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Avant Cinema: THE FRIENDSHIP STATE: TX EXPERIMENTAL FILMMAKERS

Presented by Austin Film Society at Austin Studios

February 22, 2022-February 22, 2013

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"THE FRIENDSHIP STATE was originally conceived for presentation in New York City (where I used to live) as a testament to the vitality of cinema art in Texas (where I live now). Befuddling all the alienating preconceptions about my new state is the direct encounter of Texas from the inside; depth of familiarity takes presence. While I’m still dismayed - horrified - by the reality of the state’s dominant politics, now I know from firsthand experience that there’s also a whole lot of good in circulation. The motto of Texas is "friendship." In my time here, I have been sustained and inspired by the presence of a plethora of film and video artists. THE FRIENDSHIP STATE embraces the dialog between makers and comprises five directors, including me, from diverse points of Texas—each engaging select tactics to reveal, negate and ultimately transcend moving image boundaries."
-- Caroline Koebel, guest curator

Traces (Scott Stark, 2012, 35mm, color, sound, 7:00)
Worldly surfaces, shifting shadows and overlooked patterns: a series of short 35mm films generated from digital still images and printed onto movie film. The top and bottom half of each image alternate in the projector gate, arranged in a dizzying array of rhythms and patterns. The images also bleed onto the optical soundtrack area of the film, generating their own unexpected sounds.

Swoop (Caroline Koebel, 2011, miniDV & Super 8 on video, color/b&w, silent, 7:45)
Inspired by a colony of cliff swallows nesting under a freeway in Austin, Swoop considers human-animal interactions through optical rhythms and flight patterns. Birds—cliff swallows as well as thousands of purple martins on their migration path—collide with new construction to nowhere.

Once It Started It Could Not End Otherwise (Kelly Sears, 2011, video, color/b&w, sound, 7:30)
An animated horror film constructed from the candid photos and handwritten messages of discarded high school yearbooks. As an unknown force seeps into the walls of the school, the student body is consumed one extra curricular activity at a time.

Clouds (Jennifer Lane, 2010, HD video, color, sound, 8:00)
An experimental nature film about the water cycle of planet earth. Mirroring the style of an educational film, images of the unique and varied cloud formations of far West Texas are accompanied by voice-over narration that could have originated from another time and place.

Williamsburg Bridge Walk (Lyndsay Bloom, 2012, hand processed 16mm on video, color, silent, 0:20)
Frame shot every five steps walking across the Williamsburg Bridge, New York, New York.

Plumeria Spider (Lyndsay Bloom, 2012, hand processed 16mm on video, color, silent, 1:05)
Plumeria palm blooms and a hill country spider weaves its web, Houston and Dripping Springs, Texas.

Boat Ride (Lyndsay Bloom, 2012, hand processed 16mm on video, color, silent, 4:45)
Pedal boating Lady Bird Lake with Jesse and discovering an island, Austin, Texas.

Repeat Photography & the Albedo Effect (Caroline Koebel, 2008, video, b&w, sound 8:12)
Intermixes unlikely suspects to reflect upon the impact of global warming on glaciers. Boxing scenes from Scorsese's Raging Bull are re-shot with a Bolex 16mm camera and then hand processed and juxtaposed against NPR reportage and artist Katie Paterson's audio project. Part 1 of Flicker On Off.

Fawn (Jennifer Lane, 2003, 16mm on video, color, sound, 5:00)
A nude, androgynous woman and a wild deer engage in a subtle pas de deux in the rigidly designed interior of a suburban house.

The Drift (Kelly Sears, 2007, digital video, color, sound, 8:20)
A mysterious disappearance on a 1960s space journey launches the counter-culture revolution, the government blocks contraband radio broadcasts, and American fervor for conquering space results in tragic ends. Psychedelic Rock, wayward space transmission, happenings, scientific research, the space race, high hopes, failed dreams, and bodily levitation all come together in the story of The Drift.

Hotel Cartograph (Scott Stark, 1983, 16mm, color, sound, 11:00)
A camera mounted on a movable cart, pointing down at the floor, passes over a seemingly endless succession of gaudy carpets and surfaces in a single shot through a major hotel. The movements across the 2-dimensional space, and in and out of elevators through 3-dimensional space, suggest a conceptual map of the visible environment, which is perhaps drawn by the camera itself.

XOXO (Lyndsay Bloom, 2012, 16mm, color, silent, 2:55)
Multiple exposures of making love with an ex-lover, Austin, Texas.

Barton Springs Lake Travis (Lyndsay Bloom, 2011, hand processed 16mm, color, silent, 2:30)
Water scenes, Austin, Texas.

Kiss (Lyndsay Bloom, 2012, hand processed 16mm, b&w, silent, 1:31)
Underwater shot at Film Farm, Mount Forest, Ontario.