PXL THIS 17, the 17th annual Fisher Price toy camera film festival, premiered at Sponto Gallery on Nov 17, 2007 with two different shows www.myspace.com/
**Unurban Cafe in Santa Monica on Feb 18'08
**Other Cinema in SF on Sat, May 24 '08 at 8:30pm at ATA, 992 Valencia St, San Fran, CA 94110, 415-648-0654, othercinema.com, admission is $6,
**Echo Park Film Center on May 22 '08
In 2007, the PXL 2000 celebrated its 20th year as a tool used by both the underground and Hollywood. The inventor James Wickstead is available for interviews at phone:973-267-2007 jwda@
**Unurban Cafe in Santa Monica on Feb 18'08
**Other Cinema in SF on Sat, May 24 '08 at 8:30pm at ATA, 992 Valencia St, San Fran, CA 94110, 415-648-0654, othercinema.com, admission is $6,
**Echo Park Film Center on May 22 '08
In 2007, the PXL 2000 celebrated its 20th year as a tool used by both the underground and Hollywood. The inventor James Wickstead is available for interviews at phone:973-267-2007 jwda@
PXL THIS 17 - Nov 17, 2007, Sponto Gallery, Venice CA
7pm
1- PRINCESS KUKULELE - Denny Moynahan, 5 mintues
2- UNICORNY IN PREHISTORIC TIMES - Madeline Whitney, 2m
3- NO. 5 - Sean Solomon, 3m
4- THE LIVELY DOLLS - Juniper Woodbury, 3m
5- BODY SHOP - Donovan Seelinger, 3m
6- GEARSTORY - Donovan Seelinger, 2m
7- A TOOL IS A TOOL - Geoff Seelinger, 3m
8- BURSTING IN AIR - L.M. Sabo, 2m
9- MICHAEL POSSERT - A WWII SOLDIER - Michael Possert Jr, 12m
10- UTOPIA - Solomon Turner & MX Farina, 8m
11- VOL.9 NO.120 SATURDAY, MARCH 17, 2007 - Clint Enns, 4m
12- WITH THE EDGE OF MY HAND - Rizorkestra, 4m
13- ME, JILLY & THE CHAIRMAN - Joe Nucci, 9m
14- TUNGSTEN 74 FT. KIM BRANDT - "RUSTY CAVALIER (2)" - Rudy Abrams - 5m
15- DER HIMMEL UBER KALIFORNIEN - Terrence Handscomb, 13m
16- REALITYSHIFT - Will Erokan & Ian Sonnemann, 3m
17- THE ASTROBUNNY TRANSMISSIONS - Chad Dunnack, 22m
9pm (Viewer Discretion Advised for #18 & 19)
18- THE DISASSEMBLY LINE - Robert Sexton, 10m
19- FUN GUN - Audie Harrison, 4m
20- WITH THIS KISS - Rich Ferguson, 4m
21- SOULGASM - Theresa Hulme, 4m
22- OH SOPHIE - Rizorkestra, 2m
23- FROM CLICHE 2 ARCHETYPE - Steve DeGroodt, 3m
24- UNTITLED - Sean Solomon, 6m
25- REMEMBER TO FORGET? - Gerry Fialka, 8m
26- CATACLYSM - L.M. Sabo, 4m
27- THE STORY OF WHAT HAPPENED WHEN RUDY CAME HOME
EARLY FROM WORK & CAUGHT JACK IN A COMPROMISING
POSITION - Jason Margolis, 5m
28- THEY WERE ONLY NUMBERS - Freya, 4m
29- HAMMOND'S ARCANA, OR THE PARADISE OF BIRDS- Roy Parkhurst & Struan Ashby, 8m
30- COOKING - Doug Ing, 10m
31- COME OVER - David Self, 3m
32- KING LIQUOR - Lisa Marr & Paolo Davanzo - 6m
33- GUITAR DISCARNATE - Michael Dunnigan & Rod Poole, 23m
34- CAT GOES SPLAT & THE STORY OF POLKA - ZZalgernO, 8m
35- MINNEY - Paul Bacca, 5m
PXL THIS 17 highlights include:
Roy Parkhurst & Struan Ashby's HAMMOND'S ARCANA, OR THE PARADISE OF BIRDS, from New Zealand, is a metaphysical satire on technological speed-up and ornithological imaginary solutions. This experimental narrative presents a pataphysical probe into identity crisis and cultural discourses, speculatively crossing William Blake and the Reverend Howard Finster. Email R.R.Parkhurst@massey.ac.nz for stills and press kit.
