West Coast

California Academy of Sciences

The Academy was PACKED to the gills, it being raining and a Monday (when other museums are typically closed).  Though I felt oppressed by the crowds, the dioramas were definitely worth it.

Oakland Museum of California

This is me sitting in a bronze replica of the chair from the famous photograph of Huey Newton where he is holding a shotgun in one hand and a tribal spear in the other.  The piece is called "Monument to Huey Newton for the Alamada County Courthouse."

With its integration of art, natural and cultural history, and innovative "interactive" elements, the Oakland Museum has the freshest take on exhibitions that I've seen in a loooong while.  

PBL and Craig Baldwin outside Pakwan

It's always such a treat to see Craig!  Just prior to our outing for a Pakistani meal in the Mission, Craig entertained us in his basement lair with an amazing clip from a 16mm film about avant-garde art from the late 60's-- one of many new reels in his collection rescued from an educational library in the process of decessioning its celluloid.

The excerpt we watched was of Len Lye showing off his sound sculptures!  I had no idea that he was making anything like that. The reel looked to be a good 40 minutes... I wonder what other gems lie therein.  This one is destined for Craig's special "pink trunk" which contains the few films in his collection to be spared from the editing room. 

Jay with Chris Kubick on top of his strange studio building

After many many months of envisioning this place in my mind's eye, we finally visited with Chris at his studio, housed in a nearly vacant research facility that has been undergoing a long process of dissolution.  Hallway after hallway of empty laboratories and offices with rooftop greenhouses devoid of life envelop the creative vital force contained within Chris' studio.

Tiebe and Anne

Our trip featured lots of family action, with many new babies making the scene alongside reconnections with old friends who have been building families for a few years now.

Jenna, Oliver, and Jay at an M&A project on the LACMA grounds

After a night of gallery hopping in Culver City, we ended up at the La Brea Tar Pits and were treated to a visit with this recent Materials & Applications project, Promiscuous Production:  Breeding is Bittersweet. With bitter melon set to grow up on one side of the structure and sweet melon on the other, the two fruits have been set-up for interbreeding.

Gerry Fialka and me

My friend Vera Burner-Sung shot this one.  We drove out to Venice to visit with Gerry and had a great talk about the Ann Arbor Film Festival, the making of art, and the creative impulse.  He made us a fruit salad for lunch.  Hanging out with Gerry is consistently gratifying, and invariably built around heartfelt, intelligent debate.

TOUR: Southern California (Northbound Leg)

Nina took us to the train station after we got rid of the rental car, and hung out long enough to absorb the depot vibe before we said our goodbyes. I love the relaxed atmosphere of train travel. We settled into our sleeperette on the Southwest Chief and soon were off. In this first moment of the 108+ hours we would be spending on the train over the next few weeks, I did a little dance in the small space between our seats.

elray on the train

Our train pulled in an hour early the next morning at LA Union Station. It wasn't long before Vera Bruner-Sung, another comrade from the Ann Arbor Film Festival (from now on referred to as "The Ann Arbor School"), scooped us up. Vera is one thesis film away from her masters at Cal Arts, was just completing a review of James Benning's new book, doing lots of yoga, and glowing in the swoon of young love.


It was gray and rainy, and Vera took excellent care of us for the day, helping us to laundry, naps, a ride to the movies (Errol Morris' "Standard Operating Proceedure"), good dialogue, and more.


VENICE:

We made our way out to Venice beach by way of a ride to the Center for Land Use Interpretation (where we said hello to Matt Coolidge, albeit briefly as he was ensconced in tax forms), then bus, then foot. It was one of those gorgeous sunny and mild southern California days. We walked up the boardwalk to Dudley Street and found the 7Dudley Cinema in the middle of the first block in from the beach. Gerry Fialka, also of the Ann Arbor School, was arranging chairs and setting up the projector.

The space was cozy, and our audience an intimate one. Quintessential Venice Beach, there were at least two people present with bare feet.

