The Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) - Boston presented an exclusive 2011 edition of TIE, The International Experimental Cinema Exposition on Saturday evening March 5th to a large crowd of filmmakers, programmers and film enthusiasts from the area and across North America. The exhiibition featured a special two-part program, highlighting the work of internationally renowned artists’ experimental films in beautiful 16mm, which included a section of new work by Boston filmmakers.

While ground-breaking work on original celluloid-based film has been continuing its invigorating renaissance around the world, the TIE programs drew attention to these intriguing works, bringing together internationally celebrated talents from different generations of filmmakers.

The program presents an exclusive opportunity to to view an original lineup that included captivating experimental films from several internationally acclaimed artists, each investigating complex themes and ideas through innovative and poetic work.

Filmmakers, Luther Price, Saul Levine, Paul Turano, Kyle Glowacky, Robert Todd, Nicky Tavares and Adam Paradis were in-person to discuss their work and contemporary issues and influences in avant-garde cinema.  

COLD FRIED CHICKEN
Frank Biesendorfer
(16mm, 1 min., silent, 2010)
"Cold Fried Chicken is a silent film which consists of two rolls of 8mm film laid side-by-side and spliced together witha frame or two of 16mm film in between. The images in the process alternate with footage I shot myself and found footage. Most scenes are only a few frames long or even shorter. The sproket holes of the film can be seen because 8mm film is laid side-by-side. I got the idea for this film because 8mm film is 16mm film split down the middle. So in a sense I glued them back together except a line down the middle where the two films meet can be seen. I also flipped the film around so that holes are in different places from one frame to the next or no holes are to be seen at all, or I spliced the films in different ways so that the splice is sometimes hidden and other times in part of the composition. The film is silent because I didn't want any sound to interfere with the rhythm, construction, and color composition. This film has a "craftman's hands on process" feel that can not be done by conceptual means. Tools of the trade like scissors and glue have a different quality, which I feel cannot be replaced by more modern computer programs. Some of the footage is also left over from the other films I've made or films that are still in progress. For this reason, I found the name of the film. "Cold Fried Chicken" is named after fried chicken that's left over and usually cold fried chicken taste as good as or better than freshly fried chicken because the ingredients have time to combine. This makes the flavor more intnese than it was the day before. Cold fried chicken is also for me a taste memory which brings me back to my childhood, and in a sense the footage I shot brings me back to a time in the past."

THE SOUL OF THINGS
Dominic Angerame
(Silent, 16mm, 15 min., 2010)
"William Denton is one of the early pioneers exploring the art and science of psychometry. Psychometrics believes that every object emits a field of energy. That energy can transit its entire history through touch. That is every brick contains the history of what happened inside its walls and outside its walls and at the same time its own history of creation. If one is sensitive enough this energy field of historical information can be transferred and one can obtain a complete knowledge of its history. In my case the touching is filming. In our urban landscape we are continually destroying our past through destruction of buildings and replacing them with artificial man made materials. Hence removing us from our very history. William Denton performed many successful experiments in the field of psychometry documented in one of his books called The Soul of Things."

IN MICHAEL'S HOUR
Bruce Cooper
(Optical Sound, 16mm, 15 min., 2008)
"My filmic answer to Kenneth Anger's "Lucifer Rising." The Michael of the title is the miltant Archangel described in the books of "Genesis" and "Revelation." In the film he holds the balance between warring forces of diabolism (Nazi Germany) and materialism(Great Britain) represented in handpainted, scratched and chemically treated period newsreels. The statue seen in the film is "Fighter for the Spirit" by the German sculptor Ernest Barlach who was persecuted by the Nazis as a degenerate artist. I painted the last three minutes of the film the week filmmaker Stan Brakhage died in 2003 and the film is dedicated to him, and to my father who grew up during WWII."

COLOR FILMS 1, 2 & 3
Madison Brookshire
(Silent, 16mm, 14 min., 2010)
These three films come from a series of 6 that form one work, The Color Series. Each film fades between colors. They are made without a camera, using only the lights of the printing process at the lab. The fades are slow enough that they engage the viewer in a dialogue about the border between the work and his or her own perception of it. The subject of the work is duration and color is the medium through which we experience it. The converse is also true: the subject is color and duration is the medium. The effect is a direct experience of time and vision.

LIGHT LICK: DAILY CAMERA
Saul Levine
(Silent, 16mm, 6 min., 2010)
"Levine’s latest film in his Light Lick series, DAILY CAMERA, is on one level a flickering, ecstatic, and lyrical portrait of Boulder, Colorado. On a deeper level, it is yet another exquisite manifestation of Levine’s quest to merge the fundamental qualities of cinema(light and the arbitrary projection of individual frames) with life itself. This film is not about how the world is, but rather what the camera can turn the world into."

-Frankie Symonds

ALBUM LEAF
Paul Turano
(Optical Sound, 16mm, 7 min., 2010)
A portrait film shot during sunset at the end of winter, full of the joys of melancholy. Inspired by the late-19th-century romantic musical form, the albumblatt - a short, spontaneous, and improvisational piece.

ARSENIC
Robert Todd
(Optical Sound, 16mm, 10 min.)
"attempt to delay decay amid partial repeat and retreat, re-treated tracings to face the dissipating cyclone of the spirit"

DAMAGE CONTROL (aka-Bullwinkle Film)
Adam Paradis
(Optical Sound, 16mm, 4min., 2010)
"This film began as an experimental restoration of a hypothetical parody; Jay Wards’ Bullwinkle does Peter Kubelka. Carved from a large reel containing only credit sequences from The Bullwinkle Show, it was proclaimed “junk” by one collector, but later declared “Damage Control” by another. In other words, this was not simply a reel of scraps, but material used at one time to maintain print quality for broadcast. The challenge of balancing the creative process with the effort to produce a viewable and projectable print deeply inflected the making of this film, and is a reflection of the ongoing efforts of both archivists and filmmakers to keep works alive. Re-spliced and rebuilt several times, this film at times became more of a restoration process than a creative one. In a sense, the film represents a work of experimental archiving."

CALL ME BY HEART
Nicky Tavares
(Optical Sound, 16mm, 2 min. 2010)
A handmade film constructed out of the Boston White Pages and family mementos collected from estate sales, Call Me by Heart commemorates the publicly listed residential phone number while reflecting upon changing perceptions of public and private information.

SORRY
Luther Price
(16mm, 10min., optical sound, 2010)
"chapter #1 as a trip dik
everything needs to be clean now .... everything must be cleaned .......the maggots came before and the maggots will come again......"

IOKA
Kyle Glowacky
(2010, 16mm, sound, 20 min.)
IOKA is a portrait of Exeter, New Hampshire's historic 1915 movie house. It recently closed down in 2008 due to the strict state fire codes and the need for upgrades, economic recession and lack of patronage.