PXL THIS Fest 18 at Oddball Films May 2, 2009

EVENT: PXL THIS 18, the 18th annual showcase of short videos made using the Fisher Price PXL Vision toy camera featuring The Trimorphic Hypotheses, a 17-minute sci-fi landscape mystery created in spectacular “PXL-RAMA”, Paolo Davanzo’s The Fruit of Love, which mixes colorful graphics and distressed PXL Vision footage to explain the history of the banana in the U.S, Geoff and Gwyneth Seelinger’s Birdly, a combination of home movie and motion study, Mr. TV's Postcard From Hell features ex-Saint of the Church of the SubGenius Janor Hypercleats as a slick street puppeteer and much, much more. With Venice-based artist and PXL 18 festival curator Gerry Fialka in person.
DATE: Saturday, May 2nd at 8:30PM
VENUE: Oddball Films, 275 Capp Street, San Francisco, CA 94110
ADMISSION: $10.00 Limited Seating RSVP Only to: [email protected], 4510558-8117

Fest Director Gerry Fialka in Person!
PXL THIS Fest 18
Screens at Oddball Film
“If it works it’s obsolete” -Media futurist Marshall McLuhan

Oddball Films is pleased to present PXL THIS 18 aka the Fisher Price Toy Camera Festival and artist and festival Director/curator Gerry Fialka Saturday, May 2nd at 8:30PM. This year's entries come from New Zealand, Canada, the Czech Republic and across the US. Oddball Films is located at 275 Capp St in San Francisco. Admission is $10.00. Limited seating, some shows sell-out. RSVP to: [email protected] or 415-558-8117.
Established in 1991, Gerry Fialka’s Clap Off They Glass Productions supports independent do-it-yourself video-making by sponsoring the annual PXL THIS Festival, which is the oldest of its kind in the world. The first ever genuine fake film festival prides itself with no corporate sponsors, no color brochures, no big shot movie director board members, no ticketmaster access and no competition. PXL THIS, featured on PBS, IFC and NPR, has screened at MIT and other major venues across the US. PXL THIS spans many genres: documentary, poetry, drama, art, music, political activism, cinema povera, comedy and the avant-garde. The unique Fisher-Price toy camcorder PXL 2000, which records sound and image directly onto audio cassettes, continues to empower artists. This failed toy was only made in the US from 1987 to 1989. The magical PXL 2000 restores a certain humanity to the overpowering technology of video. The irresistible irony of the PXL is that the camera's ease-of-use and affordability, which entirely democratizes movie-making, has inspired the creation of some of the most visionary, avant and luminous film of our time. Films featured in past PXL THIS festivals are archived and available for viewing at the Academy Film Archive in Hollywood.

The highlight of PXL THIS 18, the annual showcase of short videos made using the Fisher Price PXL Vision toy camera, is The Trimorphic Hypotheses, a 17-minute sci-fi landscape mystery created in spectacular “PXL-RAMA,” described as “a devolutionary breakthrough in analog postproduction, turning the crisp, high-definition video of today’s best technology into the coarse, low-resolution of yesterday’s lost artistry.” The result is a split-screen, black-and-white pseudostory about a scientist who wanders a barren landscape, analyzing and measuring the Earth, using a souped-up metal detector and other wacky devices. Made by New Zealand filmmakers Struan Ashby and Roy Parkhurst, this captivating video spoofs B movies from the ’50s and ’60s while crafting an allegory about the attempt to parse nature’s mysteries with technology.

It’s main charms, however, are masterful visual choreography across the three simultaneous frames and perfect sound design incorporating The Ventures’ eerie but rocking “Twilight Zone.” The Trimorphic Hypotheses captures a core aspect of PXL Vision ethos, namely the need to return to the basics of cinema to find its power. Will Erokan's I'M NOT BEER reconstructs Todd Haynes' Bob Dylan film with Robert Dobbs channeling five satellite conductors (including Arthur Kroker & William Irwin Thompson) unveiling the hidden effects of the news humming celebrity culture.
Other notable entries in this year’s survey include Lisa Marr and Paolo Davanzo’s The Fruit of Love, which mixes some colorful graphics and suitably distressed PXL Vision footage to explain the history of the banana in the U.S., and Geoff and Gwyneth Seelinger’s Birdly, a combination of home movie and motion study in which a flying bird at one point disintegrates into 8-bit graphic chunks, its fluttering motion offering the only clue to its identity.

Clint Enn’s An Exploration of Digital Representation offers up meditative, pulsing imagery, with vertical lines and bursts of white light to craft a quick, abstract visual treat, while Joe Nucci’s Me, Terrence and the Boss chronicles a humorous escapade in the life of a limo driver, the camera holding on the driver’s animated face throughout.

PXL THIS Reviews
"PXL is the ultimate people's video." - J. Hoberman, Premiere Magazine

"Since the start of the 21st century, I've attended the annual screenings of the PXL THIS toy camera festival at San Francisco's OTHER CINEMA. I have discovered several patterns of PIXELATOR that are similar to the pioneering video artists of the 60's. One, they reclaim film as a one-person project. Contrary to the popular belief that filmmaking must be collaborative, the solo vision is dominant and documented here. Two, in PXL-land, personal and deeply individualistic issues - frequently in the form of confessionals - are dominant. PIXELVISION forms a quiet sub-genre within the larger category of the 'personal essay' film, an intimate art-world of privacy, whose entries frequently resemble message-in-a-bottle intimacies. These patterns show that expanding the vocabulary of moving image art is still possible - and, indeed, is growing."
-Steve Polta, San Francisco Cinematheque curator

"In the spirit of Andy Warhol's experimental films, the PXL THIS Festival inspires independent artists to create, explore, and discover t he magic of cinema.& nbsp; As a video gallery installation, these works were a curious and wonderful revelation to museum visitors." - Charles Gentry, Curator of Film & Video Art, Flint Institute Of Arts

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