Soundtracked by “Combustion 2” from the Cory Smythe album Smoke Gets In Your Eyes (2022), this video was assembled exclusively from film and television programs that feature the eponymous 1933 song written by Jerome Kern and Otto Harbach. From Judy Garland to Jerry Garcia, Mad Men to The Muppets, the composition has appeared ubiquitous for nearly a century. This case file of disparate specimens spanning across time and genre, linked only by their shared relationship to the song, was collected and processed through an imagined crime lab computer. The resulting montage reveals a chilling and surreal image of retrospective foreshadowing: despite our best efforts, kindling from the dawn of industrial mass production has now grown into a raging inferno. The world burns wildly out of control and yet the party goes on. What may be the last gasp of civilization is reflected through an archival hall of mirrors until the disco ball crashes to the floor, exploding in flames.
A presentation of consumerism during holiday season and a dive into the mentality to pursue materialistic lifestyles
Experimental meditation on land, consciousness, and artificial intelligence. Shot in the Okanagan and West Kootenays. Original music by Jack Brintnell.
Cartas de Arapuca
The parents of an adult infant named "Child", played by Todd Haynes, attempt to expel him from their home, by casting magical spell seen in a television documentary about Malaysian rites of passage.
Experimental narrative with comedy and horror made via long-distance collaboration between two artists.
A person spends most of their life mourning the things they have lost, unable to move on. They frequent a silent but helpful medium and embark on a spiritual journey where they linger among their past lives.
In the aftermath of an emotional shock, a ruthless high-class manager faces her own abyss, becomes pervaded by a sensory spirit and undertakes a purifying voyage.
1993 recording of band Les Rallizes Dénudés performing at the Baus Theater.
Lost in the woods, a panicked Griff desperately tries to find his way home, but as he moves deeper into the depths of the woods he faces more nauseating uncertainties. Bewildered and disoriented, he must leave the woods.
“And, 'twixt the shadows and frights of nocturnal splendors, My beloved will secretly be hiding. Say what you will, say what you may.” The sound of a distant whistle and theorbo calls a sleeping singer through the empty streets of Stuttgart in a midnight journey to the opera house. ‘dei notturni splendori’ is an experimental opera film made for the Staatsoper Stuttgart in the early months of the Coronavirus pandemic lockdown. Anderson Matthew captures the singer Helene Schneiderman through a midnight dream with a hand-cranked kino camera in an ecstatic 35mm photo roman, in search for her own performance of the Tarquinio Merula madrigal Folle é ben chi se crede from 1638.
Sarah and her two cats go about their separate lives. The cats have strange dreams about their desires, and Sarah develops an unshakable paranoia that something is wrong with them. Sarah's paranoia bleeds into her social life, and her two cats have their dreams come true.
Follows experiments of fictional 19th century aristocrat Monsieur Lautréamont, a hypochondriac dandy committed to the pursuit of true aesthetic perfection which he calls “urge-ingeniousness”. The film focuses on the interplay between Lautréamont and Louise, his seductive servant, and switches back and forth between Bock as the master and his reliance on Louise who is all at once nurse, servant, inspiration and lover. The film crosses the boundaries of surreal fantasy and period drama, with Bock playing the tormented genius, an inventor attempting to achieve perfection in every creative aspect: poetry, perfume, and even nature. Filmed at Chateau du Bosc, the family home of the aristocratic dwarf Henri de Toulouse Lautrec. Toulouse Lautrec is clearly the inspiration for Bock’s character
A queer poet navigates heartbreak through writing, techno, and self-destruction.
undressed
A wandering suit man finds love, but that’s not his true desire. Through a seductive encounter, he begins to reveal his own identity and delusions surrounding him.
An experimental sampled film which shows the pleasurable art of movies about movies through scenes inside of theaters.
Jonas Mekas recites poems of his, both in English and Lithuanian. Exclusive Mekas interview by the poet Sparrow. The legendary poet-film critic and film diarist waxes philosophical in rare extended setting exhibiting his transcendental poetic humor. Jonas attacks the crass world of TV advertising and sell-out commercial filmmakers. Contributes zen anecdotes and filmmaking advice. Choice clips include Mekas' Film Diaries with deceivingly formalist amateur "home movie" style, but in small bursts of expression in a quick collage. Footage from Jonas' homeland as well as clips of famed pop figures John Lennon, Yoko Ono and Tiny Tim.
Skin Shade Night Day explores the daily routine and rituals practised by the artist’s Cambodian-Australian family, which are reperformed and documented through a process of embodied empathy. Acts of service, such as gardening and cooking, play out as echoes from the past across a sound and image installation displayed in a shadehouse. Spectres, shadows and aural textures conjure up impressions of a place that remembers how its inhabitants once lived.
For this film, Takashi Makino allowed himself to be inspired by the earth. In a never-ending stream of images, we recognize elements from the forest that he then reduces to an abstraction. The film came about as a classical composition in which the picture and the musical contribution of Jim O’Rourke link up seamlessly and lead the mood in turn. A sense of freedom is what predominates.