Moving Still

Our class presents its work at the 2010 Citizen Jane Film Festival (October 15-17 in Columbia, Missouri). Poster above and more info about the show and artists below.

If we look at cinema's roots in still photography, we can remember that it is our unique optical physiology that creates the phenomenon of persistence of vision which allows us to see “moving pictures.” This show, specially curated for the Citizen Jane Film Festival, asks us to look at what happens when we slow down the moving image, and focus on its disintegrating, impossible stillness. Using a variety of media, tactics, and locations, the work in this show – featuring three unique video installations by local artists – uses time-based media to create a space for contemplation and introspection. The show features Hollowed (Cherie Sampson, 2006-8, video), AWAY SEEING AS IT MAYBE NEVER WAS BUT COULD BE WHY NOT (Jennifer Razor, Chelsea Turner, Jacqueline Joyce, Erika Adair, Wynde Noel, and Lydia Lane, 2010, video), and CHINA, Portraits: Xi'an, Chenglu, Shanghai, Beijing, Jingdezhen (The Archaeology of the Recent Future Association, 2007-8, 16mm).

Hollowed is a series of short videos and photographic performances taking place over a three-year period of time at a rural site near the Mississippi River in Missouri. Setting up a station (with a permanent tripod in place) video and photo works were shot periodically as the seasons and environment changed. Photographs read as film stills with sequential frames; however, the reliability of the sequence is often aborted to introduce a new moment in time, abruptly breaking the expected continuum. Changes in seasons, weather and daylight are dramatic. The log carved out by decay and the figure within it are subtle in their constancy. The figure itself is at once human, animal and vegetative, with the performances reflecting upon patterns of movement in nature and the stirring and stilling of time. (Technical assistance: Lisa Wigoda).

In the installation, AWAY SEEING AS IT MAYBE NEVER WAS BUT COULD BE WHY NOT, a group of women were each given a copy of a black and white photograph. Without context or history, each woman was given the task of creating a story that could explain the frozen moment in time in their hands. The photographs are all from the work of famed photographer Helen Levitt whose birthday, 97 years ago, coincides with the date that the project began. Levitt passed away in March of last year. The images appeared first in herbook, "A Way of Seeing" (1965). This project pays homage to Levitt's life and work, but also creates an interesting space for a new generation of image-makers to create wild, poignant, silly, and meditative alternative histories and readings. While it is an old cliché that "a picture is worth a thousand words", these short videos try to unlock the secret, silent stillness of Levitt's powerful photographs and take us on a journey into strange, fun parallel universes.

Shot over the course of a month's travel in Eastern China, CHINA, Portraits: Xi'an, Chenglu, Shanghai, Beijing, Jingdezhen presents a series of portraits – poignant, funny, confusing, and charming – of people in rapidly changing neighborhoods and villages. On the eve of the 2008 Olympics, buildings, neighborhoods, communities, and entire ways of life are disappearing and transforming. Almost all of the people who appear in this film now no longer live in their former homes or even in their old neighborhoods. Not quite a travelogue, and far from an ethnography, this quiet testament to the power of portraiture asks us to consider the pleasures, discomforts, and dangers of looking. The film pays tribute to the ancient Chinese art of 'face reading' (similar to Western plamistry), while also trying to reconsider the destructive Orientalist, colonialist obsession with portraiture. Recalling the documentary traditions of early cinema, the film asks viewers to examine the faces of strangers and consider what a passing acquaintanceship can inspire and what a portrait might reveal.

About the artists.

Cherie Sampson is an artist working in environmental installation, performance and video art, creating projects in wilderness and rural settings in the U.S. and abroad. She often integrates her body into the landscape in performances for the camera and live audiences. She received her MFA in Intermedia and Video Art from the University of Iowa in 1997. Cherie has exhibited nationally and internationally in live performances, art-in-nature symposia, video screenings and installations. Cherie resides in Columbia, Missouri, and is an Assistant Professor of Art at the University of Missouri. She is represented by Bruno David Gallery in St. Louis, Missouri and is a member of Artists in Nature International Network (AiNIN).

Jennifer Razor was raised throughout the Midwest. Her affinity for film and radio was sparked when a hard case of teenage angst set in while going to high school in small-town Mexico, Missouri. She hopes to continue creating documentary, art, and media projects to educate and entertain.

Jacqueline Joyce is a sophomore at Stephens College in the Film and Media Department. Her current work ranges from narrative shorts to experimental work in different mediums.

Chelsea Turner is a junior at Stephens College in the Film and Media Department. Her current work includes short films, animation, and fine art. She grew up in Columbia, and fell into the film world during high school, where it became clear that this would be her career path.

Erika Adair is a sophomore at Stephens College from Kansas City, Missouri. She is majoring in film and hopes to make narrative films and music videos when she graduates.

Wynde Noel has been interested in film from an early age. She started out as a photographer and then turned to film in college. She enjoys documentaries as well as experimental film, and hopes to explore the world of independent film. She also enjoys cooking and making her own recipes.

Lydia Lane is a senior at Stephens College and is currently filming her thesis project film, a short narrative set in Columbia. She hopes to move on to direct feature films and after graduation, she plans to return to LA where she recently completed an internship at a film production company.

The Archaeology of the Recent Future Association is a moniker for many projects and loves, created individually and/or collaboratively: film/video works, community projects, zines, drawing, printmaking, installation, sculpture, music, curatorial work, and writing. Through the diversity of media, the goal is always to make and support work that inspires vision, hope, and action for a better world, and to present such projects (whether they be objects, images, or experiences) in as loving a way as possible.