for their ideals in the face of a government that they did not feel all to represented by...

 

Wild In The Streets
Inspired by the Y/Hippie movement that took place during a tense political climate (Vietnam) this film is an LSD laced romp through a hazy time surrounding solid issues...a rock band runs for political office, urging the voting age to be lowered in order for teens to have a stronger voice, and what is truly scary is that the pop tactics of political advertising campaigns definitly hint at a reality behind this weird, wacky, neon film. This counter-culture exploitation film, supposedly shot in only 15 days, represents a hyperbole of fear and spirit that, even if it is insanely hilarious, might be a cautionary tale in terms of how we select our leaders.



Nashville
Another film taking on the pop sensibility of political ad campaigns, and probably one of the best films ever made, Robert Altman's political country ensemble musical traces the steps of fanaticism, talent, money and celebrity that lead to all sorts of stages- from the political to the Opry! I love this film. Asassination vs humor, pop culture vs reality, lead singer vs president: one of the most well crafted films ever made (with a hilarious comic country soundtrack, one of the fist uses of 8-track sound recording [each character had their own mic frequency i order for large ensemble cast overlap to be able to be mixed precisely], and impeccable Altman [Renoir?] tracking shots) see this film for the sake of your country



Our Nixon
I've already gushed about our Nixon here before but, just a friendly reminder to keep an eye out for it as it slowly begins to reach out to audiences!

DCTV
A film org that seeks to teach and foster documentary filmmaking across diverse communites while also supporting larger visions telling important, underheard stories, DCTV is a real embodiment of America! Self expression and opinion is a cornerstone of our values as a country- it's the first amendment for goodness sake!- and this org seeks to give voice, resources and a platform for those that tend to go unheard.

Thursday, November 1, 2012

Imperfect Storm

Well...I am all for a good Halloween/horror movie but one thing I don't like? A real horrific Halloween! As you probably know the Eastcoast was ravaged by a deadly hurricane this week and, as with all disasters, piecing back together a semblance of pre-storm life is proving difficult. My family is down in New Jersey, as my mom put it they live "Where the weatherman kept drawing red squiggle lines of danger" prior to landfall. Here is a list of things you can do to help out the area which remains powerless, waterless, flooded, boardwalk-less and with an increasing worry about the diminishing gas supply- a necessity in trying to get the hell out of there! Here are also a few pictures from a recent trip to visit my family, a coast that may forever be changed by this "global warming hoax" ahem....

We all know the Red Cross exists but, what you don't know is that they- like a good vampire- need your blood! Apart from the obvious financial donations the Red Cross is fueled by, the increase in the need for blood is a real thing...find a local blood drive or donation center near you!

Do you live near New Jersey? Or do you have a desire to visit the spooky Orange Goblins that reside in this great state? Call the NJ volunteer hotline at 1-800-JERSEY-7 to aid in clean up efforts...just like a good day at the beach: there is sand EVERYWHERE!

Take in a wild sea creature! Seriously. A lot of seashore aquariums have displaced animals! Donate to their efforts or, consider the walrus!

Food not Bombs is an organization that really does make a difference, providing food to those in need and taking on the social importance of community building activities as opposed to community destroying ones! Many of the FNB headquarters were damaged by the flood so, before they can regroup to spread sustenance to those in need, they need your help to repair their own infrastructure! Donate money, or food, to your local chapter today!



Also, and this may seem like a weird one but...Etsy! What is a better thing to do than buy a handmade craft whose profit from your purchase will be donated to hurricane relief efforts? I mean seriously?! Look at this pin! Supporting the arts and supporting the well being of others: perfect together!


Friday, October 26, 2012

The Exorcist or Why I Paid to See Soup Bile

In continuing with classic horror movie night...The Exorcist. What a horror movie! I almost didn't go see this one on the big screen recently out of fear of being grossed out by the post-dinnertime time slot/the pea soup vomit combo but, I am so glad me & my stomach braved the bile! First off...in terms of horror sub-genres this film pretty much covers all the bases, however loose the plot: mythic relics, dream sequences, dead mom guilt, monster/devil, mental hospitals, murder, occult/religion, medical trauma, distrust of authority/social norms (religious, scientific), sacrifice, a boxer-psychiatrist-New York Italian-priest, possession- it has it all! As I watched The Exorcist though- seeing a bed shake up and down, lots of bright red painter-ly thinned blood, the aforementioned soup vomit- I couldn't help but ponder the low(er)-budget nature of a lot of this stuff? And a lot of horror movies in general...

