NOFLASH 2020 PROGRAM
Return to full NOFLASH archive page here.
(most programs contain graphic language, but please see below for further content warnings)
Fri July 24
6p, LEARNED: What constitutes the socioculturally-unstable ideas of "successful" pedagogy and being "learned"?
8p, PLAY: Simply humorous and heart-warming, for one reason or another. Content warning: sexually explicit imagery
Sat July 25
4p, GENERATIONS: Nine short films exploring the artists’ own generational trauma, what is lost/gained between generations, and broader questions of how family is created. Content warning: discussions of addiction, trauma
6p, APPARATUS: Six shorts which involve explicit considerations of the audiovisual medium and histories of cinema.
8p, PREPARATIONS: A feature-length browser film containing various narratives and tutorials for surviving surveillance capitalism.
Sun July 26
2p, COLOR: The weight of making and viewing chroma.
6p, BODY/SCAPES: Perhaps the most formally and conceptually expansive program, yet boiling down to a tension between presentations of on-screen corporeality as landscape and natural environments as bodily. Content warning: in/fertility, sexually explicit imagery
8p, MOVEMENTS: Three experimental documentaries which can be understood as radical proposals to what the road movie genre can be. Content warning: discussion of pedophilia
FULL PROGRAM DETAILS
Unless otherwise noted, individual work descriptions below were written by Charles de Agustin.
Fri July 24, 6p – LEARNED: What constitutes the socioculturally unstable ideas of "successful" pedagogy and being "learned"?
Juyi Mao, Perfect Audience, 2018, China, 10:00. The artist informs the viewer of best practices for experiencing contemporary art in this sterile tutorial video. Much of his instruction seems undeniable, but only as it functions under art-industrial forces; what/who is the perfect audience being perfect for, and why are these practices worth striving toward? The same question can be asked in academia, or any other industry. maojuyi.com
Amalya Singleton, Deception (Brazil, Ethiopia, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Notre Dame), 2019, USA, 3:00. "Woke is safety-pin politics, masturbatory symbolism, and virtue signaling of a deflated Left insulated by algorithms, filter bubbles, and browser extensions that replace pictures of Donald Trump with Pinterest recipes.” – AltWoke Manifesto. "deception is whatever you think it isn’t." – Singleton.
Heidi E. Cooper, âbi, 2019, Mexico, 4:23. âbi is deeply invested in the vibrancy of the various media sources at play, and serves to stand against the other two monitors in which vibrancy is arguably more about overt leisure. heiecoo.xyz
Tianyi Zhang, OPEN CLASS VIDEO FILE, 2018, China, 29:00. Zhang’s video of a language lesson set in a primary school classroom in Hunan, China revolves around fourth graders reciting “I am great” in different languages. The grand, impossible nature of the lesson is comedic but also evokes the societal performance of one’s (national) identity, largely formed through experiences like the one depicted in the video. zhangtianyi.org
Fri July 24, 8p – PLAY: Simply humorous and heart-warming, for one reason or another.
Shot on CameraTrademark Executive Producing Team, Shot on CameraTrademark, 2019, USA/UK/France/Canada, 3:00. A film by executive producers. blog.mikeandsophia.com
Ali Aschman, Shadow Passage, 2019, UK, 4:10. Improvised dream states in familiar spaces. aliaschman.com
Hugo Ljungbäck, Ljungba.mp4 (Anonymous Hʌcker), 2019, USA, 3:53. Do you really think that post-it note covering your webcam is doing much? hmal.se
Joshua Pearse, DIY Penis, 2019, South Africa, 3:11. The creation of an object of manhood, desire, and obsession. joshuapearse.com
Erica Huang, Judy, 2019, USA, 7:23. A sex doll romcom. instagram.com/stuffbyerica
Ivo Loyola, Tropical Resort, 2019, Mexico, 4:23. In a tiny Mexican village, tourists and Mesoamerican statuettes attempt to enjoy everything the resort has to offer.
Mario G. Lopez, Silent Child, 2019, USA, 3:50. Created by a father-son director-actor duo, the film’s impact is in initially easy readability as an amateur home movie, yet blossoming into an absurd quietude, impressive performance of restraint, and the ethos of the slow cinema movement all within four minutes.
Jas Brooks, Simulathon, 2016, USA, 15:36. A day in the life of high schooler Marguerite, whose world slowly descends into mumblecore absurdity. jasbrooks.net
Sat July 25, 4p – GENERATIONS: Nine short films exploring the artists’ own generational trauma, what is lost/gained between generations, and broader questions of how family is created.
Oliver Shahery, Mason, 2019, USA, 9:49. Mason Watson is a five-year-old boy from Fort White, Florida who spends time with his grandparents. instagram.com/oitsliver
Brenda Grell, Riveted, Structures, Lands, 2019, USA, 5:35. Fragments of railroad blueprints, homemade quilts, and memory. brendajeangrell.com
Cecilia Kim, A Warm Orange Color, 2019, USA, 6:18. "When did you feel most complete?" ceciliakim.persona.co
Saif Alsaegh, 1991, 2018, USA, 11:55. A mother-son relationship portrayed through the quiet chaos of FaceTime and familial separation.