7pm
1- PRINCESS KUKULELE - Denny Moynahan, 5 mintues
2- UNICORNY IN PREHISTORIC TIMES - Madeline Whitney, 2m
3- NO. 5 - Sean Solomon, 3m
4- THE LIVELY DOLLS - Juniper Woodbury, 3m
5- BODY SHOP - Donovan Seelinger, 3m
6- GEARSTORY - Donovan Seelinger, 2m
7- A TOOL IS A TOOL - Geoff Seelinger, 3m
8- BURSTING IN AIR - L.M. Sabo, 2m
9- MICHAEL POSSERT - A WWII SOLDIER - Michael Possert Jr, 12m
10- UTOPIA - Solomon Turner & MX Farina, 8m
11- VOL.9 NO.120 SATURDAY, MARCH 17, 2007 - Clint Enns, 4m
12- WITH THE EDGE OF MY HAND - Rizorkestra, 4m
13- ME, JILLY & THE CHAIRMAN - Joe Nucci, 9m
14- TUNGSTEN 74 FT. KIM BRANDT - "RUSTY CAVALIER (2)" - Rudy Abrams - 5m
15- DER HIMMEL UBER KALIFORNIEN - Terrence Handscomb, 13m
16- REALITYSHIFT - Will Erokan & Ian Sonnemann, 3m
17- THE ASTROBUNNY TRANSMISSIONS - Chad Dunnack, 22m
9pm (Viewer Discretion Advised for #18 & 19)
18- THE DISASSEMBLY LINE - Robert Sexton, 10m
19- FUN GUN - Audie Harrison, 4m
20- WITH THIS KISS - Rich Ferguson, 4m
21- SOULGASM - Theresa Hulme, 4m
22- OH SOPHIE - Rizorkestra, 2m
23- FROM CLICHE 2 ARCHETYPE - Steve DeGroodt, 3m
24- UNTITLED - Sean Solomon, 6m
25- REMEMBER TO FORGET? - Gerry Fialka, 8m
26- CATACLYSM - L.M. Sabo, 4m
27- THE STORY OF WHAT HAPPENED WHEN RUDY CAME HOME
EARLY FROM WORK & CAUGHT JACK IN A COMPROMISING
POSITION - Jason Margolis, 5m
28- THEY WERE ONLY NUMBERS - Freya, 4m
29- HAMMOND'S ARCANA, OR THE PARADISE OF BIRDS- Roy Parkhurst & Struan Ashby, 8m
30- COOKING - Doug Ing, 10m
31- COME OVER - David Self, 3m
32- KING LIQUOR - Lisa Marr & Paolo Davanzo - 6m
33- GUITAR DISCARNATE - Michael Dunnigan & Rod Poole, 23m
34- CAT GOES SPLAT & THE STORY OF POLKA - ZZalgernO, 8m
35- MINNEY - Paul Bacca, 5m
PXL THIS 17 highlights include:
Roy Parkhurst & Struan Ashby's HAMMOND'S ARCANA, OR THE PARADISE OF BIRDS, from New Zealand, is a metaphysical satire on technological speed-up and ornithological imaginary solutions. This experimental narrative presents a pataphysical probe into identity crisis and cultural discourses, speculatively crossing William Blake and the Reverend Howard Finster. Email R.R.Parkhurst@massey.ac.nz for stills and press kit.
The youngest Pixelator ever Donovan Seelinger (4 years old) divulges GEARSTORY. http://fooie.com/
Terrence Handscomb's DER HIMMEL UBER KALIFORNIEN is a sardonic critique of Californian culture tropes - a fascination with the body, cosmetic surgery and the prolongation of youth, science-fiction mysticism and the suspension of death. He stirs them into a thick mix of low resolution Hollywood-Noir stylistics. Watch it at www.terrence.org and stills at http://www.terrence.org/der_
Terrence Handscomb's DER HIMMEL UBER KALIFORNIEN is a sardonic critique of Californian culture tropes - a fascination with the body, cosmetic surgery and the prolongation of youth, science-fiction mysticism and the suspension of death. He stirs them into a thick mix of low resolution Hollywood-Noir stylistics. Watch it at www.terrence.org and stills at http://www.terrence.org/der_
L. M. Sabo's cinema verite CATACLYSM captures a bustling metropolis suddenly engulfed in catastrophic violence. Press ready stills at http://members.cox.net/l.m.
Audie Harrison's FUN GUN is a silly little game of murder and mayhem. Press ready stills at www.audieharrison.com/
Preteen Juniper Woodbury gets shaking in THE LIVELY DOLLS.
Geoff Seelinger's A TOOL IS A TOOL plays a little game with light and time on a Brooklyn bike ride. http://fooie.com/atool
From Canada, Jason Margolis' THE STORY OF WHAT HAPPENED WHEN RUDY CAME HOME EARLY FROM WORK & CAUGHT JACK IN A COMPROMISING POSITION utilizes naughty puppets in intense drama.
Michael Possert Jr's MICHAEL POSSERT - A WWII SOLDIER captures his Dad's recollections of being wounded and arriving at Nordhausen concentration camp. Press ready stills- http://www.flickr.com/
Solomon Turner & MX Farina's UTOPIA captures Venice Boardwalk performer "The Snakeman" rapping transcendental righteousness.
Theresa Hulme's SOULGASM transverses high consciousness.
Joe Nucci recalls his revealing encounter with Frank Sinatra in ME, JILLY & THE CHAIRMAN.
Gerry Fialka's REMEMBER TO FORGET? expands the function of remembering as not the opposite of forgetting.
Freya's THEY WERE ONLY NUMBERS is an abstract film that operates in the margins of ambiguity. A haunting soundtrack steadily and persistently builds and fades. Images in motion suggest that a wider canvas has been fragmented and is struggling to be seen. From the UK. Press ready still http://freya.atspace.
Will Erokan & Ian Sonnemann's REALITYSHIFT finds suburban youth discussing authority and shamanism.
Michael Dunnigan & Rod Poole's GUITAR DISCARNATE fuses microtonal experimentations and Hendrixy Frippatronics to create an unforgettable sonic landscape.
Torn from the pages of redacted documents and secret CIA training manuals, Robert Sexton's unnerving THE DISASSEMBLY LINE relays a vision of controlled depravity. It is a nightmarish journey behind the scenes of government mind control where the innocent are broken and their souls are forever cracked. Based on factual events. MATURE AUDIENCES - VIEWER DISCRETION STRONGLY ADVISED. Watch it & stills http://hollywoodasylum.