Horror movies are historically the cheapest type of film to make allowing for this genre to rake in the profits against their miniscule budgets! We all know that Paranormal Activity cost, supposedly, $15,000 to make. This film, which was just ok on the horror scale in my opinion, raked in an estimated $195 million! Seriously? That is just crazy! The site Horror-Movies.CA (a pretty nice horror film website if I do say so myself!) has a run down of other break out horror profits too, Friday the 13th? $500,000 to make, made $60 million. Halloween? Made for $325,000, made $70million. As this CNN Money article points out, horror films have a lot going for them in terms of being money makers, often being able to be produced cheaply and also lending themselves to a more interesting/creative ad campaign that can reach a wide audience in a way that easily leads to box office numbers (the new horror film V/H/S for example had an ad campaign at Sundance 2012 consisting of VHS tapes duct taped to posterboard, a cheap & memorable way to spread the word...also, I just realized, Halloween masks alone are a constant horror film ad when it comes down to it! Not to mention the stickiness of many a catchphrase:  "Don't go into the light Carolanne!" ). The profitability of horror makes sense but, why the hell do we keep filling the theater seats? Why is it that there seems to be an inexhaustible audience for this genre? Why do people keep paying money to be scared out of their wits?

I found a few answers on the internet of course... A few years back two scientists figured out that our brains can process both negative and positive emotion simultaneously, a thing previously not thought possible...meaning that pleasure and pain in a horror movie experience can exist one in the same: some people just get pleasure out of fear! Along similar lines, many scholars propose that the immediate release of terror brought on by witnessing a horror film is a cathartic act, releasing tension  upon the film's end resulting in a euphoric calm! In yet another discussion, outlined in the book Why We Watch: The Attractions of Violent Entertainment, the following list is provided as to why we are drawn to the spooky screen: adrenaline, voyeurism, distraction and our collective want to shun social normality. Truly I think this is why I like horror movies where, for those brief two hours a tiny microcosm exists in which anything goes allowing for reality to be put on hold for a moment, replacing the real blood with fake, in the most comforting of ways! I mean, I am definitely not thinking about my own mortality as I sit in a movie theater and see the possessed rantings of a possessed, pajama clad little girl with a spinning head as she hurls people to their death out of her window as she is overcome with the pure spirit of the devil. Nor am I thinking about how I am going to pay my rent as her obscenities increase in dirtiness and the score tings along my spine. We pay to see horror movies to forget about the horrors of real life, a thing that many scholars seem to think fades with age as our real lives become more complex. But me? I think I would rather keep buying those movie tickets for those brief hours of thoughtlessness with the occasional start regardless of how closer I get to the actual grave!


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Sunday, October 21, 2012

Horror Story

Tis the season for Horror movies! And I couldn't be more spooked! Actually, I'm a bit impervious to horror movies for some reason... as I pointed out to a friend who refused to see a recent theater screening of The Shining out of fear, "They're just movies!" Regardless though, sometimes a jump or start can be shocked into my seat from the almighty film screen and when it does I love the feeling of leaving the plush seat and the terror behind to enter a world free of whatever was on the screen before me! I've been saturating my senses with horror films lately, mostly thanks to the local cinema's weekly classic horror series this month, but also thanks to my own hearty appreciation for the horrific genre! So, I decided to give you a little list of some of the recent fear flicks I have seen and to recommend some slightly more contemporary companion pieces to round out the horror-ful! And please folks, remember: they are just movies! But, please feel free to sleep with the lights on if you must!

Frankenstein (James Whale, 1931)
Like a lot of classic Hollywood films, Frankenstein is based on a story, a dense monster tale by Mary Shelley about the creation of an outcast embodying nearly every narrative conflict known to literature (man vs man, man vs nature, man vs self etc.). Laying the groundwork for the indelible outsider anti-hero this film holds up today as we watch mob mentality, the fear of the unknown, the innovation & nervousness of science and countless other layers of monsters & man electrified into what we fear most: ourselves. An archetypal film and a narrative classic a must see for all!

The Entire Career of Tim Burton (1971-present)
So…pretty much every Tim Burton film is a take on Frankenstein? Is this true? Kind of yes. Tim Burton has made a career on the tragic beauty in the shunned and misunderstood outcast monster figure. Yet, there is usually a comic sweetness on the edge of Tim Burton that is just the right amount to hold back his films from being strictly monstrous. The pureness in Burton's characters and his distinct style is what has made him a Hollywood gem and his own twisted homages to the genre (Ed Wood! Frankenweenie! Sleepy Hollow! etc.) have added him to the very canon that has inspired his shawdowy filmography.

