Exhibition Program Archive

Winter/Spring 2004

All films shown in 16mm unless otherwise noted.

Truck Stop Still Lifes: Films by Bill Brown

January 19 + 20 - 7:30pm

Artist in attendance both nights.

“Combining the wry and sage voice of a modern-day Mark Twain or an E.B. White with the vernacular eye of a Walker Evans, Bill Brown captures history as it is written across the American landscape, from the cold-war politics of North Dakota’s abandoned nuclear missile silos in Buffalo Common (2001) and separatist tensions along the Trans-Canadian Highway in Confederation Park (1999) [to] his chronicle of West Virginia’s checkered past, as told in twenty-five historical roadside markers” in Mountain State (2003).

— Museum of Modern Art, Mediascope series, November 2003

Mountain State
(2003, 16mm color/sound, 20 mins)
A brief history of the westward expansion of the United States as told by 25 roadside historical markers in the state of West Virginia.

Buffalo Common
(2001, 16mm B&W/sound, 23 mins)
A portrait of the prairies of North Dakota as the state loses its Cold War arsenal of intercontinental ballistic missiles, as well as its aging population of Scandinavian farmers.

Confederation Park
(1999, 16mm color/sound, 32 mins)
A travel diary from Canada. Francophones, Anglophones, and Allophones duke it out over what it means to be a Canadian, and whether, in the end, it even matters.

Total running time of films: 75 mins

Bill Brown will also be reading from the new issue of his zine Dreamwhip #13.

Direct Motion Graphics is a Contact Sport with Devon Damonte

Sunday, April 18, 2004

No cameras, no computers, no labs–no kidding!
Make your own motion pictures by hand from castoff scraps and insane craft ephemera. Each participant will learn fundamentals of Direct Animation including (to name a few):

  • instantly gratifying techniques such as textural scratch on black leader
  • multi-layered hot iron plastic bag ink transfer
  • direct photocopy
  • radical collage

Plus, ‘Loopology’ — employ the loop test method to refine your sloppy experiments into eloquent emanations of serious handcore cinema. We’ll work together to create group loops, then branch off into individual projects for the overachievers. Ultimate no-budget, DIY, anarchist image making now. Also, see samples from 67 years of giants in this genre like Len Lye, Barbel Neubauer, Stan Brakhage, Stephanie Maxwell, Norman McLaren, and more. Try things not recommended by any manufacturer. No experience necessary. Everyone will learn, hands-on, how to splice and project 16mm film. All materials supplied.

Devon Damonte is an independent experimental animator who has made direct motion graphics since getting slipped the Mickey in 1987. Recent screenings include: New York Film Festival Views from the Avant Garde; Ottawa International Animation Festival; Pacific Film Archive at Berkeley Art Museum; Quickdraw Animation Society in Calgary; Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston; The Blinding Light!! Cinema in Vancouver BC; Ann Arbor Film Festival; Other Cinema at Artists Television Access in SF; DeCordova Museum in Lincoln MA; Echo Park Film Center in LA; South By Southwest Film Festival in Austin, TX; Movies with Live Soundtrax in Providence, RI; Virginia Film Festival; Wiggly World/ NW Film Forum in Seattle; Balagan Experimental Film and Video Series at Coolidge Corner Theater Boston; and Independent Exposure at McMurdo Station, Antarctica.

Damonte fervently teaches and preaches glories of the handmade moviemaking revolution and other mysteries of cinematic media—recent visiting artist and workshop presentations include Rhode Island School of Design, Harvard University, Virginia Film Festival, Emerson College, Telluride International Experimental Cinema Exposition, Clark University, My House and The Dirt Palace. In 2002, Damonte started an ongoing free weekly handmade movie workgroup dubbed Crackpot Crafters which continues coast-to-coast. In other lives, it is rumored Damonte worked as a film programmer and arts administrator for the Boston Film/Video Foundation, Olympia Film Society, and Washington State Historical Society. Damonte studied at The Evergreen State College, and San Francisco State University, and lives under the care of supreme feline Buster.

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