screening films Baby and Mama Hester Scheurwater at
Light Industry
220 36th Street, 5th Floor
Brooklyn, New York
http://www.lightindustry.org
Tuesday, April 28, 2009 at 7:30pm
Birthday Suit ‹ with Scars and Defects, Lisa Steele, 1974, 13 mins
One Same Same Thing, Jan Peacock, 2003, 8 mins
El Diablo en la piel (Devil in the Flesh), Ximena Cuevas, 1998, 5 mins
The Gardener, Alex Grant, 2005, 5 mins
Exquisite Corpse, Ernest Gusella, 1978, 8 mins
60 Unit: Bruise, Paul Wong 1976, 5 mins
Forced Inanimate Connection: Climax Modeling, Sterling Ruby, 2002, 7 mins
Baby, Hester Scheurwater, 2006, 2 mins
Mama, Hester Scheurwater, 2005, 3 mins
Show and Tell in the Land of Milk and Honey, Dani Leventhal, 2007, 13 mins
Human Touch, Sterling Ruby, 2001, 2 mins
Shuffle (excerpt), Douglas Waterman, 1971, 5 mins
Spirograph #4, Barb Webb, 2006, 1 min
Imagining touch ‹ how another experiences touch (feels) ‹ is the beginning
of empathy, of empathic human, social relations. We may be able to share in
the experience of looking (at a sunset, or koala), hearing (the cries of a
child), tasting (spaghetti, and other pastas) and smelling (farts) but one
cannot feel the pain of another. When artists work with touch, they
necessarily also bring into play aspects of empathy.
McLuhan pointed out in Understanding Media that touch ‹ the haptic ‹ has
less to do with objects pressing against the skin than with a complex
interplay between the senses that involves touch as the intermediary site in
which one sense may be translated for another. If not full-blown
synasthesia, then a kind of blurring of sensuous modes: eyes and ears that
are pierced, caressed, punched, scraped, tickled. But let¹s get back to
objects pressing against our skin, which ‹ rather than a blurring ‹ begs for
an obliteration of the other senses. Can one talk and feel at the same time?
Yes, but not really feel: for that you need to shut up and close your eyes.
This would seem to suggest that video is a particularly anti-haptic medium,
as it tends to be full of talking and looking. But here are videos that
elegantly suggest otherwise: they feel and, consequently you feel, I feel,
we feel. (Touching optional.)
Abina Manning has worked to promote artists’ film and video for many years
in both Europe and the U.S. Abina relocated to Chicago from London in 1999
to work at the Video Data Bank, where she is the Director. Prior to that she
worked at the LUX Centre for many years, and she was Director of the
Pandæmonium Festival of Moving Images, a major European showcase of new
film, video and multi-media that took place at London’s Institute for
Contemporary Arts.
Steve Reinke is an artist and writer best known for his videos, which are
widely screened, exhibited and collected. A book of his scripts, Everybody
Loves Nothing was recently published by Coach House. He has co-edited
several anthologies, including The Sharpest Point: Animation at the End of
Cinema (with Chris Gehman). He lives in Toronto and Chicago, where he is
associate professor of Art Theory & Practice at Northwestern University.
Check out his website: http://www.myrectumisnotagrave.com.
Tickets - $7, available at door.
About Light Industry
Light Industry is a new venue for film and electronic art in Brooklyn, New
York. Developed and overseen by Thomas Beard and Ed Halter, the project has
begun as a series of events at Industry City in Sunset Park, each organized
by a different artist, critic, or curator. Conceptually, Light Industry
draws equal inspiration from the long history of alternative art spaces in
New York as well its storied tradition of cinematheques and other intrepid
film exhibitors. Through a regular program of screenings, performances, and
lectures, its goal is to explore new models for the presentation of
time-based media and foster an ongoing dialogue amongst a wide range of
artists and audiences within the city.
About Industry City
Industry City, an industrial complex in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, is home to a
cross-section of manufacturing, warehousing and light industry. As part of a
regeneration program intended to diversify the use of its 6 million square
feet of space to better reflect 21st century production, Industry City now
includes workspace for artists. In addition to offering studios at
competitive rates, Industry City also provides a limited number of low-cost
studios for artists in financial need. This program was conceived in
response to the lack of affordable workspace for artists in New York City
and aims to establish a new paradigm for industrial redevelopment–one that
does not displace artists, workers, local residents or industry but instead
builds a sustainable community in a context that integrates cultural and
industrial production.
For more information, please visit http://www.industrycityartproject.org
