Monday, December 30, 2013

New Year's Resolution: No More Crowdfunding White Dudes.

So, I've got a film related New Years Resolution: I will not give any kickstarter money to white male filmmakers. It might seem obnoxious or closed minded to some but, I thought about it a lot and it is a rule I am going to try and stick by.

The thing that first got me thinking about this was a pre-holiday onslaught of white dude directors gracing my facebook wall in search of money for their projects, taking advantage of the holiday spirit (& the tax deductible year end donation season)! One of these kickstarters, whose film is basically done, or at least done enough to get into a major film festival, is seeking funds for his large production team to travel to the premier of the film...o, and he also wants money to build a kick ass website for the film. The filmmaker obviously got enough money to make a large scale film. Enough money to get it into a big name fest. People invested in it enough to get the thing made and out there, so why should I step in and help market the film? Help it find a distributor? So many other directors out there- especially women & minority filmmakers, and even a bunch of other, less connected white dudes- struggle to just get a film made and I think there is something a little lame about funneling even more money into an already funded, nearly completed project by a well established white guy who makes films for a living. How can we proliferate distinct, new voices in film without funding them? Does this guy really need help? Especially given the fact that (according to my math) out of 17 of the fiction film premiers at Sundance this year, 2 were directed by women and out of the 11 documentary premiers 2 were directed by women, and one of those women happens to be a Kennedy! Her funding is probably just fine? I haven't parsed out the ethnicities of the directors but I would bet money it's a high white guy percent...and, in case you are suspect, the screenwriters for all of these tend to be the directors too so there isn't too much written lady voice in there either. Yeah...white dudes, you aint getting my money! And I am sure some Sundance employee will argue that there weren't a lot of submissions from female fimmakers which might be true, but true for very good reasons...

I've often heard the argument that there aren't a lot of women in the arts because there aren't a lot of women who are good at the arts. I actually agree with this to some degree. I don't think there are enough female filmmakers, artists, and other culture makers working on a professional level out in the world. And you know why? Because our ability to exist as artists- even our ability to exist as professionals let alone creative professionals- began so much later than our male counterparts: the gender wage gap still at a cool 77¢ to a man's $1. Women have not suddenly become creative but the starting line for women working professionally in creative fields began much more recently than that of the age old marathon of males. But, maybe this thinking is somewhat flawed? Maybe women have been working professionally, we just don't know it.

Some think cultural institutions need to be sure to include women in the history of art: women have always been there through artistic movements, making things equivalent to & just as influential as men. If the narrative of art history chooses to include women then maybe, just maybe, the vital role they have always played in creative fields can be discovered and allow for the long legacy of female creatives to be revealed and, ultimately, more strongly extended into the future. Others argue that quotas in funding an equal amount of male and female filmmakers should be implemented in order to expand the range of storytelling (mostly in countries that provide government issued film funds). This idea ties in with the former for sure: the voices of women have not, and are not, being heard & documented and it's about time there is an institutional change. No matter the solution to upping the visibility of women in the arts, the fact is women HAVE been making things alongside men forever, they have just been written out of the larger story in a way that has led to things like exposure, professional recognition, and, ultimately, funding to remain elusive. Note:...and speaking of silencing, don't get me started on the MPAA & their double standards regarding what parts of a woman's sex life is acceptable to see on the big screen!

There are a lot of ladies out there living the filmmaking dream of course...Amy Seimetz, Miranda July, Sarah Polley, Kelley Reichardt Lena Dunham, have all come onto the scene with amazing projects of all kinds. There isn't a lack of talent by any means, there is a lack of including that talent in a larger narrative of cultural history and allowing that talent the chance to be listened to by a wider audience. I'm not giving kickstarter money for anymore boy stories!!! It's time to think about whose voices have yet to be heard and whose voices we should want to hear from.

Resources for Women in Film!

1. GRANTS:  Chicken & Egg Pictures (money & mentorships for women made docs), The Adrienne Shelley Women Filmmakers Grant (through Sundance, part of the Adrienne Shelley Foundation, a great director taken too soon!), a list of other grants can be found at Women Arts.

2. SITES & ORGS & FESTS: Women Make Movies, Agnes Films, Citizen Jane, AXW Film Festival, Indiewire's Women and Hollywood blog, and Camera Obscura.

Wednesday, December 4, 2013

my critical eyes are blood shot

Ok. I've watched 53 movies for screening committees so far...and I have about 30+ left to go! I can do this! Stay with me folks! Don't get me wrong, I love doing this but some days...some days I feel like the movies are watching me? (Has that been a horror movie yet? Movie Watches Man? Man, any horror movie fests out there need a screener? No, Donna, NO! Stay focused!) Understandably, I am finding it hard to write about film lately since it is consuming a lot of my waking hours so, in the meantime, I will leave you with some pretty interesting film-centric links to tie you over until my brain is ready to wrap around some blog-style thoughts on film...Note: WebMD suggests the following for my movie worn eyes, "Apply a washcloth soaked in warm water to tired, dry eyes (with eyes closed)." 

1. Mono No Aware is an organization dedicated to film (actual film!), expanded cinema (yay!), and different forms of manipulation of the filmic medium (think film reel looper light boxes or prisms casting off projections). An annual exhibition of performances, installations, and sculptures will be happening this Friday & Saturday (December 6th & 7th) in Brooklyn at Lightspace Studios. I think this is required viewing for anyone who has ever looked at that beam of light coming from a whirring projection booth and thought about what could happen in, around, in front of, or with it! 


 
2.  Little known fact about me: I wrote my college undergrad thesis on the editing, cinematography, and film genre bending in David Lynch's Mulholland Drive and how they created their own character/audience/director. Yeah. It probably didn't make sense then either... Either way, I did feel a little sense of satisfaction when I recently read that Roger Ebert (along with 1,000 other people) in Colorado in 2002 close read this film, out loud, nearly frame by frame trying to define the lexicon of symbols that hovered around the film like a floating camera over a characters shoulder in a diner, a diner whose dumpster is home to a terrifying ghoul of death (it is still scary! AAAAAHH!)! 


 
3. Youtube had some kind of awards ceremony. Which would seem unimportant if it wasn't for the fact that youtube, and others like it, really has revolutionized the way we access media and even, to some extent, the way, the type and the quality with which new media is produced, a new award for a new platform. Yes.  I didn't watch the event but I have watched some clips and there is this awesome staged w/sets, in camera effects broadcast, and a real music video online quality specifically for youtube watchers, mixed with live music performance for a live audience- the two modes feeling very separate in a new way, unlike any other award show event production I have really ever seen. This weird hybrid reminded me of the best of cable access & it's simple DIY spirit, of the risky, and the slightly scripted messes that make live performance, all a nice wake up from overly executed contemporary Hollywood & the overly edited-in-post-mostly-acted non reality of reality tv.  

