An insanematography show curated by Devon Damonte in person!

Suddenly cells of strange obsessive anarchist film scratchers and painters are omnipresent. It's a ding-dang DIY thumpin revolution in your town and across the globe. Twas made historic at last fall's Ottawa Animation Fest where a new category for "non-narrative" film was introduced, and the festivities at this major industry event began and ended with a "projector orchestra" performing live to a giant scratch film completed minutes before. In this here screening you'll see kickass stuff done on site at Ottawa03 and also from 'Crackpot Crafter' workshops in Southie, Olneyville, Waltham, Olympia, Seattle, Eugene, and Telluride.

Plus new treats from genre giants across the continent, and a closeup immersion in new stuff from once Bostonian vagabond Devon Damonte, including: WonderPain, BusterBalls, and FuckinGoofy. And of course, Devon will have on hand raw film leaders of various stripes and a plethora of Sharpies and scratch-o-thingies for y'all to make yer own group loop later.

Devon Damonte is an independent experimental animator who has been making films by hand without cameras for the past 15 years. He also frequently teaches workshops and lectures on direct animation. In other incarnations, Damonte is the former program director for Boston Film Video Foundation and has worked as an arts administrator and programmer on both coasts. His work have recently screened at exhibits in the "Animations" show at PS 1 Contemporary Arts Center in New York, and at the Telluride International Experimental Cinema Exposition.

Direct Animation is the technique of creating cinematic images by working directly onto motion picture film stock by hand, without using cameras. Various graphics are set in motion by using the film material as a vehicle for a moving "canvas." Techniques may include (but aren't limited to) painting, scratching, adhering thin semi-transparent materials to the film with tape or glue, ironing to transfer inks from plastic, and various other strange and obsessive methods not recommended by the manufacture.

Program:

 

Snow Flukes, 1.5 min, 16mm
Director: Courtney Hoskins (Brooklyn, NY)

Snow Flukes was made from an Otto Messmer “Felix the Cat” silhouette cartoon that was at one time projected in Times Square. In the days of courting my now husband, I would visit his window in the snowy nights and invite him to dance. The discovery of this footage was an instance of magic in my life.

Light Magic 3.5 minutes, 16mm, 2001
Director: Izabella Pruska-Oldenhoff (Toronto, Canada)

"Movies arise out of magic." Stanley Cavell

Light Magic utilizes and examines one of the earliest photographic processes discovered at the birth of the photographic medium, the photogram. This technique combines science and art in order to record the process of transformation. Images created through this technique are traces of light that passes through each object leaving its mark on the film surface. Photograms bring both the maker and the viewer closer to the object, thus revealing the essence, that neither the naked eye could see, nor the camera lens could capture.

"While traditional narratives and moving images representational of the human form will likely always dominate our filmgoing experience, it is a mysterious reality that co-existing with this traditional exposed ‘light' are its variations somewhere just outside our viewfinder. This seems to be the kind of light that Pruska-Oldenhof seeks to capture in Light Magic. She uses the cameraless photogram technique to create "a luminous dance", strangely hypnotic and suggestive. Sound and image relate an unconventional narrative but to a receptive viewer, perhaps also an intriguing change of form and point of reference." (Marcus Robinson, LIFT Newsletter, Mar./Apr. 2001)

Light Magic was one of the fifteen films commissioned by the Liaison of Independent Filmmakers of Toronto on the occasion of its 20th anniversary. The subject and the aesthetic of this film are a response to the statement "Self & Celluloid: The Future"

Hoyas De Maíz 11 minutes, 2002
Director: Eric Theise (San Francisco)

A stunning and colourful 16mm film, completely hand-made from soft ground etchings on Japanese silk paper of impressions of the elaborate networks of veins from corn husks used to form tamales.

 

 

The Natural History of Harris Ave, Olneyville
Director: Johanna Dery (RI)

Plants found along my favorite street in my neighborhood. by Olneyville, RI.

Pepper Steak 3 minutes,16mm, 1984
Director: Steven Woloshen (Montreal, Canada)

New Film Loops!
Director: Sandra Gibson (NYC)

New Film Loops!
Director: Luis Recoder (NYC)

 

Terra incognito
Director: Stephanie Maxwell (Rochester, NY)

 

 

 

 

New work!
Director: Richard Reeves and The Quick Draw Animation Society (Calgary, Canada)

The Quick Draw Animation Society www.awn.com/qas
Quickdraw- the urgency to illustrate ideas
Animation- to make alive with spirit
Society- a group of cultural, intellectual people

Quickdraw Animation Society (QAS) was incorporated as a non-profit society in 1984.  QAS’s mandate is to support and encourage the production of innovative independent animation and to develop the appreciation of all types of animation as a viable artistic medium. The principles engaged in at QAS are: inclusion, co-operation, active participation by youth, and positive support and encouragement among the members.

World Trade Alphabet
Director: Donna Cameron (NY) 2001, 16FPS, silent, 6m

MATERIALS: OIL, CHARCOAL, INK ON PAPER EMULSION*, ON 35MM FILM

Process: Film begins with primitive carving into handmade paper emulsion of ancient cuneiform glyphs, evolves into painting and drawing of glyphs, them floating type, using digital print-out of helvetica type and concludes with multi-material words: World Trade Alphabet.

PLEASE NOTE: NO "LETTRASET" WAS USED IN THE MAKING OF THIS FILM: ALL HELVETICA TYPE AND IT'S FILMIC FLOW WAS DESIGNED, KERNED AND DIGITALLY OFFSET ACETATE BY THE FILMMAKER.

Theme: A Visual Meditation on the evolution of the alphabet which we use, it's origins in ancient Phoenicia, and the fact that it was invented as a shorthand from 360+ character cuneiform to better the efficiency of communication in ancient international world trade. Made at the MacDowell Colony. Purchase, 2001, the Museum of Modern Art Film Archive. ExhibIted: Gulf & Western Gallery, NYU, NY; Exit Art, The Third World, NYC, NY; Anthology Film Archives; Art Vanguard Gallery, NY.