VASTLAB EXPERIMENTAL PROGRAM 3 – Sat 11/20 10pm

Bass Rally by Bartsik : An extraordinary rally through the night land with double-bass sounds out of this planet. Partly, the found footage film, which composes sequences from the Internet and games into a film, could arise from a play of our subconscious.
Deepest Darkness, Flaming Sun by Ella Morton : Deepest Darkness, Flaming Sun (2020) is a short experimental film about the Svalbard Archipelago in the Norwegian Arctic. Narrated by wilderness guide Marte Agneberg Dahl, the film features altered Super 8mm film footage of the region. Dahl speaks about her travels in the Arctic, climate change, walruses and the region’s history.
Das Marsprojekt by Georg Koszulinski : Das Marsprojekt merges non-fiction filmmaking traditions with science-fiction. The story revolves around the first-person account of a Martian colonist who reflects on her experiences leaving Earth, terraforming Mars, and ultimately taking part in the revolution for Martian independence. The story merges historical accounts of space exploration, the legacy of colonization in the Americas, and 20th & 21st century world history with speculative fiction, imagining a dystopian future very much in keeping with the current trajectory of contemporary world events. By the year 2492, the 1st phase of the Martian terraforming campaign has made Mars amenable to life. 1000s of colonists inhabit the Red Planet. Meanwhile, Earth has moved into the ‘late Anthropocene’ after the 6th mass extinction renders much of Terran life extinct, the planet’s equatorial land masses inhospitable to humans, and the last of the glacial deposits have melted into the oceans. The vast majority of Earth’s human population can no longer sustain itself. Ultimately, a Martian rebellion forms around the philosophical posthumanist premise that all life in the universe is sacred, and that the destructive human forces on Earth must be stopped.
La Citta Reale by Hing Tsang : La Città Reale is an experimental narrative using puppetry and moving cardboard insects. The hand of the puppeteer performer becomes a form of moving city, where individuals and communities are isolated but always interconnected.The film is a testament to vulnerability and resilience in contemporary times.
My unrest by Joanna Szlembarska : A figure in oppressive whiteness strives to make peace whit her corporeality
Crossings by Johannes Binotto : There is this magical scene in Ulrike Ottinger’s FREAK ORLANDO (1981) which brings into play the questions of otherness and identification, of desire as queer and transgressive, and of film (and media in general) as that which is caught between transparence and opacity. When watching this moment I always felt to be part of it and wished I could literally enter the film. Now I did. A performative video essay. Installation and music all handmade and analogue.
The Destruction Project by Jojin Van Winkle : The Destruction Project is a documentary-based, experimental video about destruction in the everyday lives of rural women. It is presented in short chapters, with each one constructed differently. The imagery captures the unexpected beauty visible in change and loss: demolition derbies, agriculture, and blurry scenes. The soundscape includes interviews with women about the impact of destruction in their lives. The text is from journal entries.
The Ephemeral Orphanage by Lisa Barcy : A group of tattered paper dolls daydream alternate realities and surreptitiously explore the hidden lives of their strict and secretive caregivers. Hijinks ensue and discoveries are made as the characters live out their childhood fantasies. Created with found paper dolls cut from a 1920’s newspaper and found in an attic, the film explores the adults attempt to dictate what girls learn, and the children’s talent for discovering forbidden knowledge.
Otonashi by Martin Gerigk : “Painted in silence, a sparrow’s dream invokes timeless harmonies. In the heart of the universal geometry, the seed of calm is formed.” Otonashi is a philosophical voyage through inner and outer experiences of the human existence – an audiovisual meditation of futuristic transmutations about the Japanese Hannya Shingyō.
Confessional by Michael Addison Mersereau : “Confessional” is a short video about a child’s first seizure and descent into a technicolor hellscape of prophetic visions and faceless creatures. An absurdist experimental horror piece, its atmospheric storytelling insinuates a post coup suburban paradise and a journey into the underworld.
Journey home by Nicci Haynes : Journey home is a wistful story related through text and drawing made on the windows of a train as it passes through familiar landscapes and places.
Human Walkers in Motion by Ethann Néon : The walk inhabits our being and governs our social space. Side by side or face to face, it implies an exchange. When combining everyone’s specific pace, a hidden harmony arises. Reconnecting with Eadweard Muybridge‘s work, this film projects us into the frenetic rhythm of the steps of fifty walkers.
2020 by Tom Bessoir : A film for 2020, a year to remember. 2020 different colors create a flicker film. music by Thurston Moore (Sonic Youth) THIS FILM SHOULD BE PLAYED LOUD IN A DARK ROOM
Cabo Tuna or The Management of the Sky by Unidad de Montaje Dialéctico : “Cabo Tuna or The Management of the Sky” is a materialistic re-reading of the history of artificial satellites and digital surveillance which, using footage found exclusively on YouTube, intertwines the origins of the Nazi and Soviet arms industries with the digital surveillance systems used in the Mexican context of the war on drugs. This narrative arc allows for an exploration of the Mexican government’s failed attempts to create its own aeronautical rockets, the growing dependence on technology from foreign powers and companies, the privatization of space, and finally, the contemporary strengthening of the state’s military control.
Memento Mori: the Most Important Thing in the World by Will Wood : Will Wood leads an animated singalong about the bright side of mortality. Written/directed by Will Wood and produced/storyboarded by Youtube Animator Twisted-Doctor, this video was created by a crew of 40 independent animators around Will Wood’s song “Memento Mori,” off his 2020 album, “The Normal Album.”
Crowned & Conquering by Zareh Tjeknavorian (Sat 11/20 in person only – not online) : “Love is the law, love under will. Nor let the fools mistake love; for there are love and love. There is the dove, and there is the serpent.” – Liber AL vel Legis (the Book of the Law), I:57 Shot on 16mm film, “Crowned & Conquering” is inspired by the philosophy of the occultist, ceremonial magician, and writer, Aleister Crowley. Through an epic psychedelic score and symbolic & abstract imagery (including painting and applying collage directly onto the film strip), the movie visualizes the alchemical process of chrysopoeia, the transmutation of the spirit from lead into gold. “Zareh Tjeknavorian lulls us into the state of a weightless mystical dream. His allegorical visions appear to open time-space wormholes through which we are transposed into the mythical dimension.” (Kinoskop Festival of Analog Experimental Film) “Sublimbic. Sublime. A piece of visual poetry. The work is powerful, ‘Angeresque’, thought provoking, & beautifully wrought.” (Paul Ricciardelli, Co-Founder, Magikal Charm Experimental Video & Film Festival)