4. And, lastly, some random shorts/promos I found and like just now:
  • When I was 6 or 7 at the local county fair there was a balloon festival. In attempts to make proper race weight a balloon operator needed a scrawny kid and pointed at me. I declined because I didn't want to leave my friend behind at the fair with my parents. This beautiful, time lapse hot air balloon video makes me regret my decision even more. I know mom, I know, I should have gone...sigh...
  • Ryan Trecartin (the maker of grotesque, John Waters-ish, spazzy, high pitched, experimental, layered, brightly colored art films) is like the internet: he always seems to mesmerize AND bore me? His new one is no different! 
  • O, and Laure Provoust, a conceptual French artist working in London, won the coveted Turner Prize- like a lot of money & prestige for weird art that you'd think wouldn't make money on it's own but does- they give out in England annually.  I know nothing about her work but this video , this video I like!

Thursday, November 7, 2013

Severed Screening

I am really freaked by the amount of dismemberment docs I've come across in my film fest screening duties this season? Have we reached some kind of need for extremes since so much gruesome stuff has already made it to film? Is it getting harder to shock the numbed audience? I don't know. But what I do know is that I now make it a habit to not eat anything prior to sitting down in front of any film screener...so gross....

Tuesday, October 22, 2013

Warnings from the Edges of the Small Screen

VOD platforms, subscription streams, and quality television production are finally (after a long predicted move) realizing their potential and with this fact comes many more avenues for films to be broadcast. The recent move of CNN to acquire documentaries (Our Nixon and Blackfish and more!) & broadcast them on their cable news network simultaneously with a small theater release and the increase of simultaneous VOD & limited theater run films (like The Canyons- which I watched online immediately after it's premier) are bold steps in the way independent cinema is now distributed. Theaters are no longer the first place to see a film. After watching a lot of submissions for two indie film fests this season I think I maybe have some words of caution for young, independent filmmakers broadcasting in this new era of distribution platforms.

1. Independent filmmaking is becoming visually less cinematic. When watching screeners recently there were so many tight shots and near constant, nauseating, quickly moving cameras- things that don't take into account the fact that, even though these films are shot through the viewing screen of your digital camera & edited on your computer they will, especially at film fests, be blown up onto gigantic screens! I know the fate of a lot of films is beyond the control of the director for the most part but the expectations for distribution are important to keep in mind when creating the visual schematic of your film. In fact, I totally wrote the following for a screener I just watched "This film will not translate to a large screen."

2. I wouldn't have really thought about this if I hadn't been involved in an indie film production myself but, these new ways of distribution require new ways of marketing that I don't really think anyone has gotten quite right yet? I think small, personal outreach is one way to harness the intimacy of small screen viewing. Personal blogs, interviews on small cult sites, live chats (reddit has been a great resource for this lately!) make people aware of a project and aware of where it is going to be, making the process and people become part of the film along with the audience. I guess the rise in trailers (a category on hulu & itunes which always seems so weird to me...like, "look at these cool ads!") and online viral/snippet/shorts are one way emerging platforms are able to advertise but do they actually lead people to sites or downloads? Also, I don't check itunes like I check my e-mail so I am not often aware of what is hanging out there- but is it crazy that based on my purchases they shouldn't send me an e-mail saying "Yo, Room 237 is rentable here! Now!" or even update the old school videostore model that used to hover as signage above the cashier: "Released this week, To be released next week, Soon to be released." It might seem arcane but it seems like a smart way of informing potential at home couch popcorn audiences. Lastly on this topic, there is a probably a weird allegiance thing of pushing content on other forms of content-  I'm sure streaming and VOD platforms aren't exactly welcome to advertise on tv- but, there needs to be a better outreach in terms of letting me know where to see things that aren't going to the big screen. (Props to Indiewire for their ongoing Monday list of top ten itunes purchases & downloads! In fact, this has been the best source for knowing what films are out

3. Man, production quality sucks lately indie filmmakers...like, really bad....what is going on? I mean, I understand that cameras are in the hands of practically anyone but...really? That font? Those intertitles? Really poor quality filming that is actually distracting to the viewer? Was that an un-ironic crossfade followed by a dissolve? It's these details that separate the amateur from the auteur. A camera doesn't make you a filmmaker, it is the way you use the camera that does...right down to the opening and closing credits. I do think that small screen shooting & editing are helping in the erosion of detail oriented filmmaking (i.e. comic sans is just fucking wrong but, even moreso when blown up to a couple feet on a screen). As an audience we have become more accustomed to the "anything goes" style of youtube & vine and the increase in the cinema varite style (brought on by the digital revolution and also the reality tv booom) makes filming seem "real" or caught when, in most cases, they are more staged than your high school production of The Wiz put on by your overly emotional drama teacher! Mise-en-scene just isn't important to a lot of the casual digi-indie filmmakers because it isn't even noticeable, or even thought of as an important element of film, thanks to the small screens & odd styles we're now accustomed to.

I guess what all of these things are getting at is the idea of maximizing your audience for whatever platform your film is destined to be viewed on- a forethought that might be very difficult to determine but an important one to consider nowadays. Are you shooting for the small screen or are you shooting for the big screen and, if it's the latter, how can you reach these new audiences of home viewers?


Update: After reading this I watched some "real" tv and saw a little pop up ad during a show (it was either a reality tv show about fish monsters or one about people doing something stupid..either way) and it said "Like what you see, buy the series on itunes!" 1. Why not advertise similar shows that one hasn't seen and can download? Right? I dunno...I'm not a tv watcher really so who knows how they think but it seems like a missed opportunity to expand audiences for other shows, try out something new at your convenience, right? 2. Why the hell don't tv stations have their own platforms to sell their own shows? It just seems like such a missed opportunity, especially when thinking that if they tack an ad on the site, or on the download itself, it would probably cover the infrastructure costs pretty quickly, no? It's like why sell on itunes when you can sell on bandcamp?

About a week after I wrote this Netflix started sending me e-mailed updates on new releases based on things I have watched....hm.

Wednesday, October 2, 2013

Let's Get Critical (Oof, bad pun...sorry guys!)

Hey everybody, you know what season it is?! It's Decorative Gourd Season! Also, it is whale watching season (pics from my maiden voyage seen here!). But, aside from it being decorative gourd season, and whale watching season, and apple picking season, and all the other Autumnal beauty Vermont is known for season, it is also: Film Festival Screening Season! It is that magical time of year where I enter into a chilly Northeastern bubble of weary eyes, headphones, and a critical brainspace as I watch film festival submissions, oftentimes scowling in confusion and other times just in complete amazement of the multitude of directorial voices beaming out around the globe...and my luck at being one of the first sets of eyes to see them! This year I am on the screening committee for two separate film festivals and am looking at a total of 70 films- maybe even more if I am lucky!

