Cinema On Air

Jun 21, 2008: 8:30 pm- 9:30 pm
Socrates Sculpture Park

Broadway at Vernon Boulevard | Long Island City, NY 11103 | 718-956-1819
http://www.socratessculpturepark.org/

Digging Piece, by Vito Acconci

Digging Piece, by Vito Acconci. 1970, 10 min, color, silent, Super 8 film on video. Courtesy Electronic Arts Intermix (EAI)

Join free103point9, in collaboration with Electronic Arts Intermix and Socrates Sculpture Park, for a summertime "drive-in," leaving the car at home and incorporating audience participation. "Cinema On Air" features an evening of projected silent video works, selected from the EAI Collection, accompanied by two simultaneous sound performances heard through radio headphones. Take a seat in the park, tune-in to either of the two live soundtracks, watch the works in silence, or sample all three experiences.

Attendees are encouraged to bring their own radios and headphones. A limited number of radios with headphones will be available on site. (This event will conclude Socrates' Summer Solstice program, which begins at 5 p.m. Cinema On Air will begin at sunset.)

Please refer to the artist and work menus to the right for biographies and work descriptions.

"On discussing the relationship between sound, image, audience, and the poetic moment in cinema, Maya Deren describes a scenario in which a person looks out of a window onto the street while listening to the activity taking place in the room behind them. Here the observer gathers images happening in one direction andsounds happening in another. “...What relates these two moments is your position in relation to the two of them... you stand by the window and have a sense of afternoon, which is neither the children in the street, nor the women talking behind you, but a curious combination of both..."

Motion pictures are fundamentally a collage comprised of still images. These frames are often times accompanied by a sequence of sounds. The audience collects the images through eye sight and the sounds through hearing. In this sense, the audience is the locus of cinema. Tonight's program develops within the audience, in the area where disparate components come together. The park is now an urban drive-in, abandoning the car and embracing the radio, where the edges of the screen are contrasted by the expanse of the night's sky, suggesting the difference between framing and limitlessness. Images recorded years ago are projected onto a screen, with bodies and places recreated in a new location, flattened from three to two dimensions. Opposite the screen, the lights along the New York City skyline are glowing, the variations in luminance demonstrating the distance from building to building. Soundtracks are created live as the performers play to the silent films and videos. Each sound is happening for the first time, and is displaced from one location to another through the process of transmission. Tonight the park serves as the quintessential movie theater; the meeting place for disparate components, where the audience can 'stand by the window and have a sense of afternoon'. " - Sarah Margaret Halpern, concept and program selection.

Cinema On Air program:

Part I. Live soundtracks performed by Damian Catera and ben owen.

Backyard Economy I, Martha Rosler, 1974, 3:26 min, color, silent. (Included on Super-8 Shorts)

Backyard Economy II (Diane Germain Mowing), Martha Rosler, 1974, 6:32 min, color, silent. (Included on Super-8 Shorts)

Digging Piece, Vito Acconci, 1970, 10 min, color, silent, Super 8 film on video

Two Stage Transfer Drawing (Returning to a Past State), Dennis Oppenheim, 1971, 3 min, color, silent. (Included on Program Six)

A Feedback Situation, Dennis Oppenheim, 1971, 3:02 min, color, silent. (Included on Program Six)

3 Stage Transfer Drawing, Dennis Oppenheim, 1972, 3:07 min, color, silent. (Included on Program Six)

Part II. Live soundtracks performed by Matt Wellins and Ferrum Virgo.

Sun in Your Head (Television Decollage), Wolf Vostell, 1963, 7:10 min, b&w, silent. (Included on Fluxfilm Anthology, published by Re:Voir.)

Hearts, Barbara Buckner, 1979, 11:56 min, color, silent. (Included on Barbara Buckner: Selected Works I)

Some Manipulations, Jud Yalkut, 1969, 3:10 min, color, silent, 16 mm film on video

TV Cello Premiere, Nam June Paik and Jud Yalkut, 1971, 7:25 min, color, silent. (Included on Video Synthesizer and "TV Cello" Collectibles)