uniondocs
IMG_5036office
Although our built environment is not necessarily designed to facilitate our personal longings and desires, its spaces certainly enable us to court, fight, make love, get drunk, debate, urinate and walk our way back home from that embarrassing dinner date. Taking his works still (2006) and the Healers (2010) as a starting point, Rotterdam-based artist Tim Leyendekker curates a program that focuses on films that deal with the Western urban landscape as a witness to intimate social interactions and the de/reconstruction of the cinematic narrative.
still by Tim Leyendekker
Netherlands, 1989, 5 minutes, 16mm
Two kids make their first date through a telephone dating line. A piece on desire and memory.
God Provides by Brian M. Cassidy and Melanie Shatzky
USA, 2006, 9 minutes, digital projection
Shot in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and bound by elements of fiction, this documentary short is a glimpse into faith-based sentiment and inexplicable loss in the American South. While a man searches for his kitchen appliances in the bushes, elsewhere a grinning preacher takes souvenir snapshots for his congregation, and a woman with a disability journeys to a quieter place.
the Truth Machine by Simone Bennett
Netherlands, 2007, 10 minutes, digital projection
A short film about a car accident based on an old Persian fable: Truth is a mirror which fell to earth in a million pieces, and each human being picked up a piece, looked at it and saw themselves reflected. And each decided they saw the truth…but not realising that truth is splintered among all people.
Oral Historyby Volko Kamensky
Germany, 2009, 22 minutes, digital projection
A report from the land of the Brothers Grimm: the story of a sleepy German hamlet presented in twenty-two images. The voices of its inhabitants guide the audience through the rural environment, but the impact of the film owes as much to what is concealed as to what is shown and said. The crucial distinction between story and history becomes increasingly flimsy.
a Necessary Music by Beatrice Gibson and Alex Waterman
USA, 2008, 30 minutes, digital projection
Derived from texts by residents of Roosevelt Island, and Bioy Casares, A Necessary Music is a musically conceived science fiction film featuring Robert Ashley. The takes long, languid and beautifully pictorial – in a narration shared between Robert Ashley (perhaps one of the most distinguished voices in contemporary music) and dwellers of Roosevelt Island (a small sliver of land situated between NYC burroughs Manhattan and Queens) - A Necessary Music is a musically conceived science fiction film, exploring the social imaginary of a utopian landscape through directed attention to the voices that inhabit it.
the Healers by Tim Leyendekker
Netherlands, 2010, 10 minutes, digital projection
The Healers is a deconstructive reconstruction of a memory set in early 90’s nightlife. Layers that normally form a cinematographic entity by merging together are stripped bare and served separately in order to provoke the boundaries of the constructed narrative.
66 Scenes from America by Jørgen Leth
Denmark, 1982, 42 minutes, digital projection
As a visual narrative 66 Scenes from America is reminiscent of a pile of postcards from a journey, which indeed is what the film is. It consists of a series of lengthy shots of tableaux nature, each appearing to be a random cross section of American reality, but which in total evoke a highly emblematic picture of the USA. A personal, subjective rendition, full of experiences and sensations, big and small.
Jim Supanick is a videomaker and writer born in Cleveland, OH, and now living in Brooklyn. His work has been exhibited at museums, galleries, and festivals, including the Cleveland Museum of Art, Dia Art Foundation Thomas Erben Gallery, LA Freewaves, and PDX Festival, and has received funding from the New York State Council on the Arts, the Experimental Television Center, and the Puffin Foundation. His current two-part project, Seed Sold Back to the Farmer, traces Taylorism’s psychic impact over the course of the last 100-odd years. His essays have appeared in exhibition catalogs and publications such as Film Comment, Millennium Film Journal, The Wire, Film International, Cineaste, and The Brooklyn Rail. His writing has received support from the New York Foundation for the Arts and the Creative Capital/Andy Warhol Art Writers Grant Program. Other writings can be viewed at his blog As A Chimney Draw
IMG_5036office
Although our built environment is not necessarily designed to facilitate our personal longings and desires, its spaces certainly enable us to court, fight, make love, get drunk, debate, urinate and walk our way back home from that embarrassing dinner date. Taking his works still (2006) and the Healers (2010) as a starting point, Rotterdam-based artist Tim Leyendekker curates a program that focuses on films that deal with the Western urban landscape as a witness to intimate social interactions and the de/reconstruction of the cinematic narrative.