I once had a person scream at me in disapproval of my desire to be a critic/editor/sounding board/consultant. They thought that it was an inferior position to be in, a cop out, a person who cannot create deciding to criticize those who can...this sentiment made me feel awful for a long time, that I was one of the many haters trolling the world to find things to judge. But, that is such a stupid way of looking at it. Critics are a form of historian, they look at the long timeline of culture and help decide whether new expressions of it make sense within a legacy, or, even more exciting, are an opposition to a legacy making them an important new platform that could potentially be the beginning of some budding concept in message or style. Critics look for the beauty & meaning in someone's ideas and decide where they belong in the cultural landscape. Critics take in all they can, view work objectively, and then decide what they personally feel is something worth the valuable time of others- an increasingly important task given the ever increasing maker culture & inundation of creative endeavors.

I am proud to be a critic not only because I feel like I take the care and love into criticism that those creating the very thing I am evaluating do but because I also feel like I try to hear every voice, and have always tried to hear every voice- across many disciplines- making me the kind of person I would want judging my own work. I am proud to be a critic. And I am more than proud to be a Film Fest Screener! (Puts drops in film soaked eyes and smiles)

Tuesday, October 1, 2013

Posters, the Graphic Revolution

I was really scared I was going to have an acid flashback at the Summer of Love psychedelic poster show at Smith College. But I didn't. But I think a few of the docents did and were. We all know the basic idea of these posters: the neon, the bubbly fonts, the proto-pop-op art, the visualization of sex, drugs & rock n roll. Yet behind the flashy ease of these posters was a manifestation of a much larger collaborative, communal, collected sense of fear and abandon of an era, one that Joan Didion best captures in the White Album when she speaks of the "alchemy of issues" in 60s San Francisco: how a person or moment or action can balloon into a cause, a movement, a way of life- however confusing or drug fueled or symbolic the issue might be. 

These posters began as a way to advertise music happenings as bands swarmed the Westcoast like stoned locusts in the 60s and 70s. The underlying idealism of the hippie and psychedelic movement wafted through the air though and led to an artistic movement that encompassed everything from the legalization of marijuana to broadcasting stark anti-war sentiments to sometimes even just the spreading of beat poems (Allen Ginsberg's poster at top).  The color and exactitude necessary in executing these prints is far from some lackadaisical stoner's capabilities, many of the artists came from intense schooling following in the art historical footsteps of the Vienna Secessionists resulting in a broad range of styles all sharing a compelling & vivid graphic design streak even if vastly different in composition; extreme drafting backgrounds (like Wilfred Satty at left), modernist folk musings (like Dana W. Johnson directly below), the collaged futuristic pop-copolypse (Peter Max and his marbled pink clouds of a Midget's Dream at bottom). As the exhibit material says, these posters really were a precursor to a our current state of digital collective conscious "...a kind of visual social media of their time, attracting and linking their main audience: young people in San Francisco," a fact that makes them a very important (hyper) link on the chain of art history.


Seeing these posters made me understand how influential they are to sooooo much contemporary art, their legacy obviously sweeping the digital art field- even in the Smith College Museum of Art, in a gallery below this exhibit, was hidden a Nam June Paik robot compiled of obsolete technology blasting synchronized, trippy, collaged animations- fittingly titled Internet Dweller- a direct connection to the seemingly wavy movement of the still neon paper hung on the walls in the gallery above. Paper Rad and the wonderful word of psych-gifs, experimental film (a thing the exhibit touched upon briefly on a placard that mentioned the North American Ibis Alchemical Company headed by Ben Van Meter [film short at bottom!] - an org responsible for light show installations that moved into filmmaking- that is seen in works of people like Martha Colburn and Assume Vivid Astrofocus), and even the current crafty letter press worshipers & the obsessive digital font creators owe something to these visionary poster pioneers. The historical legacy of these posters makes them a very important artifact- and not just aesthetically. The political ideologies that a lot of these posters directly, and indirectly, stood for is an important message to the new generation of digital neon internet posters (posters in the new sense of the word!): making a picture is lovely but making a message is powerful.



Saturday, September 21, 2013

Aint Them Bodies Saints and the New American Myth

Modern American Myth? Neo-Realism Noir Folk? Western Gothic Morality Tale? I'm not sure what to call it. Either way...there is a new-ish genre that seems to be emerging in the hinterlands of the American film landscape. The Zellner Brothers (along with other crews of Austin-based visionaries), the work of Kelly Reichardt, the (however misguided and twee) Benh Zeitlin camp, even the heavy hitters like the Coen BrothersPT Anderson, and maybe even Terrence Malick (if he wasn't such a blowhard) could be lumped in here- hell, even the very namesake of this blog-  all create earth toned tales of a New American Myth that seek to do the same work myths have always done: create social morality tales out of fictions, thinly veiled mirrors into the souls & minds of the contemporary reader/audience/protagonist/hero. The historical context of this genre only makes sense as the country grasps for a National identity following a few decades of intense flux- economically, technologically (& it's resulting globalization), politically- looking inland to our pioneering roots for purpose and an understanding of how to move forward following the plumb line of our past. Aint Them Bodies Saints is a perfect embodiment of this genre and, truly, a perfect film.

I've been trying to write this post for weeks now but the layers overlaid in ATBS are so dense I find it hard to even begin to unpack it...Like most of the films in this New American Myth genre they begin by creating a very distinct setting and mise-en-scene, almost like a parallel universe cast in in color, costume and sound. The narrative of Aint Them Bodies Saints is laid on top of an intensely beautiful bed of an earthy hued Texas, costumes that are really a new level of muted, subtle clothing porn, a soundtrack of tilted modern Americana folk with sly hand clapping rhythms and softly jagged melodies, and a kind of incessant tactile drip of palpable tension & emotion (bloody, sweaty, teary eyed in a non-saccharine blend of superb acting). Not that creating a world is something that doesn't happen in the movies but the world created by this film- and by some extension this entire genre (I could easily see the women of Meek's Cutoff loping through the field of ATBS)- is a distinct vision of a raw modern America with nature encroaching (or is it encroaching on nature?), sun flares at the edges of this little projected microcosm. Then there is the narrative.

Aint Them Bodies Saints is about the idea of identity, who we are, and who we want to be, a brilliant idea when considering the very nature of film viewing/audience identity and the strangle of internet persona... The protagonist goes about creating a modern myth of who he is, telling a story of himself and grasping at the idea of love as a part of his self written narrative. For me the handling of these layers of fictions is astounding: the fiction of the basic narrative (the film plot), mixed with the false persona the protagonist creates about himself (who he wishes to be in the eyes of others), set against the audiences own desire to identify with those in the story (in this case the untrustworthy heroes), makes for a viewing experience that jostles the very nature of how we have come to interact with cinema: our willing suspension of disbelief preyed upon- who can we trust, what can we trust, who do we want to be, who are we? (waves enthusiastically at NSA! HI GUYS! DO YOU LIKE MY BLOG?!).

