Transmatter
Curated by Tammy McGovern
Transmatter is a program of films and videos produced by artists who have been actively involved in the experimental media arts scene of Buffalo, NY. Featuring six short works that take shape as diary videos, cameraless films, or experimental narratives, each piece focuses on a sense of transitional states, moving from one physical or psychological realm to another, and pushing introspective aspects of viewing through the foregrounding of formal methods of construction. The screening concludes with a half hour video documentation of the late Tony Conrad’s essayistic work, This Piece is Its Name, which incorporates live musical performance with continuous scrolling text interrogating relationships between image, narrative, attention and control. Throughout this program, there are insistent themes of visualizing things difficult to see, and drawing attention to the chasms separating internal formless experience, with the expressive and communicable.
Repeat Photography and the Albedo Effect (2008)
8:12 min
Caroline Koebel
An experimental short that intermixes unlikely suspects to reflect upon the impact of global warming on glaciers. Boxing scenes from Martin Scorsese’s Raging Bull are re-shot with a Bolex 16mm camera and then hand processed and juxtaposed against National Public Radio reportage and artist Katie Paterson’s audio project.
Wilderness Theater (2006)
11:30 min
Lara Odell & Anya Lewin
Two bears, one brown and one white, inhabit multiple spaces: a desert, a snowscape, a post-industrial ruin, a forest, and an interior dreamscape. Meanwhile, a naturalist logs his visions of the bears with a camera and notebook.
Re: Mother (2006)
5:00 min
Dorothea Braemer
An email based argument between two sisters about their mother’s future.
Walk (2006)
3:17 min
Meg Knowles
A documentation of personal change, distraction and devotion, shot on film over 3 months.
Untitled #5 (2016)
5:00 min
Brian Milbrand
Frantic colors and shapes match the soundtrack performed by Kevin Cain, Bobby Millitello and Jim Abramson. Poltergeists and spirits are evoked through the abstract paintings in a way similar to EVP/EMF detectors used by paranormal investigators.
Spore Print Film #16 (2016)
3:00 min
Anna Scime
These experiments begin their lifecycle with the production and collection of the North American edible forest and field dwelling mushrooms. Bellas (agaricus bisorus); chanterelles (cantharellus cibarius); shaggy manes (coprinus comatus); lions manes (hericium erinaceus); and oyster spores (pleurotus ostreatus) comprise this 16mm film print. Contact is slowly severed as they are played, and a new film is gradually produced in installation (some films take months to destroy/create themselves). The soundscape is also derived from the film’s structure. The spores are played by the projector, creating their own organic music as they run through the machine. The film presents media and matter as vibrant and spontaneous. They are not only meant to be seen and heard, but inhaled as well. More information at www.a–a.org or www.sporeprintfilms.org
This Piece Is its Name (2014)
35:00 min
Documentation of Performance by Tony Conrad, (courtesy of Loss Pequeño Glazier)
“Conrad’s score exists as something of an anti-score; his self-referential, cyclical tautology manifests its completion instantaneously, requiring no outside effort, thought, or participation. This Pieces Is its Name reflects his interest in horizontal power structures, as well, with the goal here being the elimination of the separate functions of composer and performer, which Conrad achieves by fusing the instruction’s creation and completion into one simple phrase.” – Liz Glass, “The Moment of Enlightenment is a Sound”
Curator:
Tammy McGovern is a media artist with interests in interactive and electronic media from USA. Her film, video, installation and interactive work has been included in shows at Hallwalls, UB Poetics Wed@4 Series, E-Poetry Digital Literature Festivals, Schwienfurth Memorial Art Center, Visual Studies Workshop, various online net art exhibits as well as film and video screenings at Alfred University, Clifford Art Gallery and the Malaysian Institute of Art. Currently Tammy works at Buffalo State College in Buffalo, New York, teaching courses in web, media and graphic production.