"PXL THIS 17...Surprising beauty...In Geoff Seelinger’s lovely video A Tool Is a Tool, a wrench suspended in front of a camera attached to a roving bicycle renders a cubist cityscape. Realityshift, by Will Erokan and Ian Sonnemann, marries a nonstop (and annoying) monologue about perceptions of the world to fast-cut, high-contrast images of a city to create a chaotic vision of contemporary consciousness. Mono-monikered director Freya’s strangely compelling They Were Only Numbers features a series of brief shots of green-tinged abstracted planes, folds and textures that pulse and shift in time to undulations of sound. It’s a simple but powerful piece, as is L.M. Sabo’s Cataclysm, in which images of what looks like a model city become eerily timeless in the gray murk of the camera’s trademark grit. Fialka deserves credit for his unflagging belief in the potential of the PXL camera to render something amazing" - Holly Willis, LA Weekly.
http://www.laweekly.com/film+
http://www.calendarlive.com/
"PXL THIS is something that has to be seen and experienced at least once in a lifetime." -Santa Monica Mirror
"All the PXL THIS videos reflect festival organizer Gerry Fialka's commitment to the freedom produced by making art without financial constraints. PXL THIS is a welcome highlight in the Los Angeles media scene celebrating the rich lexicon available in a tool which might initially seem rather limiting. PXL THIS represents Fialka’s dedication to showcasing unheard voices and supporting a truly democratic art form" - Holly Willis, LA Weekly.
"PXL is the ultimate people's video." - J. Hoberman, Premiere Magazine
"Gerry Fialka's PXL THIS festival snaps, crackles and pops off the screen with the funky, user-friendly energy of real first-person cinema. Goofy, gorgeous, and altogether groovy, his provocative program of pieces produced with the Fisher-Price PXL 2000 toy video camera is not only downright entertaining, but more, its blipping and buzzing black 'n' white picture-bits coalesce into a veritable inspiration to all those who cherish the playful, spontaneous gestures and low-cost of electronic folk art." -Craig Baldwin.
Established in 1991, Clap Off They Glass Productions supports independent do-it-yourself video-making by sponsoring the annual PXL THIS Festival, which is the oldest of its kind in the world. Even with no corporate sponsors, no color brochures, no big shot movie director board members, no ticketmaster access, PXL THIS has been featured on PBS, IFC and NPR, and most recently screened at MIT. PXL THIS spans many genres: documentary, poetry, drama, art, music, political activism, cinema povera, comedy and the avant-garde. The unique Fisher-Price toy camcorder PXL 2000, which records sound and image directly onto audio cassettes, continues to empower artists. This failed toy was only made in the US from 1987 to 1989. The magical PXL 2000 restores a certain humanity to the overpowering technology of video. The irresistible irony of the PXL is that the camera's ease-of-use and affordability, which entirely democratizes movie-making, has inspired the creation of some of the most visionary, avant and luminous film of our time.
Films featured in past PXL THIS festivals are archived and available for viewing at the Academy Film Archive in Hollywood. For viewing appointments and information, please call (310) 247-3016 x 387, or visit the archive's web site at www.oscars.org/filmarchive.
"In past years, PXL THIS gave us some fascinating work...definitely an out-there experience. In the last few years, PXL videos have made it to such hallowed domains as the Whitney Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, Sundance, and the London Film Festival, where they have been admired for their characteristic spontaneity, highly personal perspective, visual uninhibitedness and raw, grainy truths." - Mary Beth Crain, LA Weekly.
"PXL THIS is worthy of praise...spellbinding. The shifting bricks of light and dark that form the Fisher-Price PXL 2000's picture lend themselves well to personal essays, creating an invigorating mesh of ambiguity and intimacy in every frame." - Paul Malcolm, LA Weekly.
"Since the start of the 21st century, I've attended the annual screenings of the PXL THIS toy camera festival at San Francisco's OTHER CINEMA. I have discovered several patterns of Pixelators that are similar to the pioneering video artists of the 60's. One, they reclaim film as a one-person project. Contrary to the popular belief that filmmaking must be collaborative, the solo vision is dominant and documented here. Two, in PXL-land, personal and deeply individualistic issues - frequently in the form of confessionals - are dominant. Pixelvision forms a quiet sub-genre within the larger category of the 'personal essay' film, an intimate art-world of privacy, whose entries frequently resemble message-in-a-bottle intimacies. These patterns show that expanding the vocabulary of moving image art is still possible - and, indeed, is growing." -Steve Polta, San Francisco Cinematheque curator.
According to filmmaker Bryan Konefsky: "Pixelvision is the haiku of cinema: the minimum of means delivering the maximum of meaning. The PXL 2000 toy camera's limited image-quality forces moviemakers to focus on essentials, and thereby to produce a richly connotative cinematic experience. In fact, PXL may be the best instantiation of Stan Brakhage's luminous quote: 'The true meaning of cinema can be found between the frames.'"
"In the spirit of Andy Warhol's experimental films, the PXL THIS Festival inspires independent artists to create, explore, and discover the magic of cinema. As a video gallery installation, these works were a curious and wonderful revelation to museum visitors." - Charles Gentry, Curator of Film & Video Art, Flint Institute Of Arts, screened The Best of PXL THIS from March 6-April 1, 2007.
In spirit, the PXL-2000 toy camera resembles the cheap throwaway still camera, known as the Holga. Writing in ESQUIRE, Joshua Liberson called the Holga: "The world's most unserious serious camera...the Holga takes strangely beautiful, dreamlike pictures. Its two-part interlocking design allows light to bleed through constantly from the sides, making it almost impossible to take a boring picture, regardless of the subject matter."
"Most exciting art movements have been reactions against technical sophistication. Many have gone 'backwards' to find honesty and truth, the essence of things." - Guy Maddin
Andrea Nina McCarthy's 2005 MIT thesis "Toying With Obsolescence: Pixelvision Filmmakers & The Fisher Price PXL 2000 Camera" is essential reading.