A myth can be a prominently believed lie that some set out to debunk or a social, historical tale (sometimes but not always supernatural in nature...our own real world bordering on supernatural lately) of a particular people. What do these new myths tell us about ourselves then? Well, 1. THEY ARE FILMS! YAY! I've kind of been waiting for a mythic tradition of filmmaking to emerge in the states! Books (like the bible! Or Homer! Or Whatever!) are no longer a glue that holds together our cultural reference, not to say we all see the same movies but, the concept of film-as-myth is increasing and provides a level of multi-sensory storytelling that- in pure lighting alone- can transmit a story to others unlike any printed page.  2. This genre is preoccupied with a sense of angst, often ego driven or in terms of an American legacy. The protagonists are fueled by American capitalistic tendencies, money or fame, and sometimes even a more basic desire: survival (the tornadoes of A Serious Man, the melting ice caps of Beasts, the looming storm of Take Shelter- man vs. THE NEW-post global warming nature). These films look at what drives the country and the modern American man through all of our nervous feelings of measured inadequacy.  3.  Family, emotion, and spirituality are secondary goals in these films, a necessary weakness, yet, more often than not, the thing the hero, and all characters, need in order to survive. These films are all saying: do not identify with us, identify with those around you..reminding us that we are real people in a very unreal 21st century where our myths are beams of pixelated light floating onto our pupils.

What kind of country do we want to be? What do we want people to think of when they think of America? What did some other people think that caused some of them to fly planes into some of "our" buildings? This genre of New American Myth project the zeitgeist of our current soul searching country, a country who was actually founded on the freedom to soul search yet, now, unsure of the very definitions of soul searching and freedom.


Labels:

Thursday, August 29, 2013

Gravity Giveaway

Well looky here! The namesake of this here blog has been released (in some form) on DVD/Blu Ray by the Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center (EMPAC)! The compilation includes footage from a staged week long residency/performance of live, improvised soundtracks to the film (with the brilliant, keen eye of Jem Cohen as part of the doc crew) interspersed with footage from the theatrical version of the film all bundled up in a nice little hardcover book case with production stills, film stills and even the complete (powerful, moving) script. A screening of the DVD will take place at EMPAC on September 27th, as will a q&a with the director, to celebrate this release. In my own celebration, I will be giving away a copy of this labor of love! A winner will be chosen randomly on Friday the 13th of September, to enter e-mail me: donnak3 [at] gmail [dot]com !


Tuesday, August 27, 2013

On Looking at Animals and the One Minute Film Festival

The One Minute Film Festival is no longer with us. For those unfamiliar the title is pretty self explanatory: a group of people made one minute short films and got together annually in a barn in upstate New York from 2003-2012 to screen them, commune & potluck. It was always an exciting project- the potential limitless, the projects fresh...but it was also a schizophrenic project that could easily give the feeling of a dog sitting on the tv remote, switching images, sounds & meanings into a blur instead of individual intention. The only commonality was length (the final installation of the fest attempted an exquisite corpse format with each filmmaker sending a snippet to another in attempts to create some semblance of connectivity or maybe to push the feel into utter chaos, which resulted in, mildly frustrating nonsense...) and the important part of the fest seemed to be the community it fostered: indie directors & artists coming together with their work & a covered dish. Now on view at Mass MoCA is a compilation of the One Minute Film Fest, an odd choice given the fact that I think the viewing experience was the most important level of the fest as opposed to the work itself...but it's cultural importance (a pre-youtube/post digital access time capsule) it embodies is something that I guess does belong in a museum, even if the most memorable films weren't too far from a sneezing panda....



The physical installation of the One Minute Film Fest exhibit was stellar: multiple carpeted rooms in a darkened, elevated gallery, each room a looping a series of films from a particular year of the fest, the walls adorned with posters made by the directors that helped to ground the flash film experience some. The idea of witnessing a pre-ish internet short film digest makes this an important cultural experience, as does viewing the progression of (mostly) digital video formats and trending topics & themes- as the exhibit info point out the fest spanned both the Bush & Obama administrations- even though there seemed to be little content dealing with any sort of timely or heavy topics...in fact, the most successful films seemed to be the same type that flood the internet daily: animals. After being mesmerized by Roxy's Endless Summer (a dog on a float, in a pool, as a group of adults create a whirl pool around her) I wondered why animals are so appropriate for the micro-film genre?
In search for this answer I stumbled on John Berger's essay Why Look At Animals?, a text that muses on the evolution of man and man's relationship with our furry little friends: language stemming from metaphor (us & them, defining the "them" as different than man/animal)--> to a Greek tradition of anthropomorphism (embedding the animal with human characteristics)--> to animals reduced to mechanized, moving parts during the industrial revolution (again, aligning the conveyor belt man with animals) --> to the nature of pets (scapegoats or projections of lacking emotional human connection of modern man) --> zoos/a complete marginalization of existence that Berger blames, in a sense, on capitalism (we have destroyed all of animal's real environments, all of the real connection we shared with them obliterated, in the name of industry, jobs, and a culture that has no place for them...except maybe on the internet that is.)

In Berger's terms I think he would have seen animal clips on the internet as a sort of extension of the zoo, a digital cage and barrier between man & beast that is even less "real," even further removed in the name of our new type of technological/capitalistic invention. At first I thought that maybe, just maybe, there was a slight return to the warm glow of anthropomorphism but I think the new way we look at animals is actually far more sinister: the humanistic situations and emotions that viral animal videos project might just be a replacement for our own human connections (shudder).



People are more removed from one another than ever before, virtually living lives...is our preoccupation with cute animals online a way to feel? A way to inject an emotion into our pixel laddened digital existence? A different sort of porn to evoke a different set of lacking feelings? I think the answer (eerily) might be yes. We've gone beyond the simple marginalization of animals Berger saw and created them into a trigger for the most base of human responses (feeling). Animal vids are a synthesis of each stage that Berger suggests we created between the growth of man and their relation with animal- spawning a language creation of otherness (lolz cats can haz cheezeburger?), a projection of human like attributes onto the animals to feel closer to them, acting as pieces of the viral video producing machine, marginalized from any sense of reality on the interwebs...and hell, what is the current digital age but a mash up of everything all at once? All of Berger's stages of animal & man's relationship bursting at the frame of Grumpy Cat!