Deep Venice - Gerry generously offered us the futon-couch at his & Suzy's cozy bungalow, a home-cooked gourmet breakfast, and a ride out to Silver Lake the next day. It was a real treat. Neighborhood locales are essential to life in LA, and Gerry prepared for what seemed to be a major excursion by gathering up a big stack of trash-picked LPs to haul inland to Amoeba Records.

This embroidery on felt is one of the many treasures discovered inside at Gerry & Suzy's place.

Gerry interviewing Jay

one of the many treasures discovered outside at Gerry & Suzy's place

ECHO PARK:

The next thing I remember is going on a bike ride to downtown LA, then a rapid decline into illness just before and during a great meal prepared by my old friend Jenna. I spent the next several days in bed, making my way to and performing at whichever next gig.

After months in flat Texas, I'm excited about the verticality of the LA cityscape.

The Echo Park Film Center was hopping with the energy of numerous kids in tight quarters editing videos when we walked in. This wonderful little community film center, lovingly run by the beautiful couple Lisa and Paolo, is an oasis of real and effective hands-on grass-roots media making. Although I was fairly wiped out from the viral occupation, we truly enjoyed the audience and our show there. Much respect and love to those folks! And long-live the EPFC!

A2F2 TOP 3, #2

A2F2 archivist Gerry Fialka intends to publish
"History of the Ann Arbor Film Festival"
in time for 5oth in 2012!!

The sessions he delivered were a real treat: Kick Out the Jams & AAFF Innovators. I found them both to be a great way to start out my day. Fialka presided (while claiming to not be a teacher, rather a moderator of an open-ended discussion) at the University of Michigan School of Art & Design Work Gallery, just around the corner from the Michigan Theater, posing many slippery, open-ended questions. The one which bent my mind the most:

If we were to begin the a2f2 today, should we be inclusive or exclusive?

The tip of a deeeep iceberg for me right now-- now being a moment of massive change in terms of the way capitialism has taken hold at the global level, the evolution of communications technologies, the myth of the starving artist and the breakdown of Modernism's ideals. But we artists must evolve in tandem with the evolution of our world. We deal our trade in creativity, and ought to be imagining our best reality... and building it.

"We must be guided only by what the situation requires."
(Beuys)

McLuhan's Tetrad
1) What does it enhance or intensify?
2) What does it render obsolete or replace?
3) What does it bring back that was previously obsolete?
4) What does it become when pressed to an extreme, what does it flip into?

Fialka led us through the McLuhan Tetrad on various subjects such as the use of compositing within the moving image, and the long take (Warhol, Snow, Tarkovsky). The resulting interactive brainstorms verged on a freeflow of associations rooted within our collective knowledge of film, causing our knowledge base to reform in new and interesting constellations.

McLuhan's Tetrad as applied to compositing
(answers offered up that I can remember):
1) What does it enhance or intensify?
multiplication of reality
2) What does it render obsolete or replace?
representational imagery
3) What does it bring back that was previously obsolete?
the Surrealist films of makers such as Buñuel and Cocteau
4) What does it become when pressed to an extreme, what does it flip into?
MTV, commercialization of moving image

McLuhan's Tetrad as applied to the long take
(answers offered up that I can remember):
1) What does it enhance or intensify?
inner dialogue, observation
2) What does it render obsolete or replace?
editing
3) What does it bring back that was previously obsolete?
early cinema
4) What does it become when pressed to an extreme, what does it flip into?
possibly enlightenment

"The user is the content."
(McLuhan quoted by Fialka)

This diagram popped into my mind in thinking about this idea. Where the artist produces the film (a), which is projected onto a screen (b), and the viewer (c) observes it, but the reality of what s/he experiences is a projection of her/his own mind. (Can we ever be truly objective?)


It is truly wonderful to know that a record of the Ann Arbor Film Festival is in the making, and it is being guided by someone who is deeply dedicated to the exploration of knowledge, holds an affinity for the A2F2, and is intimate with the language of experimental cinema and media philosophy. Thanks Gerry!