"In the spirit of Andy Warhol's experimental films, the PXL THIS Festival inspires independent artists to create, explore, and discover the magic of cinema. As a video gallery installation, these works were a curious and wonderful revelation to museum visitors." - Charles Gentry, Curator of Film & Video Art, Flint Institute Of Arts, screened The Best of PXL THIS from March 6-April 1, 2007.
In spirit, the PXL-2000 toy camera resembles the cheap throwaway still camera, known as the Holga. Writing in ESQUIRE, Joshua Liberson called the Holga: "The world's most unserious serious camera...the Holga takes strangely beautiful, dreamlike pictures. Its two-part interlocking design allows light to bleed through constantly from the sides, making it almost impossible to take a boring picture, regardless of the subject matter."
"Most exciting art movements have been reactions against technical sophistication. Many have gone 'backwards' to find honesty and truth, the essence of things." - Guy Maddin
Andrea Nina McCarthy's 2005 MIT thesis "Toying With Obsolescence: Pixelvision Filmmakers & The Fisher Price PXL 2000 Camera" is essential reading.
PXL NEWS:
BEST of PXL THIS 13-16 screens at the Mendocino Film Festival http://www.
WED, May 28. BEST of PXL THIS 13-16 (90m workshop & screening) from 4-7pm at UofO's Lawrence Hall #115 in Eugene, OR call Matt for details 503-957-1557 mnixon@uoregon.edu, pistolgripfilms@yahoo.com
Detroit Film Center detroitfilm.org presented the PIXELVISION: ELECTRONIC FOLK ART workshop and BEST OF PXL 13-16 (both available for bookings) on SAT, Aug 11'07 http://www.metrotimes.com/
SF Cinematheque hosted the workshop and screening of BEST OF PXL 13-16 on Feb 10 '08 at Yerba Buena Arts Center http://www.sfcinematheque.org/
BEST of PXL THIS screened at http://www.antimatter.ws/ S
BEST of PXL THIS 13-16 screens at the Mendocino Film Festival http://www.
WED, May 28. BEST of PXL THIS 13-16 (90m workshop & screening) from 4-7pm at UofO's Lawrence Hall #115 in Eugene, OR call Matt for details 503-957-1557 mnixon@uoregon.edu, pistolgripfilms@yahoo.com
Detroit Film Center detroitfilm.org presented the PIXELVISION: ELECTRONIC FOLK ART workshop and BEST OF PXL 13-16 (both available for bookings) on SAT, Aug 11'07 http://www.metrotimes.com/
SF Cinematheque hosted the workshop and screening of BEST OF PXL 13-16 on Feb 10 '08 at Yerba Buena Arts Center http://www.sfcinematheque.org/
BEST of PXL THIS screened at http://www.antimatter.ws/ S
CALL FOR ENTIRES: We are now accepting entries for PXL THIS 18. Visit indiespace.com/pxlthis for details. Contact: Gerry Fialka 310-306-7330 pfsuzy@aol.com
20 YEARS OF PXL by Gerry Fialka
The 17th annual PXL THIS Film Festival is dedicated to Andrew Bergman and Tommy Heidt, both of whom have passed away. They helped inventor James Wickstead design the PXL 2000 toy video camcorder, which Fisher Price released from 1987 to 1989.
Artists pursue childlike innocence in the creative process. Starting off with a kids camera is a step towards achieving these youthful dreams. "Genius is childhood recalled at will." - Charles Bauderlaire. "Ask questions a child would ask." - Albert Einstein. Pixelators combine instinct and accident in producing astonishing films.
PXL THIS is based on the statements: "It is literally possible to do more with less" -Buckminster Fuller and "Film will only become art when its materials are as inexpensive as pencil and paper" -Jean Cocteau. The festival celebrates a tool for making moving image art. Critic Amy Taubin wrote "Artists want to do things that break the rules of the mainstream. Just using this camera (the PXL2000) is breaking a kind of rule about what an image should look like." Jean Cocteau declared, "What one should do with the young is to give them a portable camera and forbid them to observe any rules except those they invent for themselves as they go along. Let them write without being afraid of making mistakes." PXL THIS 17 brings together the latest work by past PXL masters and exciting new talents from near and far (New Zealand, UK, Canada) ranging in age from 4 (our youngest ever) to 59 years old.
"Much of the most exciting and important part about tomorrow is not the technology or the automation at all, but that man is going to come into entirely new relationships with his fellow men. He will retain much more in his everyday relations of what we term the naivete and idealism of the child. This will be completely justified and not exploited or exploitable in any way. I think then that the way to see what tomorrow is going to look like is just to look at our children." - Bucky Fuller.
In the NY Times article "Unblinking Eye, Visual Diary: Warhol’s Films," Manohla Dargis seems to be describing Pixelvision: "These home movies work short and dauntingly long, silent and sound, scripted and improvised, often in black and white, still as death and alive to its moment. Awkward, beautiful, raw, spellbinding, radical — they are films like few others, in part because, first and foremost, they are also sublime art....Warhol seems to grab hold of time and hold it still, capturing the moth moments before it fluttered too close to the flame....Warhol explained that Pop artists 'did images that anybody walking down Broadway could recognize in a split second — comics, picnic tables, men’s trousers, celebrities, shower curtains, refrigerators, Coke bottles — all the great modern things that the Abstract Expressionists tried so hard not to notice at all.'...Yet in Warhol’s films the illusions of Hollywood, with its seamless narratives and industrial imperatives, are self-consciously replaced by other illusions, notably those pertaining to identity."