Now, how did I get here? O, yes...the One Minute Film Fest! The One Minute Film Fest acted as a kind of historical bridge between viral video and short film but, most importantly, it acted as a full blown experience of human connection through the screenings and audiences it brought together each year, a thing that film is meant to do and that, one might argue shark cats riding roombas on the internet are also doing in a completely new type of communal, commenting audience- the bridge here the Mass MoCA exhibit inviting audiences to ponder these films in a newer type of film setting known as the museum...We each view these films on our own devices and then take to the internet or (gasp!) sometimes real life (Cinefamily even recently hosted a Cute Animal Film Festival series & a lecture on The Feline Gaze: The Art of the Cat Film as part of their legendary Everything Is Festival pushing the boundaries of viral cat videos and communal viewing experience- o good god, is the feature length cute animal movie the future of cinema? ) and share the clips of animal cuteness or cunning or human quality to bring us emotionally closer together. We've gone ahead and marginalized animals, reduced them to an "other" of animals-in-video-form, as a way to fill the void of humanity that we all experience between the 1s & 0s of our everyday lives, to maybe make our own technology driven marginalization feel more cute & fuzzy...I wonder what the next step for our furry friends of micro-short cuteness?  I can't predict our relationship with animals but I truly hope it teeters on the conservation/less marginalization for all side (like this breathtaking piece ) moving backwards in Berger's time line- as opposed to hurtling forth into a dystopic future of feature films made by robots of extinct cute bunnies!

(Note: as for the One Minute FF exhibit these folks had a nice showing: Jorge Columbo with his painting of a film 43rd Floor, Tine Oksbjerg's stark reflections Look away- Love is nowhere (it has a dog!), and Megan Cumps' dreamy, magnetic Swamp (a frog is in this one!).


Thursday, August 8, 2013

Two Women


ELENA, a film by Petra Costa - OFFICIAL TRAILER [HD] - English Subtitles from Petra Costa on Vimeo.

This post is about two young female directors and their feature film debuts, two near-autobiographical docs as different as two docs could be.  These two self styled films move beyond the accessibility of filmmaking in the digital revolution- a thing that is somewhat weakening the doc genre- each work possessing its own unique vision of storytelling, each director voicing their own aching journey through very different, but at the same time both poignantly personal, lives.

Elena is a journey of a young girl, actually two young girls, two young Brazilian sisters, the overlap between them, and the creative love that filled the spaces shared & unshared. The elder sister, Elena, an aspiring actress and accomplished modern dancer becomes cracked open by a deep depression that results in her loss, sending her younger sister, Petra (the film's director) navigating through the wide outpouring of creativity that existed between the two; home movies, letters, tape recordings, a deep media diary of their friendship. Petra's exploration sets sail unlike any other "seeking" doc I've seen before combining a complicated collage of sights and sounds, imagery of a literary caliber, near experimental/surrealist interludes of beauty, all piecing together a life through pre-internet home media, a time prior to the explosion of the digital self governed by skillful lifestyle editing. Apart from the actual editing wonder of this film, sleekly and effortlessly combining the varying images it culls from, the emotional wonder is just as compelling.

The chasms of depression are handled so well, the scratchy disconnect unable to truly be bridged by those existing outside of it, a darkness that the director shines a weak little flashlight into hoping for answers to the questions of why her sister disappeared and why she continues on despite their stark similarities. Petra's meager flashlight turns out to be something far greater though, it turns out to act like the moon, a distant light that dances through her camera lens that seems miniscule in the sky but is in fact an unfathomable force of nature. The richness in filmmaking demonstrated by Petra is incredible for such a young filmmaker and for such a weighted subject, a subject that could have easily sunk into despair but instead turns into a buoyant hope. A hope for love, a hope for family, and a hope for artistic preservation in an ever increasing impermanent world...and then there is the opposite of this movie: I Hate Myself :)

The director Julia Arnow doesn't really hate herself I think. I think she just doesn't love herself. Which is a big difference. Which is why her film,  I Hate Myself :), is so jarring as we watch her try to grasp for love, connection, and herself through her grainy digital camera. Arnow's film begins as an exploration into her first boyfriend, an abrasive self defined performance artist/poet who also happens to be an emotionally abusive leech/drunk and, possibly a racist (he's not really a racist, I think he's more ignorant which can be equally as awful a crime). His derelict tendencies are a constant throughout the film but the film is actually all about Arnow, the reflections of herself bounced off of those she is in contact with (her aforementioned boyfriend, her loud supportive-yet-wary parents, her nude film editor, her friend's disembodied voices on the phone). These reflections are then removed, reflected, and looked at once again as Arnow captures them behind the camera. One harsh, memorable moment was watching a headphone and camera clad Arnow listening to her boyfriend's ex-girlfriend from a distance, the ex commenting on  Arnow's looks, a callous, hurtful experience decidedly slapped into the film. This scene presents a loathing self image manufactured by someone else, captured by Arnow and then re-appropriated into Arnow's own self portrait, giving her image strength by facing the harsh reality- the opposite of the curated perfection of our facebook selves.

Arnow's film brings to mind this Miranda July sculpture I love of a carved pedastel in which people can stand on engraved with the following "This is my little girl. She is brave and clever and funny. She will have none of the problems that I have. Her heart will never be broken. She will never be humiliated. Self doubt will not devour her dreams." The reality of this sentiment is encapsulated in Arnow's film: existing in a post-feminist time and place that pretends to be welcoming to female existence but, in fact, continues to be just as emotionally difficult and traumatic, a truth that Arnow challenges through both sides of her very own lens. Arnow is a young female director shining a light on her shortcomings but also on those of others, and she is somehow able to work through her halting environment- internal and external- to create a strong, harsh, hideous image of both herself and of the meddling, confusing, cold (digital?) environment that has created her.


Both of these films are collages of the worlds these women are engulfed in. Petra molds a dreamlike search for her sister using the media around her to create a fluttering poem of grainy 80s home movies mixed with a crisp dreamlike digital symbolism. Arnow sees people as the medium, catching their intricacies, expertly cutting together her footage of them in their drab, native habitats with a confrontational camera that catches the dark grossness of human emotion, or lack thereof, and the dim recesses of neurotic NYC malaise. Experiencing these films made for a deep contemplation on the lives of these women and, in turn, my own self-image creation... It is important to recognize how differently we each see the world and it is equally important how we choose to manifest ourselves in it. Every life is meaningful and stunning, we all have heartache and we all see the moon, how will we choose to tell our versions of these things to others and how will we choose to listen to the stories of others?

Labels:

Thursday, August 1, 2013

Summer Slowblog

Ah yes, the summer slowblog...being that I have been doing rigorous physical therapy to relearn how to walk (my withered leg an interesting accessory to my summer wardrobe), was told this week that my bone has not healed even though it should have, and I have been out of work due to all of this I have been trying to hustle to make ends meet lately resulting in the bare bones blogging of late, a thing I hope to fix in the approaching months! 