The Shining (Stanley Kubrick, 1980)
I saw this a few nights ago on the big screen as my friends- one of which who had never seen this film (gasp!)- sat hunched, cursing, turned away from the screen in absolute outrageous fear... at one point, so disturbed, one of them started humming "Don't get into my mind, don't get into my mind!" at the huge, terrible and absolutely stunning images before her! We all know Kubrick is a filmmaking master but seeing this film in it's full on theater glory- helicopter shots, these zero gravity feeling/free floating cameras lurking over the shoulders of the guests and ghosts of The Overlook, the expertly designed sound, Penderecki & Bartok pushing the tension along, with Stephen King at the chilly, disturbing story's core- incredible! I don't think there is a better piece of art out there and everybody should try to experience this film in a real movie theater!

Room 237 (Rodney Ascher, 2012)
When I was at Sundance this past year I let a person cut in front of me in an early morning wait list line for Room 237 so they could stand next to their friends. That guy got in. I did not. Yes, I still hold this against my niceness as I remember how absolutely freezing it was in the concrete, sub level, outdoor hall at 8am in that Park City Utah wait line…and how badly I want to see this film! A documentary composed of interviews regarding the theories- and from what I hear the insane-neurotic-conspiracy-like theories (The Shining as Kubrick's admittance to personally faking the moon landing footage?) from the minds of intensely serious film buffs/scholars, Room 237 is garnering some weird attention. First it gained momentum by the concern over distribution being that most of the film borrowed footage from the Kubrick's classic (an issue which must have been resolved since I am told distribution will be happening through IFC in the Spring, or is that a rumor?) and then, more recently, this film has begun causing some tension in the film critic's community. Apparently some critics worry that Room 237 trivializes the work of film criticism, favoring a mode of looking at film as a stagnant object to be studied as opposed to the moving instigator it can, and should, be. The film favors discussion over action and art as a puzzle as opposed to an experience and are definitely things that are worrisome in terms of all creative fields...Yet, to me at least, there is something to be said for seeing the multifaceted views of others that I bet Room 237 does. By hearing the ways others have "solved the puzzle" we can learn about the people themselves, and in turn ourselves, when we approach the same puzzle. Conspiracy theories, and theories in general, exist for us to question, engage and try to learn the ways of the world- a thing there are millions of versions of- and sometimes simply hearing a point of view not our own can help complete a much, much bigger picture outside of the realm of mere film criticism...!

Black Swan (Darren Aronofsky, 2010)
Aronofsky man. I remember seeing Pi late at night as a teen, renting it from the mainstream video store's ghetto of "staff picks," waiting for my parents to sleep since this R rated film might not be to their liking and then, as the film hit my bleary young adult eyes, thinking,  "A movie can be this?" An amazing director who- even when his plots aren't the most compelling- can create a tension unlike any other through nerve wracking sound design, quick cuts, and a creepiness who, in the case of Black Swan, also has the modern sex appeal of so many lead horror actresses flailing across the screen before (helpless, hot female victim is not a thing I condone but, it is a trope that continues through the ages of cinema and was kind of comforting to see a new take on). I really do wish Aronofsky would stick to the horrific though since he tends towards atmospheres that are emotionally effecting already and that, when mixed with a some bloody terror & brain damage, produce masterful eerie wonders akin to Hitchcock! The slowly unhinging ballerina of Black Swan makes for a psychological thriller whose beautiful grotesqueness makes you wonder if our desires are worth the terror they can induce, quite possibly the question at the heart of every director working in the genre!

Suspiria (Dario Argento, 1977)
Why the hell are they remaking Suspiria? No need! NO NEED! For shame! The classic coven/dance conservatory horror film by the master of Italian horror Dario Argento is such a strangely interesting piece of work that you must see the original before being tainted by whatever the new version has in store... Suspiria is like a spooky dream filled with confusion and wickedness bathed in a red light that looks like a washy neon portrait of fear as a dancer unveils the dark secrets hidden in the halls of her new home. See this movie and join me in the confusion of the need to remake it!