In the Film Comment 9-07 article, Chris Chang writes: "Mike Kelley said 'an adolescent is a dysfunctional adult, and art is dysfunctional reality' and keeping with this line of thinking, an artist could be perceived as a permanent adolescent which is about as close to eternal life as anybody can ever get."
"Dig Infinity" proclaimed Lord Buckley, who has influenced PXL THIS. He subverted comedy from within, much like what PXL THIS has accomplished for 17 years. It is a genuine fake film festival with no entry fees, and no competition. PXL THIS deconstructs the post-post modern "tainted toy" and flips it into its opposite - recalling the Rodgers & Hart musical "Babes In Arms" as a template for kids, but really for adults.
"If you look too closely at the TV, all you see are dots." - Sarah Silverman.
PXL THIS 17 tour adds (if time permits) :
The Pixelators' Pixelator Paul Bacca's MINNEY and another King Kukulele interactive gem entitled BOOGER PATROL.
Lisa Marr & Paolo Davanzo's KING LIQUOR - A night in the life of Echo Park's notorious liquor store.
Clint Enns' VOL. 9 NO. 120 SATURDAY, MARCH 17, 2007 returns us to early years of experimental cinema by producing a contradiction; that is, a piece shot using only the red low-light warning of the PXL 2000 camcorder. Press ready still at http://i46.photobucket.com/
Ruby Abrams' TUNGSTEN 74 FT. KIM BRANDT - "RUSTY CAVALIER (2)" explores the dichotomy between physical victory and moral victory with dancer/sculptor Brandt.
Chad Dunnack inventories the effects of robotics in THE ASTROBUNNY TRANSMISSIONS, which involves a pile of TV sets and satellite dishes receiving random signals from a rabbit in outer space.
Rizorkestra's OH SOPHIE and WITH THE EDGE OF MY HAND rumbles junkyard blues with his rootsy one man band pluckin' a ruckus.
ZZalgernOn's CAT GOES SPLAT & THE STORY OF POLKA tells the colorful story of edgy entertainers.
PXL pioneer Doug Ing gets into the kitchen with COOKING.
Sixteen year old Sean Solomon & his band Moses Campbell sing passionate poetics in UNTITLED and NO. 5. Watch: ttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=
Wordpainter Rich Ferguson gets intimate WITH THIS KISS of affectionate tactility.
David Self's energetic rendition of COME OVER presents indie rockers Super Satellite with stunning shots of deliciously lo-fi and kinetically infused rhythmic mayhem.
Steve DeGroodt's FROM CLICHE 2 ARCHETYPE gets knee deep in media ecology swamp muck.
L.M. Sabo's BURSTING IN AIR sets a spectacular display of fireworks to ripping guitar of the Star Spangled Banner (press ready stills at http://members.cox.net/l.m.
20 YEARS OF PXL by Gerry Fialka
The 17th annual PXL THIS Film Festival is dedicated to Andrew Bergman and Tommy Heidt, both of whom have passed away. They helped inventor James Wickstead design the PXL 2000 toy video camcorder, which Fisher Price released from 1987 to 1989.
Artists pursue childlike innocence in the creative process. Starting off with a kids camera is a step towards achieving these youthful dreams. "Genius is childhood recalled at will." - Charles Bauderlaire. "Ask questions a child would ask." - Albert Einstein. Pixelators combine instinct and accident in producing astonishing films.
PXL THIS is based on the statements: "It is literally possible to do more with less" -Buckminster Fuller and "Film will only become art when its materials are as inexpensive as pencil and paper" -Jean Cocteau. The festival celebrates a tool for making moving image art. Critic Amy Taubin wrote "Artists want to do things that break the rules of the mainstream. Just using this camera (the PXL2000) is breaking a kind of rule about what an image should look like." Jean Cocteau declared, "What one should do with the young is to give them a portable camera and forbid them to observe any rules except those they invent for themselves as they go along. Let them write without being afraid of making mistakes." PXL THIS 17 brings together the latest work by past PXL masters and exciting new talents from near and far (New Zealand, UK, Canada) ranging in age from 4 (our youngest ever) to 59 years old.
"Much of the most exciting and important part about tomorrow is not the technology or the automation at all, but that man is going to come into entirely new relationships with his fellow men. He will retain much more in his everyday relations of what we term the naivete and idealism of the child. This will be completely justified and not exploited or exploitable in any way. I think then that the way to see what tomorrow is going to look like is just to look at our children." - Bucky Fuller.
In the NY Times article "Unblinking Eye, Visual Diary: Warhol’s Films," Manohla Dargis seems to be describing Pixelvision: "These home movies work short and dauntingly long, silent and sound, scripted and improvised, often in black and white, still as death and alive to its moment. Awkward, beautiful, raw, spellbinding, radical — they are films like few others, in part because, first and foremost, they are also sublime art....Warhol seems to grab hold of time and hold it still, capturing the moth moments before it fluttered too close to the flame....Warhol explained that Pop artists 'did images that anybody walking down Broadway could recognize in a split second — comics, picnic tables, men’s trousers, celebrities, shower curtains, refrigerators, Coke bottles — all the great modern things that the Abstract Expressionists tried so hard not to notice at all.'...Yet in Warhol’s films the illusions of Hollywood, with its seamless narratives and industrial imperatives, are self-consciously replaced by other illusions, notably those pertaining to identity."
In the Film Comment 9-07 article, Chris Chang writes: "Mike Kelley said 'an adolescent is a dysfunctional adult, and art is dysfunctional reality' and keeping with this line of thinking, an artist could be perceived as a permanent adolescent which is about as close to eternal life as anybody can ever get."