Here is a teaser of upcoming blog posts along with a picture of a welded mastadon I just came across at a random crossroad- isn't she a beauty! Blog topics: Documentaries Should Tell a Story (DUH!) & the Golden Age of Docs, the premier of I Hate Myself :) (an eerie autobiography of a self loathing female director), Contemporary Art: No More Concept, Much More Culture, The Taxidermy of Small Town Museums, Collecting Art and Watching Films (how the eff do people display video art and is video art over?). I'm also hoping that I get to see a few films that are doing the rounds for reviewing, any suggestions? I want to see Blackfish (Sea World, could it be Satan?), Blue Jasmine (a new Woody Allen that looks to keep in line with his Greek Tragedy style), the new Nicholas Winding Refn, and I am hoping to find a way to catch some old fashioned summahtime horror in V/H/S 2 (a film whose first edition I couldn't rave enough about). O, and lastly, a few films I have written about in the past seem to be making the theater rounds: Cutie and the Boxer seems to be slowly leaking into theaters and Our Nixon is playing on CNN with tons of press to boot!  Okay, now back to trying to support myself through atrophied leg muscles and also cagey financial planning! Summer break, summer break forever ya'll!


Saturday, July 13, 2013

If you could say it in words there would be no reason to paint.- Edward Hopper

I've been trying to write a post about going to see a painting show in Northern Vermont, Edward Hopper in Vermont, for what feels like weeks. I just can't formulate something to say about it exactly. Not that is was bad by any means, but it felt really limited in a way? Seeing Hopper's work isolated to these few landscapes, often dotted with Maple groves and sugarhouses, barns and sloping mountains, wispy clouds and flowing streams, made me agitated: what about his other work? How would someone looking at this begin to comprehend how different these images are from what he is known for- gas stations, diners, windowshades? But then, upon being a little agitated by the lack of formal comparison, I started to think deeper: is there really a difference? Do his cityscapes and landscapes, his renderings of pastoral or the urban, change the painter? Do they change what he is doing, conveying? Is being unable to describe what I saw a shortfall of the work? A shortfall of my "work?" No. Not at all. And then this train of thought began a long and winding internet search into a thing I've been really preoccupied with lately: what do we look at when we look at art? Stick with me guys, I'll try to make it un-boring! I might even mention something you like! Like.... um, hmm...zombies? Do kids still like zombies? To self: How the hell am I gonna deliver zombies...?

This interview with Hopper, which is pretty bad but capped by him reading two very important texts from his career, made me start to see how the artist sees his work.

"Great art is the outward expression of an inner life in the artist, and this inner life will result in his personal vision of the world. No amount of skillful invention can replace the essential element of imagination." 1953, Reality magazine

Here Hopper realizes that what he is making is not a depiction of reality, it is a depiction of HIS reality. The way he feels about a subject is inherent in the way he renders it, even if techniques are copied or the same paint used, it is our own eyes and brains that create the mood of an image...the feeling of space through forms and light. And this is where things get tricky for me!

I noticed in Hopper's paintings of Vermont, some even made in the very hamlet I live in (!), that shape and light are used nearly identically to how he uses them in his urbanscapes (gasp! C'mon! This is neat guys! ZOMBIES! Eh..?!). Hopper sees geometric shapes and light pouring off of them, light that he also tends to portray in a very formal way (as opposed to a wishy washy haze or glow of Impressionists), in a way mimicking the gridded layout of the budding cities he painted...but, these geometric forms are also present in the nature he encountered as well. Hopper dissects a mountain, and even more so the human endeavors cutting into the pastoral scene, through his geometry-addled brain and his own perception (or impression? or his own wants? and desires? I mean, who knows if the light really looked like that...and even then, if he was attempting a real expression it is still his own perception of said light which, as we know, lies to us all the time!): Hopper's way of seeing is inherent across his subjects. So then, what does this mean?

My aim in painting has always been the most exact transcription possible of my most intimate impressions of nature...The trend in some of the contemporary movements in art, but by no means all, seems to deny this ideal and to me appears to lead to a purely decorative conception of painting... 1933 Notes on Painting MoMA catalogue

Thank goodness Hopper isn't around to see Jay-Z rapping about Picasso and how awesome it would look in his "casa"....Hopper saw himself as a sort of recorder of history, a person exploring and documenting how he, as a man of his time, surrounded by the world of his time, tuned into his particular history: he saw these shapes because they were the shapes being made, he saw the light this way because it was the way it looked ot him pouring off of this new style of architecture and life.


...I believe that the great painters with their intellect as master have attempted to force this unwilling medium of paint and canvas into a record of their emotions. I find any digression from this large aim leads me to boredom...In its most limited sense, modern, art would seem to concern itself only with the technical innovations of the period. In its larger, and to me irrevocable, sense, it is the art of all time of definite personalities that remain forever modern by the fundamental truth that is in them. Notes on Painting

So, painters paint how they feel! Yes, yes they do! What else would they do? Painters create a mood, an atmosphere, that we are confronted with as we stare into the natty canvas smeared with oils. When we look at a painting is it the shapes alone that move us? Not really...it is the person behind those shapes that configured them that we sense. I still fucking remember seeing Guernica as a wee little kid- just a photo- and feeling the eerie, raw turmoil of inequality in the seemingly simplistic triangles of contrasting grey, white, & black pigment...the figures and their feelings, and our progressive endeavors to capture them, are our own history that is more accurate than any written account.

Ok, so I didn't mention zombies...but I mentioned Jay-Z, did that keep you here? I hope so! I guess I had such a hard time formulating this post- I mean it was just paintings, small, watercolors of trees for goodness sake!- because of where it- they, the paintings- took me. Culture is the record of feeling and history that we leave behind. Culture can be science, writing, painting, film, even sports (hate sports)- it is like a folk history that we create in order to express all facets of lives as we live them- feelings, media, events, change, that each generation, and hell, each person, experiences differently. Recording our lives so as to convey, perpetuate, improve, warn and love the future...a legacy that I feel like the art world (See above regarding Jay-Z and the trendy commercialization of status symbol, design element art) and all the other money driven media has been chipping away at lately. Remove the money and we have a beautiful history of the complicated world. And THAT is why I write this blog. And that is why Hopper's unassuming barn slanted atop a small hill that he sat in his car sketching, that he chose to take down as a documentation of it being there in that time and place, with his eyes upon it, is still looked upon by our eyes, and will continue to be gazed at in awe, as artifact, for future generations.