Alfred Hitchcock Presents (Various, 1955-1962)
Dear lord I can't believe my dad let me watch the reruns of this show when I was a small child! I am going to just recap one episode that will probably never, ever leave my brain and has created one of the few downright irrational fear I have of being buried alive: A woman obsessed with death wants to experience what it is like to be buried. She persuades a gravedigger to bury her for a short time along with a recent corpse (so as not to garner suspicion) and then dig her up. After going through with the plan she begins to get antsy as a little too much time passes in her dark, airless, six foot underground situation. She lights a match to reveal that the gravedigger is the corspse she will be sharing eternity with. Seriously. Chilling. Like every other short film Hitchcock presented in this series this story is a primer on fright and psychologically effecting narrative, rounding out with an irony and setting that is far too close to reality to be forgotten and dismissed as purely a fantastical idea- watch them if you dare!

V/H/S (Adam Wingard, David Bruckner, Glenn McQuaid, Joe Swanberg, Radio Silence, Ti West, 2012)
Another film I narrowly missed at Sundance...V/H/S comes complete with the "someone passed out at the premier" narrative that is all to important to the mythic creation of a cult classic! A loose plot about a group of people on a mission to retrive a specific videotape from a location filled with videotapes, the film is actually composed of a series of short films by varying contemporary horror directors- each supposedly more gross, creepy or awful than the one before! This framework of filmmaking, a series of shorts under a specific umbrella plot, can sometimes be a little offputting or patchwork but I think that the horror film genre is perfect for it! Being fictionally shocked and awed in a completely different way within minutes is like a quick punch to the gut that keeps you on edge, fearful of what could possibly be the next thing lurking behind the next filmic corner, unable to think for too long about how it is just a film before the next onslaught of dread (a pacing that I have a feeling is going to scare even me!)....  I can't wait to see this film next week when it comes to my local theater! And I will be sure to bring my smelling salts for the faint of heart!

Of course these are only a few suggestions of how to get into the holiday season, I left out some of the my favorites for sure (Rosemary's Baby, 28 Days Later, Santa Sangre, The Simpsons Treehouse of Horrors annual awesomeness, Cape Fear, Rebecca) but I guess what I was actually trying to do with this post was make a sort of comparative observation about the nature of horror...there are so many ways to be scared in a movie theater- from monster movie, to psychological thriller, from documentary/mockumentary/shockumentary, to CGI ghosts- and the ways just keep expanding with technology's ability to scare us into another world! Even though this is the case, the simplicity of so much older horror, the tension and power in the narratives alone (narratives usually based on classic novels or gothic stories, myths and legends) is an important element to all filmmaking that should be regarded just as highly as all of the fake blood in the world! Horror movies are scary but as films/cultural artifacts they continue a tradition of storytelling (often of parables, lessons, and conflicts) that should continue to be cherished, shared, and screamed at forever as they inspire a rich history that, like a good fable, teach us a lot about our own morality and existence! Happy Halloween dear readers! And remember: don't be afraid of the dark!


Sunday, October 14, 2012

This Is Your Brain On Wes Anderson


I finally saw Moonrise Kingdom! Hitting the discount matinee at my local cinema I decided that, hell, even though I wasn't keen on watching a movie revolving around kids prancing around like little French New Wave adults (did this creep out anyone else?) I still think Wes Anderson is an interesting storyteller and I should give his film the respect is deserves by seeing it in a theater. So me and three other (old) people huddled together in a huge, chilly theater auditorium on a weird weathered day full of alternating wind and rain and sun and leaves sparkling in their autumn hues watching the summercamp tale of a stormy child love unfold before us! Wes Anderson, as the old man sitting in front of me declared after being previously unaware of the filmmaker, "knows how to make a movie!" And he really does. His patterns in editing, his symmetrical photographic shot composition, his music and sound design, his ability to be sharply off handed in hilarity- it's all there in a neat little J.D. Salinger/Truffaut package wrapped up for your viewing pleasure. Despite the fact that his style might be bordering on predictable seeing this film with fresh audience eyes made me respect what Anderson is doing so much more. And also made me interested in the idea of the creation of the auteur in general....Which is how I discovered the vast array of a branch of film studies called neurocinematics!

Apparently, there is a whole area of neuroscience that has been gaining momentum called neurocinematics that centers around how cinema effects the viewer on a deeper level, how our brains take in, process and act in the presence of a film...I like to think it is a movement from the 60s/70s focus of psychoanalysis of the mind to a focus on what creates that mind: the brain. Resources such as Projections: The Journal for the Movie and the Mind (and their parent Forum for Movies and the Mind) and The Society for Cognitive Studies of the Moving Image seek to use our modern scientific capabilities to get deeper into movies, the emerging patterns of cinema and it's effects on the brain's of audiences, and vice versa. As Projections states in it's mission statement:

"[Projections] explores the way in which the mind experiences, understands, and interprets the audio-semantic and narrative structures of cinema and other visual media. Recognizing cinema as an art form, the journal aims to integrate established traditions of analyzing media aesthetics with current research into perception, cognition and emotion, according to frameworks supplied by psychology, psychoanalysis, and the cognitive and neurosciences."