"Dig Infinity" proclaimed Lord Buckley, who has influenced PXL THIS. He subverted comedy from within, much like what PXL THIS has accomplished for 17 years. It is a genuine fake film festival with no entry fees, and no competition. PXL THIS deconstructs the post-post modern "tainted toy" and flips it into its opposite - recalling the Rodgers & Hart musical "Babes In Arms" as a template for kids, but really for adults.
"If you look too closely at the TV, all you see are dots." - Sarah Silverman.
PXL THIS 17 tour adds (if time permits) :
The Pixelators' Pixelator Paul Bacca's MINNEY and another King Kukulele interactive gem entitled BOOGER PATROL.
Lisa Marr & Paolo Davanzo's KING LIQUOR - A night in the life of Echo Park's notorious liquor store.
Clint Enns' VOL. 9 NO. 120 SATURDAY, MARCH 17, 2007 returns us to early years of experimental cinema by producing a contradiction; that is, a piece shot using only the red low-light warning of the PXL 2000 camcorder. Press ready still at http://i46.photobucket.com/
Ruby Abrams' TUNGSTEN 74 FT. KIM BRANDT - "RUSTY CAVALIER (2)" explores the dichotomy between physical victory and moral victory with dancer/sculptor Brandt.
Chad Dunnack inventories the effects of robotics in THE ASTROBUNNY TRANSMISSIONS, which involves a pile of TV sets and satellite dishes receiving random signals from a rabbit in outer space.
Rizorkestra's OH SOPHIE and WITH THE EDGE OF MY HAND rumbles junkyard blues with his rootsy one man band pluckin' a ruckus.
ZZalgernOn's CAT GOES SPLAT & THE STORY OF POLKA tells the colorful story of edgy entertainers.
PXL pioneer Doug Ing gets into the kitchen with COOKING.
Sixteen year old Sean Solomon & his band Moses Campbell sing passionate poetics in UNTITLED and NO. 5. Watch: ttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=
Wordpainter Rich Ferguson gets intimate WITH THIS KISS of affectionate tactility.
David Self's energetic rendition of COME OVER presents indie rockers Super Satellite with stunning shots of deliciously lo-fi and kinetically infused rhythmic mayhem.
Steve DeGroodt's FROM CLICHE 2 ARCHETYPE gets knee deep in media ecology swamp muck.
L.M. Sabo's BURSTING IN AIR sets a spectacular display of fireworks to ripping guitar of the Star Spangled Banner (press ready stills at http://members.cox.net/l.m.
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New PXL THIS 16 reviews and articles:
http://www.calendarlive.com/
*************************
NEW FIALKA WORKSHOPS:
1- WHO'S JAMMIN THE JAMMERS ? - Media ecologist Gerry Fialka (Bio-http://www.venicewake.
“A put-on is not necessarily a put-down. I liken what I do sometimes to a life game, as an adventure in absurdity, an adult fairytale in which I engage people emotionally and intellectually. The audience gets involved and has to decide for itself what’s going on and what’s to be learned from the experience. Everybody is a participant." - Alan Abel
JAM Z JAMMERZ: SEE, REAPPEAR & BREATHE (14 minutes, 2008) - As agitprop archaeologists, Mark X Farina & Gerry Fialka's provocative video probes how the 50's music/comedy icons John Cage (noise as music, side effects in silence), Korla Pandit (the Hammond Organ as drum, fake identity), Lenny Bruce (speech as jazz, grievance), Ernie Kovacs (visual effects as Surrealism, Menippean tactic of the "fourth wall") and Lord Buckley (narrative as living organism, elevation not put-down) laid the groundwork for contemporary culture jammers. They reinvented Beckett's "Nothing is funnier than unhappiness," and Steve Allen's "Behind every joke there's a grievance."
Their reappearance offers new questions:
- Did the electric environment kill or save humanity?
- Did television renew the art museum?
- Why did James Joyce make TV the hidden ground in his 1939 book FINNEGANS WAKE?
- Can the banality of satellite-speed-up cause epiphanies?
- What have we forgotten about social amnesia?
- Who is jamming the jammers?
Rechanneling George Melies and Marcel Duchamp, JAM Z JAMMERS reinvigorates and mirrors how these visionaries elevated self-irony to uncover the ambiguity and complexity of ecstasy and numbness. "The audience is the employer." - Marshall McLuhan. "I find TV very educational. Every time someone turns on a set I go in the other room and read a book." - Groucho Marx. "When you are laughing, you're learning." - Robert Dobbs. "Satire is tragedy plus time" - Lenny Bruce.
MARK X FARINA is a Los Angeles based painter, filmmaker and biker, whose work has appeared in group shows with David Hockney and Ed Rushca. He received his BFA from Edinboro University of Pennsylvania, and now heads the Video Department at Otis College of Art and Design in LA. He is a practitioner of POP, Pro Punk, Neo Goo, and Reverse Engineering in Mixed Media Visual Arts.
GERRY FIALKA, artist, film curator, writer, lecturer, and paramedia ecologist has conducted interactive workshops from UCLA to MIT, from the Ann Arbor Film Festival to Culver City High School. Fialka gave two major lectures at The 2001 North America James Joyce Conference at UC Berkeley. The public interview series MESS (Media Ecology Soul Sessions) has featured Fialka in engaging conversations with the likes of Mike Kelley, Alexis Smith, Abraham Polonsky, Mary Woronov, Paul Krassner, Ann Magnuson, Heather Woodbury, Norman Klein, Chris Kraus, P. Adams Sitney, Hunter Drohojowska-Philp, Kristine McKenna, Ann Magnuson, John Sinclair, Grace Lee Boggs, and Firesign Theatre's Phil Proctor. Fialka's interviews have been published in books by Mike Kelley and Sylvere Lotringer.
