Christina Battle Film Screening, Nov. 4th
17 HOURS OF DARKNESS (IT APPROACHES IN THE WIND)
7:30 p.m. to 9 p.m. Programmed by Christina Battle
In anticipation of the looming winter, a program of short works by contemporary Canadian artists turning their cameras toward the landscape and the dark, nagging secrets it holds just under the surface. [Part II of an ongoing series of programs]. With works by: Josh Bonnetta, Sara MacLean, Peter Dudar and Marianna Milhorat.
American Colour – Josh Bonnetta – 2011 – 24 minutes
In 2011, a processing facility in Kansas, the last to process Kodachrome, discontinued the K14 developing process. The historical stock became obsolete. In 2010, I photographed 14 rolls of Kodachrome 16mm, which had been stored since 1986. The stock was developed, in the last batch of footage processed. The resulting film is American Colour. The film was photographed over a week while traveling to Kansas from the birthplace of Kodachrome in upstate New York. In the wake of the obsolescence of Kodachrome the footage is used to explore the stocks historic and unique rendering of colour, hue and light value in relation to the American landscape and it’s architecture.
Fore-and-Aft – Sara MacLean – 35mm (digital version) – 2007 – 6 minutes
“Fore-and-Aft” was created by the Bay of Fundy in Nova Scotia, Canada – site of the highest tides in the world. Images of the tides are married with celluloid that was buried in the sea bed, and dragged through the ocean behind a boat. Physically exposing film to the motion and light of the sea recorded tactile evidence of the repetition and changes wrought by tide cycles. “…we are too much like oysters observing the sun through the water, and thinking that thick water the thinnest of air”. (Herman Melville – Moby Dick)
Starlings (at Nightfall) – Peter Dudar – 2010 – 8.30 minutes
In Peter Dudar’s hypnotic and vaguely menacing “Starlings (at Nightfall),” we are witness to a strange intersection between the forces of nature and a man-made structure. A single, static, eight-minute-long shot documents the spiraling flight of thousands of starlings around a power transmission tower at dusk. [CFMDC]
L’Internationale – Marianna Milhorat – 2010 – 9 minutes
In a foreign landscape, futuristic factories and boreholes harvesting geothermal steam serve as beacons of familiarity in the face of an unknown future.
Long Shadows – Josh Bonetta – 35mm (digital version) – 2009 – 12 minutes
Sound on vinyl record
Re-animated frames of long lost and decaying home movies of the 1950’s rendered in watercolor. Long Shadows assembles found moments and gestures into a haunted sequence, dreaming backwards through the seasons of a childhood spent on a northern lake.
The site specific soundtrack revisits the location of the original films 60 years later in search echoes. Tape loops created from hydrophone, piano and field recordings, provide the aural accompaniment cut to vinyl record.
*all descriptions from the artists except where noted
Originally from Edmonton, Alberta (Canada), Christina Battle holds a B.Sc. in Environmental Biology from the University of Alberta and an MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute. Working with film, video and installation, her works explore themes of history and counter-memory, political mythology, and environmental catastrophe. Supported by the Canada Council for the Arts, The Ontario Arts Council, and the Toronto Arts Council, her artworks have exhibited internationally in festivals and galleries including: The Images Festival (Toronto), The London Film Festival (London, England); The International Film Festival Rotterdam (The Netherlands); YYZ Artists’ Outlet (Toronto); White Box (New York); The Foreman Art Gallery at Bishops University (Sherbrooke, QB); The City of Toronto’s Nuit Blanche 2006 and in the 2006 Whitney Biennial: “Day for Night” (New York). She teaches at the University of Colorado, Boulder.