"My plan was to synchronize the camera and the phonograph so as to record sounds when the pictures were made, and reproduce the two in harmony."
As early as 1894, the Edison company experimented with the marriage of sound & picture and in the fall of that year, the "Dickson Experimental Sound Film" was made. The film shows a man, who may possibly be Dickson, playing violin before a phonograph horn as two men dance - an audacious and very queer inception indeed.
René Clair, film critic and avant-garde film director, wrote in May 1929 "It is too late for those who love the art of moving pictures to deplore the effects of this barbaric (the 'talkie') invasion. The talking film is not everything. There is also the sound film, on which the last hopes of the advocates of the silent film are pinned."
Clair went on to break cinematic ground with his use of sound, utilizing this new technical component to increase his artistic freedom to explore, as he recognized the creative and non-realistic possibilities that sound offered.
Though we might think of film as an essentially visual experience, we really cannot afford to underestimate the importance of film sound.
This program of short films abandons traditional dialogue as a means of telling a story, relying on sound - in most cases music - to complement the visual aspect. Whether the picture was inspired by the music, or the score was inspired by the image; whether the soundtrack is employed solely to enhance the emotional import of the film, or subvert what your eyes see, all of these works use sound and image in concert to create the whole story. In the tradition of René Clair, these makers demonstrate the leverage sound and score bring to image. Just try to imagine any of these films without these scores.
Rorschach meets the electronic punk of Lesbians on Ecstasy.
A tribute to Diamanda Galas and her seminal work Plague Mass, created by vocal artist and performer Yvon Bonenfant with the adventurous electronics of Cox Ring and the sensual scores of Sebastiane Hagarty.
& Niknaz Tavakolian
Little Orphan Gender Revolutionary Annie is stuck in the rotten gender-binary girls orphanage system, dreaming of a place where ze could thrive. "Tomorrow, tomorrow, I'm changin' tomorrow... I'm not just a girl or gay!" sings G.R. Annie. This short video is based on a play written by Dr. Kate Sorensen and Killer Sideburns and performed at Idapalooza Fruit Jam in 2004. The 2011 video features four toy theater stages created by Dr. Kate Sorensen, green-screen video magic by Niknaz Tavakolian, and Killer Sideburns as a miniature Broadway star.
Italian w/English subtitles, 10 min.
Singing and daydreaming in the shower conjures up a satyr and a moon, both full of questionable advice on romance- all set to the music of Rossini with newly inspired lyrics.
Two women meet secretly where "the flowering vines spill their shadow over the sacred creek that runs quiet and dark, awakened only by bird songs," accompanied by Leo Delibes opera Lakme.
People, thoughts and bad childhood memories - and a leopard print girl I loved. A film collage featuring music from the Montreal scene and lo-fi video effects.
Inspired by queer zines & homocore and constructed entirely of re-photographed and animated xerox collages, Wildblood is the third piece in a trilogy of animated shorts by L.A. artist and former member of the seminal band Fagbash, David Jones.
Radio's companion piece, also shot on a phone with low resolution, Alibi is guerilla-noir, mixing found footage, videophone diaries, and constructed sequences into a collage of sight and sound.
6 min.
Jiro Onuma arrived in the U.S. from Japan at the age of 19 in the 1920s and was imprisoned during WWII. Queer, and an avid collector of homoerotic physique magazines, the Jiro of this film is depicted surviving the isolation, boredom, humiliation and heteronormativity of internment. This musical mash-up video features drag king performance, U.S. propaganda footage, muscle building and homoerotic bread-making.
Shot on a camera-phone and using found footage, Radio is a psychedelic journey into the world inside a radio.
- Opening Night
- Secret Identities
- The Personal is Revolutionary
- Passionate Politics: The Life and Work of Charlotte Bunch
- Fantastic Magick
- Arabesque
- De Profundis
- How The West Was Won: A Bob Mizer Film Sampler
- Flaming Ears
- A Different Take
- Invasion of the Talkies
- NOISE
- Bodily Fluid is Revolutionary
- Don't Stop
- Community Action Center
- Mapping Fields
- Un Ovni Sobre Mi Cama (A UFO Over My Bed)
