&Now 2015: Blast Radius

A screening of several short works of video art in which language – be it political speech, literary work, or invented narrative -- features prominently. The event is designed to spark a discussion about adaptation, histories/ possibilities of language use on the screen, the relationship between supplied, moving image and conjured, mental image, as well as between the spoken and written word. The program will present diverse, recent work by several contemporary video artists, most of whom are local and available for a Q & A afterwards, including:

Danielle Dean, No Lye, TRT 10 minutes, 2013. Confined to a bathroom, five women communicate with the limit of words taken from political speech and advertising from Ebony magazine and Vogue. The women are engaging in making a bomb.

Harry Dodge, Unkillable, TRT 19 minutes, 2011, and Ipse Dixit, TRT 2 minute, 2011. Ipse Dixit is a two-minute loop that uses the simplest tools of Final Cut Pro to deliver a short transcription on the end of the world. The black comedy Unkillable investigates the potency of images made from language by means of monologic performance: wearing a mask, Dodge performs a “text-story” of a would-be film made up of progressively appalling events.

Mariah Garnett, Garbage, The City, and Death. TRT 8 minutes, 2012. The video consists of three scenes from a Fassbinder play of the same title, which was banned from the stage in Germany in 1985. The adaptation consists of the scenes between Roma, the prostitute and Franz, her boyfriend/pimp, with the filmmaker playing Franz and her half-sister, Joanna Coleman, playing Roma. 

Dylan Mira, Untitled (Agua Viva), TRT 13 minutes, 2013. Features the filmmaker’s ailing father reading aloud from Clarice Lispector’s Agua Viva from his home hospital bed; his recitation is punctuated by his announcements of distaste for the book as well as by acerbic, tender commentary from his wife about her husband’s character and life.

Tyler Oyer, Calling All Divas: TASASKASP, TRT 4 minutes, 2014. A performative piece utilizing language by Shakespeare, as filtered through Karen Black and an original drag persona.

Maggie Nelson will moderate.