The way I happened upon this discovery had to do with experiencing the patterns of Wes Anderson's films. In every one of his films he relies on a slow motion scene usually at a point of important character identification, his cuts are quick, sharp and deliberate, his shot composition is extremely composed with action in the middle and objects on the periphery with an impeccable mise-en-scene drawing you into the center of the frame with the actors, often a narrator leads you on your journey seeming to speak personally to you in the theater- all tropes that Moonrise Kingdom included and made me feel as if I was being lulled into Anderson's own little universe of narrative identification, a universe that my fellow audiences members were also immediately captivated by on this breezy Autumn day! Anderson's style, one he continues to improve & hone, is so distinct that each person I watched this film with laughed at the exact same moments, gasped at the same time, grumbled in the face of the villian in sync...so I hit the internet looking for information on patterns of audience reactions which is how I found an article titled Neurocinematics: The Neuroscience of Film.

In this article (which you can get a pdf of if you search the title!) a bunch of folks- including scientists and film scholars- monitored the brain activity of film watchers, wondering if films control the way we as film viewers think, react and engage in similar ways. What they discovered was that filmmakers whose craft is incredibly detailed, whose manipulation of the viewer's senses through editing, sound, storytelling and general guidance, can cause the brain activity of people to react in nearly the exact same way! For example, those conducting the study screened Hitchcock to their subjects and, with the help of an fMRI (that actively scans and presents an imaging of the brain, detecting areas of activity from corresponding bloodflow) each person was drawn to the same areas of the screen at certain points, each person's brain triggered an emotional response at the same moment, each person recognized the faces of the characters at similar times. This calculated response was in direct contrast to a screening of Curb Your Enthusiasm, whose possible cinema vérité style and meandering action caused the test subject's minds to sort of wander as if watching an everyday scene, bumbling around along with the morose Larry...This is incredible! Especially when taking these findings a step further and applying this concept of, basically, the ability of film to "mind control" in the areas of advertising and propaganda: just how strong are our wills when confronted with the almighty filmic image? How susceptible is the collective sub-conscious to the director's cut? Are we being manipulated more than we know? (looks over shoulder!)

Paranoia aside, Wes Anderson is one of those directors whose characteristic style is so evident that one could probably see a still and identify his hand in it. His storylines (even if they are only speaking to a limited audience) are always consistent as we watch his hardworking-yet-privledged underdog making a heroic leap towards emotional happiness (another subject of interest in neurocinematics as displayed here, pondering the question if we root for the underdog as a means of soothing our own personal struggles?) through his specific, patterned artistic lens; a base of a distinct soundtrack feeling, an emotional slow motion portrait, quick witted/tongue biting/unexpectedly harsh humor, a thoughtful muted color palette, highly detailed & organized shots (favoring certain camera techniques too- like the overhead, 1st person in this montage! a shot that, once again, makes you see through the eyes of the characters, identifying with those on screen, forcing our brains to become one with the protagonist), the inclusion of a shot of a character underwater, oftentimes a narrator telling us a story (and which Anderson plays on in Moonrise through the campfire readings of the film's heroine), quick cuts to supplementary imagery (Anderson loves to showcase a good book cover or hand written letter!), the use of a play within the film to point out craft and distinguish a feeling of reality & unreality within the film etc. Anderson has found a set of patterns that I hope he continues to grow and explore as he becomes more and more well known and seeks to entertain a wider audience- and I stress entertain because it is an element of art that is often looked down upon nowadays for some reason (why can't more people enjoy the craft of someone considered an artist?)...


Anderson might one day join the ranks of his fellow mind-controlling Hollywood crossover auteurs (Scorsese, Kubrick & the like! Also, Coppola, a connection that Anderson already has in some sense.) as he molds the brains of audiences into his stories of bittersweet, scrappy heroes to the tunes of fitting lullabies, punk anthems, and country western croons creating a new American indie-school play aesthetic that he is most definitely the pioneer of. Wes Anderson might not be saying too much with the content of his films but there is a beauty, artistry and love in them- and the triumph of the outcast, however trite or first world problem centered- that the world does need... a sweet dream of winning against the odds and creating something outside of oneself for others to experience within themselves! The auteur as artistic hypnotist? Yes, as long as the intentions are as pure & pink-tinted as Wes Anderson's!

