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Sydney
Moving Image Coalition
Happy 40th Birthday Super 8! Sunday 8 May marks 40 years of super 8 production, and to celebrate the occasion screenings are taking in over 40 cities around the world. The Sydney Moving Image Coalition (SMIC) is delighted to present our tribute to this humble, yet magical small film format, with a special Super 8 afternoon centered around the Open Reel segment. This has been an integral part of our Super 8 screenings - where the audience brings the films to be screened - so be prepared for a diverse cross section of celluloid, spanning the development of Super 8 from home movies, independent filmmaking and the artist and avant garde. So bring along your home movies: your father's fishing trip, your 10th birthday, your overseas trip, your streetscapes, even the "orphaned" home movies you got at a flea market; Bring along your indie films: your super 8 attempt to be Rossellini or Polanski, your super 8 kung fu or skateboarding movie; And in the vein of SMIC's Primary Sources program which focuses on the story of the Australian art film - this is also a call to all artists to bring along your Super 8 works. Admirers of the small gauge throughout the world will be smiling to the soothing sounds of sprockets and at the continuing charm of Super 8 film. Come and see why Super 8 survives in the digital age. Sunday May 8
2005 Pine Street Creative Arts Centre 64 Pine Street, Chippendale, Sydney. (see www.pinestreet.com.au for map) Bring your Super 8 or Standard 8 films, sound or silent, plus a cassette or CD for audio accompaniment (if desired). Films will be checked for damage and cleaned prior to projection. Enquiries or film "pre-registration" (yes please): Louise Curham 02 9664 3727; Al Young 0425 271 132; lcurham@yahoo.com.au young.al@optusnet.com.au sydneymovingimagecoalition@hotmail.com LAST SCREENING Sydney Moving Image Coalition (SMIC) hosted its first screening for 2005 on March 15. Where: Lanfranchi’s,
2/144 Cleveland Street, Chippendale Our Primary Sources segment features ‘ We Should Call It a Living Room’, (1974, super 8 exhibited on VHS) - a conceptual slapstick by Joan Grounds (Sydney), Alex Danko, David Lourie and David Stewart. ‘On every surface in the film, a thick crop of grass sprouts, grows, bends and sways at stop-motion speed, to the accompaniment of a beeping, bubbling sound-track composed by Roger Frampton. In the closing moments the internal wilderness is penetrated and fleeting, fugitive images of nude men and women domesticate and humanise the abstract, fecund aesthetic orgone box’ [source: Periphery issue # 25 Nov 1995] Our Featured Artists this month are the following two luminaries: - musician and film maker Mike Cooper (Rome) showing his hand made super 8s (exhibited on DVD); -video artist and chef Anne Walton (Perth) creating "a space/time re-mapping of Lanfranchi’s (entitled 'per: former'); closely followed by her equally engaging 're: past' (cavolfiori alla siciliana aka: cauliflower stuffed with anchovies, olives and garlic, poached in red wine and sprinkled with parmesan, served with cous cous, baby spinach leaves and beetroot/fetta salad)." YUM! [if you are eating please RSVP to Anne on 0401325383 by Monday March 14] Other featured works include the two parts of the PAL collaboration, Atanas Djonov (film maker) and Peter Humble (sound designer) with their series of short works made on S8 and miniDV, a haunting short video by Jon Tarry (Perth) shot in Arizona entitled ‘para de’, and ‘Shitty Rail’, a must-see new work by Maxine Foxxx and Nobody. The installations will include Louise Curham’s super 8 projection box suite. The Expanded Cinema re-enactment lead by Lucas Ihlein will be William Raban’s 2’ 45”. The Open Reel (you bring it, we screen it) will accommodate 16mm, super 8, DVD, miniDV and VHS. BYO laptop and cables, and tech-savvy if you want to run off your hard drive. We also plan to screen more of those crowd-pleasing Crocetti family home movies, some of the Gillies S8 travel film collection and a number from the Jeff Ashton Super 8 infomercials box. After Anne Walton's Cavolfiori alla Siciliana, Phil T. Luca's espresso coffee will be available for your delectation. Your donation would be most appreciated. 2003 - 4 Sydney Moving Image Coalition was formed at the beginning of 2003 when a few Super 8 filmmakers got together to revive the medium and provide a regular screening for those using it. We held our first screening on March 18, at Lafranchi's in Chippendale. It was an eclectic program of experimental Super 8 and 16mm films, installations and live music accompaniement. To download a pdf version of the program, click here. Our second screening happened on Tuesday 6 May, 2003 at Lafranchi's, Lvl 2, 144 Cleveland St, Chippendale. This screening included S8 films by featured artists Jamil Yamani and Victoria Armytage along with work by Tony Woods and Louise Curham. 16mm films by featured artists Tillie Goldspink-Baker and Dan Edwards and Vanessa Rodd. Video work by featured artist Laura Tanous. Our third screening happened on Tuesday 29 July, 7.30pm at Lafranchi's. The fourth screening happened on Saturday, October 18, where the College of Fine Arts Students’ Association exhibition ‘Techno Derby’ invited SMIC to host a screening. SMIC curated a program that worked loosely to the theme of Techno Derby, old media/new media – with a focus on old media. This screening was held at the beautiful Kudos art gallery off South Dowling Street in Paddington.
