Spectacle Trailers. 2011-2015.
Between 2011 and 2015, I composed nearly 100 original trailers for collectively run, daily Brooklyn microcinema Spectacle, most of them related to the hundreds of shows I programmed during that time. These trailers were presented in the context of pre-show promotional material at the cinema and widely viewed and shared online. Recognized for their lineage in the art of détournement, reappropriation, and anti-consummerist meta-commentary, the trailers have shown in cultural institutions and DIY venues around the world.
View a selection of trailers here.
Some personal favorites:
Don’t Deliver Us from Evil (Joël Séria, 1971)
School of the Holy Beast (Norifumi Suzuki, 1974)
The Pirates of Bubuan (Shōhei Imamura, 1972)
Supermarkt (Roland Klick, 1974)
Deathdream (Bob Clark, 1974)
Pizza (Karthik Subbaraj, 2012)
An Evening with Tommy Turner
India Song (Marguerite Duras, 1975)
A Tribute to Jesus Franco
Sweet Bunch (Nikos Nikolaidis, 1983)
Deadlock (Roland Klick, 1970)
Selected screenings:
MoMA PS1, NYC
The Museum of Modern Art, Warsaw
The Museum of Arts and Design, NYC
The Pittsburgh Three Rivers Film Festival
Spectacle, NYC (obvs)
24-Hour Weekend at Bernie’s. HD. 2015. 1440 min.
Concerning the passage of time and mortality.
Included in INCITE Journal of Experimental Media #6: Forever
Strong-Thing. HD. 2014. 30 min.
Co-Director, Co-Writer, Co-Editor with H.A. Campbell. Sound by C. Spencer Yeh.
A mythic meditation on the entwined narrative threads in the life and screen personae of Arnold Schwarzenegger. An work of biographical extraction/abstraction, Strong-Thing constructs the ur-Arnold through deft, cohesive audiovisual assemblage riffing on classic narrative continuity composed entirely of footage from films and media appearances.
Screenings:
Squeaky Wheel Art Center, August 20, 2016
UnionDocs, June 25, 2016
The Museum of Arts and Design, July 25, 2014
Spectacle
Aggrobatics. HD. 2014. 45 min./15 min. “radio edit”
Eternalism 3D with pastel color fields created from ’80s skate and surf films Thrashin’ and North Shore. A mind-mashing synaptic rush and ecstatic synthesis of sound and screen as a parable about the romantic notion of a dim forecast of limited options pitched against endless sunsoaked yearning to be free and fuckin’ ride. Created for live score by Nick Lesley.
Screenings
San Diego Art Institute, September 18, 2015
MoMA PS1, NYC (“Radio Edit”), Decemer 14, 2014
Salon 94 Bowery, NYC (“Radio Edit”), December 18, 2014
Spectacle, NYC, April 30, 2014
Tender Prey. HD. 2013. 14 min.
Co-Director, Co-Writer, Co-Editor with H.A. Campbell
Re-structuring of Silver Bullet into a parable of concerning the toxic atmosphere of pedophilia surrounding child actors in Hollywood.
Screenings
Squeaky Wheel Art Center, August 20, 2016
Spectacle, NYC
The Shining Backwards & Forwards & Inwards & Outwards in High Definition Anaglyph 3D (Chaos Mix). HD. 2013. 144 min.
Schematic re-structuring of The Shining, reversed and superimposed on top of itself, with the forwards and backwards channels mixed at opposing depths and criss-crossing midway.
Based on The Shining Backwards and Forwards by John Fell Ryan and Akiva Saunders
Screenings
Liberated Film Club, Close-Up Cinema, London, July 1 & 2, 2016
Monkeytown 3, EYEBEAM, NYC, August 3, 2013 (Incorporated into live performance by Ryan & Saunders)
Spectacle, NYC, July 27, 2013 and August 18, 2013
Press
“Moving Forwards and Backwards in Time with ‘The Shining’”, Hyperallergic, Jeremy Polacek, January 29, 2016.
Orlac 3D. Anaglyph 3D video. 2013. 40 min.
Abstract narrative re-structuring of The Hands of Orlac post-converted to anaglyph 3D. Commissioned for SLEEP ∞ OVER live score.
Screenings
Spectacle, NYC, April 15, 2013 with live score by SLEEP ∞ OVER
Press
“SLEEP ∞ OVER scores Orlac in 3D at Spectacle,” Impose, Sean Bnjmn, April 15, 2013
Tough Guys. HD. 2012. 112 min.
This is Mean Streets, otherwise untouched, with the pop songs ripped out replaced by amateur cover versions from YouTube—25 in all directly corresponding to the original. The result is a wholesale dismantling of authorship, cinematic space, expectation, and the intellectual property of The Rolling Stones, Ltd., whose songs—and music of other genres including early rock, soul, doo wop, rhythm and blues, Cazone Napoletana, opera and salsa—are now performed variously by wayward narcoleptics, fried teenagers, amateur tenors, Polish pre-teen beauty pageant contestants, hip dads and people testing out new keyboards. An analysis of vicarious cultural production as practiced by Martin Scorsese, YouTube performers, and the artist, Tough Guys is also a joyous paean to egalitarianism and the enduring, irrepressible folk underpinnings of tight-assed corporate culture.
The Scorsesean ‘needle drop’ style of scoring with pop music inspired a whole new branch of the film industry—a mammoth bureaucracy of rights, licensing, music supervisors, clearance coordinators and entertainment lawyers with attendant opportunities for marketing and brand synergy between corporate film and music; Tough Guys elbows its way toward an imagined alternative.
Screenings
Nightingale Theatre, Chicago, January 4, 2013
Flux Factory (excerpt only), NYC, November 11, 2012
Northside Festival, Nitehawk Cinema, NYC, June 20, 2012
Spectacle, NYC, January 16, 2012 and August 19, 2013
Occupy Cinema at Charging Bull. HD. 2011. 15 min.
Participatory documentation of direct action, including projector performance by Bradley Eros and Occupy Cinema at the Charging Bull statue and a discussion with CUNY’s Theories of Anti-Capitalist Movements class.
As Occupy Cinema collective, Primary Camera and Editor
Screenings
Film Society of Lincoln Center, NYC, August 29, 2013
Anthology Film Archives, NYC, January 7, 2012
Soft Soap. HD. 2010. 5 min.
Solo Camera, Performance, and Sound.
Screenings
Recurring informal at Spectacle