"I have participated in Gerry Fialka's interactive workshops at the Ann Arbor Film Festivals in 2006 and 2007. He is willing to enter in new discussions even if they go against his current views. Fialka's multilayered delivery of ideas encourages the search for new questions and new paradigms that extend beyond. He is well-informed, off-beat and articulate - one of the most fascinating people I've met at the AAFF." - Keith Jeffries, Ascalon Films
"I am very impressed by Gerry Fialka's energy in bringing together groups of people to think about ideas. That is very much in the McLuhan spirit to create and foster interdisciplinary, living, educational projects in which people can talk about ideas. He creates forums that bring together a plurality of critical perspectives into one multivalent conversation. " - Janine Marchessault, author of MARSHAL McLUHAN: COSMIC MEDIA.
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2- FOUND FOOTAGE - Scavenger artist Gerry Fialka asks new questions about found art. This interactive workshop delves into Joseph Cornell, Bruce Conner, Emile de Antonio, and Dusan Makavejev. Do reconstructions and deconstructions create counter histories? Dumpster diving filmmakers (like past AAFF participants: Bruce Conner, Craig Baldwin, Jesse Lerner & more) recycle refuse to elevate the bastard medium of assemblage with aesthetic coherence. How and why does the hybrid film's metaphoric weight surpass its status as a visual document? Have all the films in the world been made and it's just a question of re-editing them?
3- FAKE DOCS - Media archaeologist Gerry Fialka explores the popularity of the mockumentary. Are they lying to tell the truth? Discussing Alexandra Juhasz & Jessie Lerner's book F IS FOR PHONY: Fake Documentray And Truth's Undoing, Fialka probes the fiction/documentary divide, the ethics of reality-based manipulation, and whether documentaries derive from form or reception. From Bunuel's Land Without Bread to Welles's F is For Fake to Reiner's Spinal Tap to Craig Baldwin's faux faux Tribulation 99, fakes dismantle understandings of identity, history, authenticity and authority.
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NEW FIALKA WORKSHOPS:
1- WHO'S JAMMIN THE JAMMERS ? - Media ecologist Gerry Fialka (Bio-http://www.venicewake.
“A put-on is not necessarily a put-down. I liken what I do sometimes to a life game, as an adventure in absurdity, an adult fairytale in which I engage people emotionally and intellectually. The audience gets involved and has to decide for itself what’s going on and what’s to be learned from the experience. Everybody is a participant." - Alan Abel
JAM Z JAMMERZ: SEE, REAPPEAR & BREATHE (14 minutes, 2008) - As agitprop archaeologists, Mark X Farina & Gerry Fialka's provocative video probes how the 50's music/comedy icons John Cage (noise as music, side effects in silence), Korla Pandit (the Hammond Organ as drum, fake identity), Lenny Bruce (speech as jazz, grievance), Ernie Kovacs (visual effects as Surrealism, Menippean tactic of the "fourth wall") and Lord Buckley (narrative as living organism, elevation not put-down) laid the groundwork for contemporary culture jammers. They reinvented Beckett's "Nothing is funnier than unhappiness," and Steve Allen's "Behind every joke there's a grievance."
Their reappearance offers new questions:
- Did the electric environment kill or save humanity?
- Did television renew the art museum?
- Why did James Joyce make TV the hidden ground in his 1939 book FINNEGANS WAKE?
- Can the banality of satellite-speed-up cause epiphanies?
- What have we forgotten about social amnesia?
- Who is jamming the jammers?
Rechanneling George Melies and Marcel Duchamp, JAM Z JAMMERS reinvigorates and mirrors how these visionaries elevated self-irony to uncover the ambiguity and complexity of ecstasy and numbness. "The audience is the employer." - Marshall McLuhan. "I find TV very educational. Every time someone turns on a set I go in the other room and read a book." - Groucho Marx. "When you are laughing, you're learning." - Robert Dobbs. "Satire is tragedy plus time" - Lenny Bruce.
MARK X FARINA is a Los Angeles based painter, filmmaker and biker, whose work has appeared in group shows with David Hockney and Ed Rushca. He received his BFA from Edinboro University of Pennsylvania, and now heads the Video Department at Otis College of Art and Design in LA. He is a practitioner of POP, Pro Punk, Neo Goo, and Reverse Engineering in Mixed Media Visual Arts.
GERRY FIALKA, artist, film curator, writer, lecturer, and paramedia ecologist has conducted interactive workshops from UCLA to MIT, from the Ann Arbor Film Festival to Culver City High School. Fialka gave two major lectures at The 2001 North America James Joyce Conference at UC Berkeley. The public interview series MESS (Media Ecology Soul Sessions) has featured Fialka in engaging conversations with the likes of Mike Kelley, Alexis Smith, Abraham Polonsky, Mary Woronov, Paul Krassner, Ann Magnuson, Heather Woodbury, Norman Klein, Chris Kraus, P. Adams Sitney, Hunter Drohojowska-Philp, Kristine McKenna, Ann Magnuson, John Sinclair, Grace Lee Boggs, and Firesign Theatre's Phil Proctor. Fialka's interviews have been published in books by Mike Kelley and Sylvere Lotringer.
"I have participated in Gerry Fialka's interactive workshops at the Ann Arbor Film Festivals in 2006 and 2007. He is willing to enter in new discussions even if they go against his current views. Fialka's multilayered delivery of ideas encourages the search for new questions and new paradigms that extend beyond. He is well-informed, off-beat and articulate - one of the most fascinating people I've met at the AAFF." - Keith Jeffries, Ascalon Films
"I am very impressed by Gerry Fialka's energy in bringing together groups of people to think about ideas. That is very much in the McLuhan spirit to create and foster interdisciplinary, living, educational projects in which people can talk about ideas. He creates forums that bring together a plurality of critical perspectives into one multivalent conversation. " - Janine Marchessault, author of MARSHAL McLUHAN: COSMIC MEDIA.