Devon Narine-Singh, I woke up in the mud and picked up a camera because of Jonas, 2019, USA, 13:44. Families in sobriety and experimental cinema itself. instagram.com/devonnarines
Clare Teegarden, Morning Dew, 2019, USA, 7:06. There somehow exists a feeling of comfortable nostalgia in this story of family addiction and trauma. instagram.com/teagarten
Rob Rackmil, Lost Paradise (Their Happy Seat), 2019, USA, 6:31. A camera follows a mother and a father. instagram.com/robrack_milbert
Cassandra Tytler, I Still Call It Home, 2019, Australia, 7:07. I want the truth but I'm in denial. cassandratytler.com
Sakshi Jain, World Within, 2019, USA/India, 2:20. Poems tying together three generations. instagram.com/saksij
Sat July 25, 6p – APPARATUS: Six shorts which involve explicit considerations of the audiovisual medium and histories of cinema.
Avner Pinchover, Fluorescent, 2019, Israel, 2:33. A lightbulb at 3,000 frames per second.
Christine Lucy Latimer, House Pieces, 2019, Canada, 2:32. Reconstructing a former home from a corrupted SD card.
Shane Dedman, Amnesia, 2019, USA, 3:55. Voices and images buzzing over lost work and the ongoing challenge of the archive. shanededman.com
Chloé Galibert-Laîné, Flânerie 2.0, 2018, France, 11:13. A Benjaminian video essay considering the navigation of digital information geographies through observation of our own urban geographies. chloegalibertlaine.com
Anantha Krishnan, The Celluloid Woman, 2020, Portugal, 10:00. A portrait of a film archivist in humorous conflict with the filmmaker. ananthadop.com
Chloé Galibert-Laîné, Watching The Pain of Others, 2019, France, 31:22. The filmmaker's obsession over a peculiar documentary results in her own, examining online conspiracy theory communities and what documentary cinema should be to begin with. chloegalibertlaine.com
Sat July 25, 8p – PREPARATIONS (feature film)
Trakal, Preparations, 2019, Germany, 1:24:36. A browser film containing various narratives and tutorials for surviving surveillance capitalism. trakal.net
Sun July 26, 2p – COLOR: The weight of making and viewing chroma.
Four films by Matt Whitman: A visual language of familiar digital emojis and presentational text formats from social media, simultaneously celluloid-to-digital and digital-to-celluloid. mawhitman.com
Film digitalia, profile picture, No. 5, 2019, USA, 5:54.
CAN'T ANSWER YOU ANY MORE (ON FACES), 2019, USA, 2:20.
HOW MUCH LONGER (ON BALLOONS), 2019, USA, 2:27.
PHONE IN HAND (ON BALLOONS WITH A SHEET OVER DEAD BELONGINGS), 2019, USA, 2:25.
Sonja Berta, resten (long), 2019, Switzerland, 2:35:33. This film-performance-documentation takes place in a house filled with a variety of lounging performers, floating camera operators, and integrated audience members. As these three roles fold in and out of each other through an undulating, repetitive voiceover, the viewer of this two-and-a-half hour video is caressed by the soft glow of the environment.
Sun July 26, 6p – BODY/SCAPES: Perhaps the most formally and conceptually expansive program, yet boiling down to a tension between presentations of on-screen corporeality as landscape and natural environments as bodily.
Nicolas Carrasco, Atlántida, 2019, Peru/USA, 3:15. New York transience on celluloid. ncarrasco90@gmail.com
Sorcha Cummins, YOU'RE FUCKED UP AND CAN'T HAVE KIDS LMAO, 2019, Netherlands, 1:18. Primitive understandings of the utility of womanhood have only shaped into new language in recent times.
Giuseppe Boccassini, Temple of Truth, 2018, USA/Italy, 15:46. An archive of non-spaces and continual destruction. giuseppeboccassini.com
Christopher Spurgin, 150 is Alive!, 2019, USA, 4:04. Will humans outlive the image?
Pauline Maure, baby skin, 2019, Italy, 2:16. Baby meat mother baby meat mother baby meat mother paulinemaure.com
Mireille Heidbreder, Morii, 2019, USA, 11:22. Disquieting landscape temporalities. mireilleheidbreder.com
Kounosuke Kawakami, ALARA, 2019, Japan, 12:24. "If you work in the decontamination effort, your visa will be extended." kounosukekawakami.com
Juyi Mao, In the Market, 2019, China, 3:08. The market is alive! maojuyi.com
Avery Owings, Girl Out West, 2018, USA, 5:59. A film of still images borrowing conventions from road movies, westerns, pornography, and print media. averyowings@gmail.com
Elizabeth Malone, Bo+Mindy, 2019, USA, 1:30. Two bodies flowing in and out of each other, structured yet improvised. elizabethdances.com
Amanda Madden, Home Abyss, 2019, USA, 9:58. Body in home, home in body, anxiety in privacy, uncertainty in the present. amandacmadden.com
Pamela Breda, Landscape Becoming Landscape, 2019, UK, 2:49. Crumbling landscapes.
Sun July 26, 8p, MOVEMENTS: Three experimental documentaries which can be understood as radical proposals to what the road movie genre can be.
Eva van Tongeren, Still from Afar, 2018, Belgium, 18:06. A rhythmic, months-long conversation of memory and desire between an incarcerated pedophile and the filmmaker. evavantongeren.com
Jan Hofer, Groundwork, 2019, Switzerland/UK, 23:13. "For all those who want to break in, break out, undermine things or connect people and places." janhofer.net
Marleen van der Werf, time and tide, 2018, Netherlands, 29:14. Anti-pornographic observations of stillness in nature. marleenvanderwerf.nl