Rotunda

Featuring:

The End (1962) 16mm, black and white, sound, 12 min
Genre: Experimental
A satire on business. We see a distinguished business man speaking gibberish, telephone ploes being ripped down to make room for
beautiful farmlands, prices tumbling. I hoped the end would justify the means. –D. H.

Takahiko Iimura
On Eye Rape (1962) 16mm, black and white, silent, 10 min
Co-produced with Natsuyuki Nakanishi A found educational film about the sex of plants and animals was punched with big holes in almost every frame throughout the film by myself and an artist friend Natsuyuki Nakanishi who found the film in a garbage. At several points there are inserts of a few frames of a pornographic photo (which would work on a subliminal sense) in which the sex part was covered by black. The film is an irony and at the same time a protest against sex censorship in Japan at the time in which pornographic scenes had to be covered by black. At the end we even punched holes in these subliminal pictures, thereby “censoring” the censored image. A superior work. Considering the whole situation of film/image works at the time, one could say that this is an exceptional film. The film was picked up from garbage by Nakanishi and then Iimura punched with holes throughout the film. The work, which directly attacks both the film physically and the eyes of the audience, was Iimura’s first film (according to the filmography) as well as the first master piece which relates to his later film works of conceptual-art.” Masaaki Hirakata, from catalogue “META MEDIA”, Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography, 1995

Mark Abramson
Shoot The Actor (1967) 16mm, black and white, sound, 18 min
The film begins in the cluttered apartment of an unemployed actor, We become familiar with his way of life and routine. As he carries out his daily tasks, he becomes aware of an unknown threat. We watch as a stranger follows him and makes his presence known in increasingly disturbing ways. The more the actor tries to elude the danger, the more persistent the stranger becomes. As the film progresses, we become involved in the horror-fantasy that is his constant companion. The stranger silently confronts him in the subway and in the streets; becomes a terrifying opponent in a fencing match and eventually traps him in this apartment. In desperation, he flees to the roof where his attacker confronts him. Suddenly the actor realizes that he is in front of a movie camera and is being encouraged to perform. His actor’s instincts take over and he begins to sing and dance for the camera. The intensity of his performance increases. He is loved. He has found approval. As the camera pans closer and closer to the edge of the roof, the actor, in the glory of his performance, falls to his death.

Will Bragger
Portrait of a Crooked Cross (1993) 16mm, color, sound, 16 min
Mental trials of a woman who has been through twenty years of the Catholic experience. The images of the film are literal interpretations of dreams from this time period.

Owen Land
What’s Wrong With This Picture? (1972) 16mm, color & b/w, sound, 12.5 min
“The first portion of this film is an old instructional film about being a ‘good citizen,’ presented intact; the second section is a
color reconstruction of this black and white film by Land. The original film abounds in absurdities in both image and sound; [Land's]
‘copy’ is even more bizarre. Both are also extremely funny, and the humor is not totally without meaning: it comes out of the way that
each line of dialog, each direction given, implies a situation or character so absurdly plodding as to be almost inconceivable. In
[Land's] version he creates an additional paradox — one of depth — by matting out certain parts of the frame.” — Fred Camper

Martha Colburn
Skelehellavision (2002) 16mm, color, sound, 8 min
This is a film exploiting inventive techniques of animation in an attempt to realize the world that may await us after death. Using
found pornography as part of the film and literally scratching skeletons over the footage frame-by-frame.

Admission is free