************************
2- FOUND FOOTAGE - Scavenger artist Gerry Fialka asks new questions about found art. This interactive workshop delves into Joseph Cornell, Bruce Conner, Emile de Antonio, and Dusan Makavejev. Do reconstructions and deconstructions create counter histories? Dumpster diving filmmakers (like past AAFF participants: Bruce Conner, Craig Baldwin, Jesse Lerner & more) recycle refuse to elevate the bastard medium of assemblage with aesthetic coherence. How and why does the hybrid film's metaphoric weight surpass its status as a visual document? Have all the films in the world been made and it's just a question of re-editing them?
3- FAKE DOCS - Media archaeologist Gerry Fialka explores the popularity of the mockumentary. Are they lying to tell the truth? Discussing Alexandra Juhasz & Jessie Lerner's book F IS FOR PHONY: Fake Documentray And Truth's Undoing, Fialka probes the fiction/documentary divide, the ethics of reality-based manipulation, and whether documentaries derive from form or reception. From Bunuel's Land Without Bread to Welles's F is For Fake to Reiner's Spinal Tap to Craig Baldwin's faux faux Tribulation 99, fakes dismantle understandings of identity, history, authenticity and authority.
4- GRASSROOTS 9/11 FILMMAKERS - Self taught filmmakers & political activists are asking the questions that corporate media avoids. Their compelling investigative research is reaching millions via the Internet, community & at-home screenings. Filmmaker/
5- YOUTUBE: DEMOCRATIZING FILMMAKING - Media Ecologist Gerry Fialka traces the history of low-tech creativity from Super 8mm & Pixelvision to cellphone videos, ipods, new media to come, and the latest global cultural phenomenon, YouTube. Online social networking sites are rapidly making accessible everything from experimental film to war atrocities, from rare music performances to influential political clips, and from user-generated content to censored shows. Explore the hidden effects of this vital tool as an active means of democratizing self expression 24/7. Fialka will probe McLuhan's "rearviewmirrorism" (when new media looks backwards for content and meaning) and how we experience the multilayered blending of high & low cultures.
6- DOCUMENTARY DILEMAS - Film Curator Gerry Fialka leads an interactive workshop on the documentary film and its recent rise of popularity. Examining pioneers like Flaherty, Vertov, Wiseman, Pennebaker, Michael Moore, Herzog and Chris Marker, this review will incite new questions about Grierson's definition of documentary as "creative treatment of actuality." Probing the philosophies of documentarians, fresh insights will arise concerning stagings and reenactments, and the different viewpoints on degrees of involvement with the subjects. Vertov argued for presenting "life as it is" (that is, life filmed surreptitiously) and "life caught unawares" (life provoked or surprised by the camera). What is endemic to this genre and why? Is Perception reality?
Review questions facing documentarians and their quest for ecstatic truth, emotional truth, intellectual truth and physical truth. How do they deal with personal bias, morals, and ethics in rewriting memory? If the filmmakers are faced with a life-or-death situation with the subject, should they put down the camera and attempt to save the life? What is the story, and then, what is the "real" story? Fialka offers diverse evaluations of how we perceive the world via documentaries, and challenging perspectives on Herzog's Grizzly Man, Morris' Fog of War, Eric Steel's The Bridge, the early hybrid masterpiece by Gillo Pontecorvo, The Battle Of Algiers, and the faux faux doc Tribulation 99 by Craig Baldwin.
"The most important thing a documentary director does is to say 'Stop shooting'" -Peter Davis. "The best fiction is more true than any kind of journalism." -Faulkner. "In order to make fiction, you have to begin with documentary, and in order to make documentary, you start with fiction." -Godard. "We are led to believe a lie, When we see not through the eye." - William Blake.
6- DOCUMENTARY DILEMAS - Film Curator Gerry Fialka leads an interactive workshop on the documentary film and its recent rise of popularity. Examining pioneers like Flaherty, Vertov, Wiseman, Pennebaker, Michael Moore, Herzog and Chris Marker, this review will incite new questions about Grierson's definition of documentary as "creative treatment of actuality." Probing the philosophies of documentarians, fresh insights will arise concerning stagings and reenactments, and the different viewpoints on degrees of involvement with the subjects. Vertov argued for presenting "life as it is" (that is, life filmed surreptitiously) and "life caught unawares" (life provoked or surprised by the camera). What is endemic to this genre and why? Is Perception reality?
Review questions facing documentarians and their quest for ecstatic truth, emotional truth, intellectual truth and physical truth. How do they deal with personal bias, morals, and ethics in rewriting memory? If the filmmakers are faced with a life-or-death situation with the subject, should they put down the camera and attempt to save the life? What is the story, and then, what is the "real" story? Fialka offers diverse evaluations of how we perceive the world via documentaries, and challenging perspectives on Herzog's Grizzly Man, Morris' Fog of War, Eric Steel's The Bridge, the early hybrid masterpiece by Gillo Pontecorvo, The Battle Of Algiers, and the faux faux doc Tribulation 99 by Craig Baldwin.
"The most important thing a documentary director does is to say 'Stop shooting'" -Peter Davis. "The best fiction is more true than any kind of journalism." -Faulkner. "In order to make fiction, you have to begin with documentary, and in order to make documentary, you start with fiction." -Godard. "We are led to believe a lie, When we see not through the eye." - William Blake.
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