New York Experimental: Volatile Works Collective March 24, 2007

NEW YORK EXPERIMENTAL PRESENTS

Volatile Works Collective: Politics & Poetics: An Evening of Films,
Videos and Animations

Saturday - March 24, 2007 - 6:00 pm
The Tank 279 Church Street
New York, NY - 10013
www.thetanknyc.org

New York Experimental, The Tank's monthly experimental film and video screening series, is pleased to present an evening of works by
Montreal based media arts collective, Volatile Works. They will be present at the screening.

Volatile Works is a five member autonomous film and media arts collective that has been active in Montréal, Québec since 2003. Their works embrace a range of mediums, genres, and spaces of intervention, with a marked affinity for lo-fi/DIY tactical forms of production and engagement. They have appeared in over one hundred film and new media festivals in over twenty-eight countries around the world. They organize regular screenings and events, and have collaborated with other collectives and bands on community-based screenings, workshops in activist video, and music videos. Their practices include digital video, super-8, 16mm, animation, web art, sound, installation, and DIY of all kinds.

The members of Volatile Works are Allan Brown (Witkacy), Brad Colbourne, Tamara Vukov (pomgrenade), Mario DeGiglio-Bellemare and Glenn Gear.

For more information about the Volatile Works Collective please visit:
www.volatileworks.org

SCREENING PROGRAM

NatoNosferatu
(2004 - 3:40 - Tamara Vukov)
A scratch video intercutting news footage of the 1999 Nato Bombing of
Yugoslavia with the German expressionistic vampire classic Noferatu.
NatoNosferatu highlights the demonizing double binds of a militaristic
humanitarianism, in which we are told we have no choice but to pick
sides between monsters of differing technological and civilizational
orders. The montage pushes the limits of the North American media's
classical gothic imagery of a rational, technologically superior west
imposing moral order on a monstrous Balkans.

The Invisible Voice of IMU
(2:50 - Witkacy)
Tuberculosis, institutionalization, homelessness, pseudo-democracy,
hyper-consumerism, public existence, private space, a chair, a
stripper and Ivan Marvin Ulanov are the beats and pieces of "The
Invisible Voice of IMU."

Pig Runner
(2004 - 2:00 - Witkacy)
A meditation on US military power, "Pig Runner" combines found footage of a WWII US military POW training film with the infamous images of
Abu Ghraib from Iraq.

House
(2004 - 2:20 - Witkacy)
"House" is a found footage film, re-editing sound and image from an
archival 50s nuclear testing film. "House" evokes the sense of
displaced home and space in a globalized world of increasingly divided
wealth and poverty.

Resettlement
(2002 - 03:15 - Glenn Gear)
This haunting and poetic short combines documentary footage,
stop-motion animation and video as it revisits a time of community
resettlement in Newfoundland's history. Carried out through the 1950's
to the 1970's by way of government directed programs that sought to
amalgamate the small traditional fishing villages to larger community
centers, resettlement resulted in 250 – 300 fishing villages vanishing
in less than a few decades—marking the end of a unique way of life.

Ikuma Siku
(2005 - 06:58 - Glenn Gear)
Ikuma Siku (roughly translated as "fire and ice" from Inuktitut) is an experimental, painterly animation exploring the growing friendship between an Inuk and an English immigrant set in and around the ruggedcoastline of northern Labrador in 1849.

Volatile Works does Coney Island
(2005 - 11:00 - Allan Brown - Glenn Gear - Chris MacKinnon - Brad Colbourne - Tamara Vukov - Mario DeGiglio-Bellemare)
Volatile Works pillages the public domain Prelinger archives, sampling and remixing archival footage from the heyday of Coney Island. Six remixes create a cinematic funhouse mirror of carnival themes and collective memories, from the freaks, dancing girls and beauty queens
that define us all, to the playfulness and poignancy of amusement park
nostalgia.

Donkey Harvest
(2005 - 11:00 - Allan Levasseur Brown)
A factory worker loses his job. On his return home to his family, he
embarks on a surreal journey where he is confronted with an
environment at odds with his social reality.

Kuleshov's Paradox
(2005 - 10:00 - Witkacy)
A woman under hypnosis visualizes an abstracted world of fear and
eroding freedoms then awakens to an underwater world far from the
chaos above. Kuleshov's Paradox is part two of a trilogy focusing on
the automobile as an instrument of death and oppression inspired by
the ghost of Lev Kuleshov.

Zombie Business
(2004 - b&w and color - 16:00 - Mario DeGiglio-Bellemare)
Zombie business is unleashed as the 'invisible hand' of 'voodoo
economics' produces disposable people. Shot in super-8, the film
evokes the silent era, while also mixing B-movie horror, experimental
cinema, and political satire.

New York Experimental is The Tank's monthly experimental film and
video series, focusing on unique moving picture works from emerging
and established artists. The mission of the series is to present a
wide range of work, in regards to both content and aesthetics, from
New York based, national, and international artists, to a general
audience, in a welcoming environment.

For questions about New York Experimental, including programming and the submission process, please contact Susan Agliata at
[email protected] and visit www.thetanknyc.org.

This event has been made possible with the financial support of the
Conseil des artes et des lettres du Québec.

Official Website: http://www.thetanknyc.org