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Thursday, October 11, 2012

Art Films for a Sick Day

I do apologize for the lack of posting this week! I don't want to whine by any means but I have a head cold that is making me cloudy at best...trying to edit and think about film and read and type is proving difficult as my eyes swell closer and closer to shut! So, since I can't really provide you with anything of my own to ponder I thought the least I could do is share with you some of the more memorable video/film art I've seen lately so....enjoy! (sneezes) Hope to be back in blogging action soon complete with my new discovery of neurocinematic studies!! O, and also, my October horror movie binge!

Idyllwild, Chris Doyle, (video of installation) 2012
This piece by the artist Chris Doyle won't leave my mind and I ache to seek it in person! I remember him describing it to me before it had been made, I pictured planes of light moving throughout a space, questioning our sensibilities of the natural, disorienting and poetic- like a living Calvino novel preoccupied with a fluent time and space that we far to often take as a concrete thing.

 

Squeeze, Mika Rottenberg, (exerpt from 20 minute video) 2010
I only recently learned of Rottenberg's work and there is something feminine and sinister on it's edges that I really seem to like. It being art, it's hard to find her full videos to watch but this (bootlegged?) clip of women in some sort of elaborate, mechanized, sub-sea level existence grooming the hands of female laborers as they shove them through the dirt is a beautiful musing on beauty, ritual and the roles society casts women in...hope to see more...!

 

Hotel Monterey, Chantal Ackerman, (hour long film!) 1972
Ackerman, of Jeanne Dielman fame of course, is the type of filmmaker who picks up a camera and, with no care or worry or thought about those who have held a camera before, creates her progressive, deliberate, moving visions of people and places. This film, an early feature, follows the interiors of a hotel, dreamily and eeriely floating through its spaces revealing the life of a place. It makes me feel like the ultimate voyeur, a space on display for my observation only, a space that seems like it wants to communicate...and that is exactly what Ackerman is doing! Tough yet stunning!

Thursday, October 4, 2012

Printing Presses and Autumn Sweaters


Printmaking is an artform that never ceases to fascinate me. Maybe it's because my brain is incapable of thinking like a printmaker; layers and negatives, etchings and reliefs, blocks of color. I have a hard time understanding how one can visualize multiple colors and shapes to overlay and press into one continuous idea...and maybe this is a big part of why Maya Malachowski Bajak's show at The Flying Object in Hadley Massachusettes was so appealing...or maybe it had something to do with how phenomenal the work itself is?

The Flying Object is a volunteer nonprofit printing press, gallery, bookstore, classroom, performance venue- everything one could want in terms of an alternative/independent artistic nexus. They even have a hands on workshop to teach one how to use a letterpress, this is some sort of heaven to me?! The work in Maya's show, titled Liminal Spaces, displays a range of contrast that  I never knew existed, more shades of varying blacks and greys than one can possibly imagine, inviting in the depths of their somehow cheery, hopeful darkness. Even though the prints feel completely flat- the shapes feeling as very defined shapes- there is somehow a sculptural feel to them as well, like they were cubic forms rolled into dense, flat blocks- does that make any sense? Kind of like how I feel about seeing Blinky Palermo pieces in person- his color fields so placid, so thick, yet hedging in on the present human hand to the point that you get this sense of something deep skimming just below the surface, a framed still pond with lives hidden underneath...or something.

The inky images Maya chooses to depict are just as intriguing as her craft: a ship brimming with city buildings, a cross section of an earth's crusted layers with land & structures sitting atop, her images often suspended in a void of time. The tiny (most of the work was measurable in inches, the largest a piece of near prehistoric looking birds in flight along a shoreline, a few inches high yet a narrow panoramic stretching across a whole gallery wall- beautiful!) cutaways of chunky scenery felt part like scientific observations (like a specimen to be investigated), part like a desolate geologic past/present/future (like the photographic landscapes of Joel Sternfeld), and part like the anxiousness of architecture/the confused artifice of modern man/the tension in a suspension bridge (like the best of a poem by D.C. Berman). This was one show where content and craft really combined to make for something of awe and perfection- I loved it! So, if you happen to find yourself in the small printing press area of a slowly orange-ing, downright Autumnal New England, definitely stop in to see the work of someone who is seriously worth noting in the contemporary print-making scene!