Wednesday, July 10, 2013

Bobcat & Bigfoot

Bobcat Goldthwait (yes, THAT Bobcat!) makes films about neo-idolatry. What??!! you might be saying? I thought he made films about dirty drug addled clowns? And sweet little films about beastiality? And likes to co-star in movies with talking horses or screeching beside actors in slapstick cop movies? Well, yes, he has done those things. But, Goldthwait's career as a feature film writer and director goes far beyond those dim genre bouncing comedies: he is writing and directing about our new myths and doing so in a biting, dark, stormy, hilarious, and as humanistic way as possible. Yes, that Bobcat!

Luckily I just got a preview of his latest feature film Willow Creek (which seems to not be out yet/be on a minimal fest circuit? WTF programmers? Actually, why the hell haven't any of his most recent features been more lauded in the film world? Hmf! Update June 2014! It's on its way!), a found footage Bigfoot movie that trails the fate of a couple as they strike out in search of the fabled American creature. The main characters bumble around touristy Bigfoot-ville territory, the lead male channeling a gel-ed Seacrest as he records himself narrating his self produced Bigfoot doc, his reluctant girlfriend (played by the gaunt & spectacular Alexie Gilmore- she is awesome, put her in more things Holly-world!) dispassionately supporting her dopey boyfriend's genuine Sasquatch wishes. As they amble around they encounter a mix of folks (some that seem like actors but others possibly bona fide enthusiasts) hovering around the Yeti town, recording interviews with them against a backdrop of totems & statues of the beast (the female lead defiantly jerking off the invisible penis of the large, carved statue in the Bigfoot Motel parking lot- I DID warn it was that Bobcat...). The couple trek to the scene of the classic Bigfoot film site tucked away in the wilds of the Northern Westcoast, where things don't exactly go as planned...the rest you should see for yourself and I really hope in the theater since, as in the tradition of the found footage-suspense-doc-thrillerish film, it's the things unseen and the things you can't un-hear that envelope you in a dark, creepy ambiance that is only amplified by the huge theater experience, every moment a tense build to the final shot "found" on the camera of the ill fated protagonist. So good!

Like in his two other most recent films, God Bless America and World's Greatest Dad, Goldthwait seems preoccupied with our American tradition of worship. Joel Murray, in God Bless, is pushed to the edge by the lack of empathy in the grotesque America we have become (with a particular disdain for reality tv) causing him to go on his own nasty killing rampage to set things "right." In World's Greatest, Robin Williams tackles a disgust for a culture that deifies an asshole (this is just a loose description since I don't want to give it away- it really is a must see!). Hell, even the one with the lady who performs an "unspeakable" sex act really is just another take on what society is willing to see as acceptable: who is worthy of who's judgement. Willow Creek follows suit too as it unassumingly unpacks our belief systems of what we put our trust and faith into, in this case regarding a legendary American folk tale. If these loaded topics weren't enough, the thing that takes these films even further into the realm of cultural critique, that makes them more of just plain fleeting social satire, is the fact that they are films.

Goldthwait uses the blackest of dark comedy to tell his stories but that is not his only mechanism, these gothic modern tales are often preoccupied with the very medium they are told in. A found footage film (Willow Creek), using tv as a platform for (idiotic?) messages (God Bless), a diary as a conduit for a persona (World's Greatest)- Goldthwait is fully aware that media is a transmittable form that can broadcast the new idols of today, however good or bad. Media is a powerful tool that we should be wary of, available to anyone for whatever their own particular message/need/want is. We shape our societal expectations, we worship the star, and we decide what is funny and what is too far all from our livingroom tvs or giant plush reclining movie chair with our mega-sodas in hand: does this make us an idol? Or does this make us a member of the congregation? Is the director (or other media maker) the one shaping our new national religion?

Goldthwait expertly uses funny (mixed with blood, terror, sex, fallacy- which sounds like a Red Hot Chili Peppers bootleg!) to remind us that no one really knows the demarcation of the fine line between right & wrong in the powerful church of media. Whether we are in the audience or behind the camera we all get to choose what we worship (/buy), how we behave, what media we are willing to believe, but, as Goldthwait seems to warn, we still need to question the sources, the broadcasted norms, and even our understanding of reality if we want to live in a world worth living in... If something must be believed in I might just join the Church of Goldthwait who is laughing through our bleak existence and asking us to laugh- and think- as well, but for now I will continue to watch his progressive, regressive cult films that remind me that there is no normal or truth in this crazy, media-driven world. And Bobcat? Keep it up you warbly-voiced demi-god! Willow Creek opening June 6th, 2014

Labels:

Monday, June 17, 2013

Beauty is A Kind of Truth

As we all know, the accessibility of film making is at an all time high..for better or for worse! The documentary film genre has undergone mutations, a multitude of new directorial perspectives, a glut of content (from Juggalos to post nuclear disaster aftermath), a near constant permutation of stories, even spawning low life, everyday docs in everyone's home in the form of the dreaded "reality" tv.  A lot of people argue that the increase in documentaries, and the unrealness of "reality" tv further blur the line between the real and unreal, fact and fiction, in a potentially damaging way... but, so what? All stories are retold so what makes documentaries, and for that matter journalism even, a lesser account of what really happened? This is an issue that has skirted around me the last few weeks, probably stemming from my incessant boring re-telling of the story of "how I broke my leg" but also concurrent with a lot of culture I've encountered in recent days too.

I kept hearing a lot about Ken Burns' The Central Park Five film, a piece about the wrongful conviction of a group of wilding teens in the late 80s who were branded as the vicious attackers of a (the?) Central Park jogger. I finally saw a preview of the dvd and the film is incredible. A well researched (the story was actually Burns' daughter's college thesis which then was adapted into a book & then film) document on not only the case, treatment, and lives of the boys but also a stunning portrait of a dangerous, dirty graffiti covered, racially tense New York of days long gone (some of the archival NY footage portrayed a city I had only read about and had distant foggy childhood memories about, of prostitutes & panhandlers flooding every street, a version of the city that the city seems to want to forget; read Malcom Gladwell's essay on "The Power of Context" in The Tipping Point for more scope on this not-so-distant NY past of terrifying confused justice). The Central Park Five follows in the footsteps of Errol Morris' The Thin Blue Line, Morris' first feature that exonerated an innocent man on death row and included stylistic concepts that would become the heart of this sub-genre of modern historical justice tale; talking heads, dramatic interludes of symbolic images, archival film footage. These types of films are a kind of documentary/journalism that often act as a historical document, or reparation, or a revision: they loudly undo what the past lauded as truth or add to an already existing understanding of a particular time & place. The boys, now men, convicted of the rape and murder in Central Park deserve their voices to be heard again and this time away from the context of harm, guilt and corruption....a thing the police tried to shelter so much they subpoenaed footage Burns had used for the film in order to resist a court case in which the boys were suing the NYPD. The thing that I find slightly unnerving about people urging or applauding the documentation of truth- a thing I came in contact with a lot when promoting Gravity, a "true" story of fantastical interlude- is that the nature of documentation- films, journalism, photos, etc- are all stories retold through they eyes of another. How is anything accurate when even our eyes see colors differently? This inherent inaccuracy of, well, life, is a fact that the play Not What Happened (as presented by the Vermont Performance Lab this past weekend), pointedly shone a spotlight on.