still by Tim Leyendekker
Netherlands, 1989, 5 minutes, 16mm
Two kids make their first date through a telephone dating line. A piece on desire and memory.
God Provides by Brian M. Cassidy and Melanie Shatzky
USA, 2006, 9 minutes, digital projection
Shot in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and bound by elements of fiction, this documentary short is a glimpse into faith-based sentiment and inexplicable loss in the American South. While a man searches for his kitchen appliances in the bushes, elsewhere a grinning preacher takes souvenir snapshots for his congregation, and a woman with a disability journeys to a quieter place.
the Truth Machine by Simone Bennett
Netherlands, 2007, 10 minutes, digital projection
A short film about a car accident based on an old Persian fable: Truth is a mirror which fell to earth in a million pieces, and each human being picked up a piece, looked at it and saw themselves reflected. And each decided they saw the truth…but not realising that truth is splintered among all people.
Oral Historyby Volko Kamensky
Germany, 2009, 22 minutes, digital projection
A report from the land of the Brothers Grimm: the story of a sleepy German hamlet presented in twenty-two images. The voices of its inhabitants guide the audience through the rural environment, but the impact of the film owes as much to what is concealed as to what is shown and said. The crucial distinction between story and history becomes increasingly flimsy.
a Necessary Music by Beatrice Gibson and Alex Waterman
USA, 2008, 30 minutes, digital projection
Derived from texts by residents of Roosevelt Island, and Bioy Casares, A Necessary Music is a musically conceived science fiction film featuring Robert Ashley. The takes long, languid and beautifully pictorial – in a narration shared between Robert Ashley (perhaps one of the most distinguished voices in contemporary music) and dwellers of Roosevelt Island (a small sliver of land situated between NYC burroughs Manhattan and Queens) - A Necessary Music is a musically conceived science fiction film, exploring the social imaginary of a utopian landscape through directed attention to the voices that inhabit it.
the Healers by Tim Leyendekker
Netherlands, 2010, 10 minutes, digital projection
The Healers is a deconstructive reconstruction of a memory set in early 90’s nightlife. Layers that normally form a cinematographic entity by merging together are stripped bare and served separately in order to provoke the boundaries of the constructed narrative.
66 Scenes from America by Jørgen Leth
Denmark, 1982, 42 minutes, digital projection
As a visual narrative 66 Scenes from America is reminiscent of a pile of postcards from a journey, which indeed is what the film is. It consists of a series of lengthy shots of tableaux nature, each appearing to be a random cross section of American reality, but which in total evoke a highly emblematic picture of the USA. A personal, subjective rendition, full of experiences and sensations, big and small.
Jim Supanick is a videomaker and writer born in Cleveland, OH, and now living in Brooklyn. His work has been exhibited at museums, galleries, and festivals, including the Cleveland Museum of Art, Dia Art Foundation Thomas Erben Gallery, LA Freewaves, and PDX Festival, and has received funding from the New York State Council on the Arts, the Experimental Television Center, and the Puffin Foundation. His current two-part project, Seed Sold Back to the Farmer, traces Taylorism’s psychic impact over the course of the last 100-odd years. His essays have appeared in exhibition catalogs and publications such as Film Comment, Millennium Film Journal, The Wire, Film International, Cineaste, and The Brooklyn Rail. His writing has received support from the New York Foundation for the Arts and the Creative Capital/Andy Warhol Art Writers Grant Program. Other writings can be viewed at his blog As A Chimney Draw