Collection of films by exhibiting artists curated by Lawrence Gipe
SCREENING TIME:
7PM DOORS
8PM SCREENING BEGINS
9PM END
ARTIST FILMS AND DETAILS:
Title: Anti-Frontier: California City
By: Daniel Tovar
Description: Two-channel looped video, color, stereo sound; 16 min., 30 sec.
"Anti-Frontier: California City" is a video installation examining the history of resource extraction in the western tip of the Mojave Desert.
Title: Blind Ritual,
By: Liz Miller-Kovacs.
Blind Ritual is video short produced with a crew of two people in the wind farms near Palm Springs, California. The theme of the video is spirituality, death and rebirth. The context of the work is after the looming environmental disaster which humanity is currently facing. Blind Ritual is a surrealist narrative set sometime in the post-apocalyptic near future where the earth has turned into an endless desert. The costuming of the piece is meant to convey protection from a hostile physical environment. The color of the video reflects harsh UV rays due to toxic pollution and the destruction of the ozone layer. As no fossil fuel remains, the few survivors can only rely on wind-generated electricity. This is an environment that does not easily support life of any kind, and very few humans and animals remain. A lone, faceless protagonist lives a nomadic existence amongst the wind turbines. They struggle to preserve a sense of humanity and mourn the loss of civilization. While performing a ritual in remembrance of a loved one they suffer an emotional breakdown, yet emerge triumphant despite their dystopian circumstances.
Title: Hypocrisy of Sanctuary,
By: Beth Davila Waldman
Created in March 2018 during a residency at Playa Institute in Summer Lake, OR, this film “Hypocrisy of Sanctuary” revealed the integral role of site back into my work. Since 1997, my art has explored connections with my maternal desert homeland Arequipa, Peru as its primary site. As an American revisiting my mother’s city ever 5 years, I have found ways to anchor myself to this land.
My art challenges the idea of permanency starting with photography as its visual language and site as an inspiration to speak to the shifts in home, cities and the resulting human conditions. My approach values the navigation of uncharted grounds, repositioning existing elements to create something more powerful. My work promotes the idea of change and transformation breaking ground literally by shattering my own source photography from global landscapes into a series of new fragments used to create energetic abstract landscapes as collage works on panel with material, color and form. From this film, that resulting series is entitled "Desert Intersections". As a processed based artist, my collages on panel, works on paper, video performance works and photographic art embrace the multiple stages of my studio practice.
This video work developed as an intention to symbolically excavate the ruins of my Peruvian Ancestors from Summer Lake as a metaphor for the sacred Inca Lake Titicaca, & juxtapose the actual site with my own current west coast American existence. A newer part of my creative process since 2018 including 6 other video works involved the choreography of the video, considering time of day for light, the presence of others in public spaces, security of self & equipment, & the role of myself as the figure. A developing voyeuristic perspective of my body representing something beyond “the me” was also new ground for my practice.