The play centers on a historical reenactor performing the life of a woman from the late 1700s and the actual woman, both with the ever-so obvious name "Silence." The interpretor is a modern gal, recounting the "facts" to her audience/tour of what is known about the life of this long dead lady. Piecing together faded headstones, embroidered pillows, pieces of a letter found in a chimney moved to make way for the highway- all fragments of a life that others have recreated into a version of history. The "actual" Silence begins her appearance through broken speech, gesture, slowly building up her identity as she tells us hazy vignettes of events as she recalls them- sometimes even resorting to simple sound effects to describe an action. The play was accompanied by a series of beautiful black & white photographic projections by the artist Forrest Holzapfel,  artistic and obscured historical artifacts, unexplained relics of a time past. The fact that this was a play, an acting out of layer upon layer of fictions, with short hints at a historical realness, further clouds the validity and questioning of what is fact for the audience's eyes.  Language lies, stories lie, even pictures lie and the truth is only in the experience and the existing knowledge we believe as truth that we bring to each new thing we experience.

I know that this outlook, the one that nothing can be trusted or that all artifice is a turbulent sea of truths, might sound bleak or paranoid or confused, but it really isn't. Truth in history is not an easy thing to capture, truth in artistic pursuits related to history is even moreso. When thinking of where your information is coming from, where the portrait in front of you was painted, what person the news is so quick to villify for your attention/ad traffic sales, it is smart to take it all with skepticism. When I think about documentary film- and all other forms of truth revolving pursuits- I am not thinking about seeing a solid piece of history, I am thinking about seeing an interpretation of information. I am thinking about how all of what I know will create another version of what it is I am taking in and add to the wide open ocean of fact and fiction..an outlook that one would think the internet age would wholly comprehend? People like to say that truth is beauty but nothing is ever really truthful making the beauty only in the eye, and mind, of the beholder...

A FREE screening of The Central Park Five is to be presented by Rooftop Films in NY tomorrow night with the men whom the film is about on hand for a Q&A. For more information click here. Images from film/case at top.

The next staging of Not What Happened will be at Silvermine Arts Center June 22nd & 23rd.
An exhibit of the photographs from the play will be on view at the Catherine Dianich Gallery in Brattleboro, VT until July 26th. Images from a previous project by the photographer at bottom.

Monday, May 27, 2013

Art Social

In titling this post I found that Art Social is a business that sponsors painting and wine tasting classes...which is sort of the opposite of what I intended this post to be about! I do lean towards the socially conscious practice of art, whether through content, action or just plain thoughtful living. A few things caught my eye this week that are important to the crossover of creativity and progressive thinking which to me should be one of the foundation of deciding to put things into the world in the first place! Below are a list of programs and resources that I think are vital to the way we look at not just art...but at everything. (All pictures courtesy of The Illuminator, Mission: To smash the myths of the information industry and shine a light on the urgent issues of our time.)


1. The Memphis Brooks Museum was an amazing place I visited a few years back, gracious hosts, a supreme art collection, community building & outreach, all perched upon a large green park in the middle of a ramshackle, sweltering, and awesome (!) city. This museum is currently hosting a series of tours for Alzheimer's patients that I think is absolutely incredible. The tours are directed, intimate, and focus on talking with the patients as individuals in hopes of invoking some sort of clarity or memory for those afflicted with the disease. Taking my own brain degenerative parent to see a Dali exhibit a few years back was truly something that touched him in a way that little else has, I am glad to see other people recognize the therapeutic value of art for these particular patients. This is a program that should be supported, cherished and copied throughout all museums!

2. The main thing that keeps me going in terms of blogging is the e-mails that I get from readers, a wide range of people who find this little site one way or another. Most recently an activist researching contacts for an infographic about the dangers & failings of tech industry jobs reached out after coming across my review of Blood In The Mobile- a beautiful, vivid doc/expose about African mineral mining. Apparently there is still little transparency when it comes to the sources of cell phone minerals but some orgs, like Make IT Fair for example, are still trying to make a better, cleaner, socially conscious wired world. Ask questions about your phone, who knows how many people are ultimately effected by it. (Also, I am really into the infographic craze as of late! A succinct, transmittable platform that displays information in an image based way creating maximum impact and exposure- a true melding of art & knowledge and a step up from a pesky graph! LOVE!)

3. Sort of can't believe I haven't written about The Public School on here before...are you familiar with this project? There is little info about the inception of The Public School other than that it started in 2007 in the basement of the Telic Arts Exchange in L.A. The way I interpret it is that proposals are made for classes, discussions, groups on a variety of subjects (The NoCal May calendar alone ranges from "Intro to Sanskrit" to a class titled "Fantastic Spaces In Cinema: Last Year at Marienbad"), usually on topics that are filling in the gaps of standard education, or promoting a specific type of community building activity. To me the most important phrase I came across when reading about The Public School was this: It is a framework that supports autodidactic activities, operating under the assumption that everything is in everything. I myself and a firm believer in self education, and also that the more we learn about as much as we can the more informed life we can lead (a belief in action that is more than evident in this little bloggy post!). The Public School operates in many major cities, take advantage of this resource!

4. And, last but not least: PUBLIC LIBRARIES! The small town I live in up in the bottom of Vermont has had some shady library board dealings as of late, a thing that I hope our little river community is done with for now...but, the experience did make me value the resource even more! The first job I ever had was a library page, then I had my brief stint in the New York book publishing kingdom, moving on to the film, arts & writing realms- all areas of my life tending to slope into the safe stacks brimming with free information and hushed tones. I know the internet allows so much information to be, literally, at our fingertips, making us tend towards discounting libraries, but libraries (in the progressive role they so often play) are changing with the rest of the world too, filling the new needs of the tech info revolution. Historical databases, Arduino workshops, downloadable e-books, lectures on constellations employing open source planetarium-esque apps are just a few of the ways my small town library is keeping up with the world! A librarian I know was talking about the basic function of libraries, of how they came into existence, and the terms she put it in were ones I never thought of: to educate and inform those who need to be informed in order to feel and be empowered- a true statement that my Brechtian heart fluttered at! Love your library! Dammit! It might just be the key to a new revolution!

Ok, so now I think I got some socially conscious artistic resources out of my system and out into the world! I know these types of posts don't get a lot of hits but I will continue to make them as I feel it is my civic duty to bridge life and art...in fact, it is everyone's civic duty to inform themselves for the betterment of both themselves and the world (do I sound like the label to Dr. Bronner's yet?). Learning Not Fear!