The most recent screening was at: Lanfranchi's in Chippendale on Tuesday, Feb 3, 2004. Program Pre show installations Primary Sources: John Gillies super 8 direct film made using a razor over wood grain. Expanded cinema: Recreation of Takehisa Kosugi Film and Film No 4 (Cutting out a paper screen to show back of room) Recreation of Annabel Nicholson's sewing machine work where the image as sewn as it is projected Sandpaper deconstruction work (Curham original - previewed at Screening #4) Vintage: a standard 8 of a feature - will be serialised and more of the Jeff Ashton super 8 corporate video equivalents. Orphan film: found footage of a mid 80s Sydney schlock horror shot on s8. Open reel.
LAST SCREENING SMIC Sydney Moving Image Coalition presents: Super 8 screening #6 Primary Sources #2 Thursday Dec 9th 7.30pm for 8pm start at Lanfranchi's, 2/144 Cleveland St, Chippendale On Dec 9th, the Sydney Moving Image Coalition (SMIC) hosts its second screening for 2004. While SMIC's agenda is to create a film-maker and film-lover run space for filmmakers and film lovers on all moving image formats, in practice the SMIC screenings focus on the glorious amateur formats,super 8 and standard 8. The screenings consists of a series of segments - Super 8 in Context, Home Movie, Contemporary Super 8 Featured Artists, Performed Film, Expanded Cinema and the famous Open Reel segment (you bring it, we show it). In 2004, we have added the Primary Sources segment, which unearths the role of small gauges (ie the amateur formats of super 8 and standard 8) in the development of the Australian art film. Our Primary Sources segment will feature the work of Sydney filmmaker David Perry. David is preceded by his reputation as a celebrated experimental film maker (a foundation member of Ubu Films, creator of the experimental feature on Ern Malley The Refracting Glasses and the cameraless structural film/sound work Halftone, amongst a host of other works). All of David's earliest films were shot on standard 8. This screening will feature Walking, a re-working of an enigmatic study of inner Sydney shot in 1953. In 2001, David restored and animated the original footage from its only extant copy on u-matic video. In our Expanded Cinema segment, a second work of David's based on Kurt Schwitters Poem 25 will be performed by Sydney artist Simon Power. This performed film was made as part of the seminal Theatre of Cruelty performances at Sydney University in the 60s, instigated by another doyen of the Australian film avant-garde, Albie Thoms. Poem 25 is a camera-less animation of a Kurt Schwitters' text - a series of numbers. Previous SMICs have featured international expanded cinema. Poem 25 will be the inaugural Australian expanded cinema work at SMIC. Our research shows we may be able to claim Poem 25 as Australia's first ever work of expanded cinema. The Featured Artist will include two works by Manny Gasparinatos, a stalwart of small gauge who performs with the newly reinvigorated Sydney institution, the Loop Orchestra and was involved in the Sydney Super 8 Group prior to its 1991 demise. Those who've followed the history of SMIC will know that part of its inspiration was to resurrect the legacy of the SS8G. Also in this segment
is a film by Melbourne's small gauge time lapse king, Nick Ostrovskis.
In the Expanded Cinema segment, along with Poem 25 we’ll show a re-working of English artist William Raban's 2' 45", a re-projection movie project instigated by Sydney artist Lucas Ihlein with the participation of Louise Curham. 2' 45'" is begun by filming a blank screen during projection for the length of a 100 ft 16mm film reel (2 mins 45 seconds). The rules of the work dictate that the processed reel of the blank screen can only be viewed by projecting it in a screening setting while the screen is re-filmed. This means the work is developed in projection - the screen is filmed and re-filmed, and re-filmed and re-filmed. The work forms part of a series of 'bad' expanded cinema re-enactments by Ihlein and Curham - this piece is re-worked on video. The Super 8 in Context segment will feature a promotional travel film from Malta, a classic 1970s work in glorious ektachrome - see it to believe it. The Home Movie segment will feature a kids' cricket match in suburban Brisbane in 1981 with a remarkable commentary. The Open Reel is your opportunity to show a 3 minute reel of S8. Register at the desk when you arrive. And as you've come
to expect, there's bound to be some added extras - some Curham moving
paintings as pre-show installations and possibly some Not Susan work.
There's also talk of a staging of American artist Anthony McCall's expanded
cinema work LongFilm for Ambient Light which features an empty room
and a Anyone wanting to show material at the screenings is very very welcome. And we're really keen to have more people involved, so even if you have no experience, get in touch and come along. We're also looking for people interested in helping with the organisational side of the group, so if you're interested, get in contact with us - we'd love to hear from you. Email sydneymovingimagecoalition@hotmail.com for more info, or call Al on 0425 271 132. |
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