ELLA LOLA, A LA TRILBY (2021)
A 60-second presentation created for Columbia University’s celebration of the 125th anniversary of the first public exhibition of Edison’s Vitascope at Koster and Bial’s Music Hall, New York City.
PROGRAM NOTES FROM THE BAMBOO FOREST (2009)
My video podcast, Program Notes from the Bamboo Forest, was made with a pocket-sized Flip video camera and Zoom audio recorder, and distributed by iTunes U, in partnership with Documentary Educational Resources, from 2008-2010. I viewed the show as a chance to explore the diverse sites of film and media exhibition beyond the multiplex. Episodes: “Zoe Beloff: The Somnambulists,” “George Stoney: Father of Public Access TV,” “Terry Borton: The American Magic-Lantern Theater,” and “Light Industry.”
MINWA-ZA AT UCHICAGO (2011)
“On Friday, April 22 and Saturday, April 23, the Minwa-za Company of Tokyo enchanted the crowd at Rockefeller Memorial Chapel with the lost art of magic lantern performance, utsushi-e. This Japanese art form uses lanterns (furo) and slides (taneita) to project brightly colored moving images on a large screen. The images are accompanied by storytelling and the music of the shamisen, a traditional three-stringed instrument. Utsushi-e was introduced in Japan around 1800, but began to fall out of favor by the end of the 19th century. The Minwa-za Company rediscovered the art of utsushi-e in the 1970s, and spent years researching and learning the traditional techniques. During Minwa-za's weeklong residency at the University of Chicago, they shared the art of utsushi-e in a series of workshops, lectures, and performances for students and community members. PhD candidate Artemis Willis organized the company's visit and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Center for East Asian Studies, and the University of Chicago Arts Council sponsored the residency.”
—UChicago News
PEACE AND PLEASURE (2006)
Performance artist Larry Litt leads “A Peace and Pleasure Talisman Charging Ritual” with Santeria drummers and a Voudun priestess to confuse and repel evil “Fox-y” media demons. (Artemis Willis and David Leitner, 4 min.)
Included in the 2007 DVD, For life against the war ... again: a collective outcry, curated by Lynne Sachs and distributed by Film-Makers' Cooperative.
“Iraq is not Vietnam, as the Bush administration and other Republicans have generously taken pains to remind us over the last half decade, but good luck trying to convince today’s artists of that. Not the kind of artists typically touted at white-shoe galleries, of course, too busy creating precious objects for clueless investors: Far more potent demonstrations of protest and disgust emerge from the rag-tag networks of micro-budgeted experimental filmmakers. With little or no market for experimental filmmaking, the scene consists of only the most devoted individuals, with nothing to lose from saying whatever they wish. The art they create can thereby be rough or polished, face-slappingly blunt or poetically subtle, stridently collectivist or stewed in lonely isolation. For Life Against the War . . . Again, a recent omnibus produced in response to Iraq, includes all these extremes, but nevertheless coalesces into a potent time capsule of how today’s war has churned our inner lives.”
—Ed Halter, The Village Voice
LUNAR NEW YEAR
4719
Happy Lunar New Year! 恭喜發財/Gōng Xǐ Fā Cái/Kung Hei Fat Choi! May the Year of the Metal Ox bring you good luck, good health and much happiness.
