A Few Words from Program Facilitator and Curator Lauren Fancher
The ATHICA Micromedia Fest (AMF) is a showcase of very short animated and photographic media objects (animated GIFs, Vine videos, and one-minute-or-less videos). The GIF and Vine microformats are now responsible for democratizing the short form video across the Internet, in which average people can easily create and proliferate micromedia in order to engage, enlighten, and entertain. Micromedia bring together the spontaneity of participative culture and the aesthetics of digital artistic practice in a radical recontextualization of what it means to make and experience art.
We were fortunate to receive dozens of submissions from around the world: Japan, Malaysia, Poland, France, the United Kingdom, Sweden, New York, and Athens. I was expecting something similar to the six minute-or-less pieces that had been featured in my short video projection program 6X6. What we received was a testament to how truly different these micro-formats are in their capacity for sustained attention. The inherent nature of looping is that each repetition accrues meaning beyond what is apprehended in a single viewing. The final program, selected with the support of the ATHICA exhibitions committee, features looping works of beauty, humor, and abstraction with techniques ranging from low-fi handheld video, hand-drawn animations, and manipulated paper cutouts, to painterly meditations captured in 16mm film, to high-definition finely-wrought animations.
Three artists are prominently featured with multiple works. Michael Lyon’s “Film Loop Series” from Japan features images of the rooftops and temples in Kyoto. These images were captured on long-expired Svema 16mm cine film (from the Ukraine) using a variety of cameras (35mm SLR still camera and Kiev miniature spy camera) and hand-processed in Caffenol and Machenol (mixtures of vitamin C, washing soda, and instant coffee or powered green tea, respectively). The final digital compositions act as meditations on the fleetingness of time. Francois Beaurain’s “Welcome to the Promised Land” is an animated GIF series realized in the floating slum of Makoko in Lagos, Nigeria featuring daily scenes and portraits of local fishermen. These three pieces are mesmerizing in their use of magical realism. Beurain’s tricks and techniques slyly pull you into a puzzle in which the first-world transformation of the biggest city in Africa co-exists uneasily with the realities of daily life. The UK-based artist Emilia Izquierdo animates water-based media works on paper into oblique and humorous statements about our existential dilemma. These works loop between the graphic and colorful and the abstract and minimal. It is our hope that all of the pieces in the exhibit will “loop you in.”
Artists
Francois Beaurain (France)
Winner: Best in Show, Best Animated GIF
1-3 Welcome to the Promised Land, Animated GIF
Emilia Izquierdo (United Kingdom)
4. The Big Swallow
5. Caged
6. Shotgun
Jack Ryan (United States)
7. Rainbow Curtain
Michael Lyons (Japan)
Winner: Best One-Minute-Or-Less Video
8. Film Loop 15
9. Film Loop 16
10. Film Loop 17
Caspar Below (United Kingdom)
11. Ebb and Flow
Laura Maria Ramirez Giraldo (Athens, GA)
Winner: Best Vine Video
12. Peek-A-Boo Clown
Tina Willgren (Stockholm, Sweden)
13. Special Effects I
14. Compilation Featuring:
Robert Lyons (Brooklyn, New York)
The Money Shot
Michael Lauden (Athens, Georgia)
Untitled
Taylor Ervin (Brooklyn, New York)
One Minute Interview with Mark Zuckerberg
Arron Foster (United States)
Winner: Audience Choice
Farewell Transmission
Lyric Abbott (United States)
Dropping Water
Marcin Gizyck (Poland)
Watch Your Thoughts
Blair Bogan (Chicago, Illinois)
I’m Crazy
Jason Coombs (Athens, Georgia)
Flame
MICROMEDIA CREW
Nicole Freeman * Victoria Knowles * Evan Blackwell * Sage Rogers *
Kira Hegeman * Michael Lauden * and more
Many thanks to all who lent their support and assistance.
FINAL EVENT
April 9, 2016
Schedule, 7-11 pm
8:00 pm: Michael (solo)
Solo Audio/Visual Set — Michael Lauden is an Athens, GA based musician and multimedia artist and produces audio/visual art under the moniker “Michael”. Now creating a new body of work in audio/visual media arts with a focus on interactive video and lighting technologies to create immersive & interactive environments. More at http://laudenii.info
8:30 pm: Killick Hinds (solo)
Solo Guitar Performance: Killick Hinds is an improvising guitarist, composer, and writer living in Athens, Georgia. Hinds plays a variety of unusual stringed instruments with a comprehensive approach to genres known and as-yet-unlabeled. Reinvention has been the constant throughout his creative output. He has toured extensively as a solo performer, and is an active organizer and promoter of lesser-heard music. More at http://killick.me
9:30 pm: Alec Livaditis (solo)
Improvisational cassette tape manipulation and sonic performance.
10:00 pm: Explorations in Improvisation (collective)
Live Jazz Quartet: Thom Strickland (guitar), Stephen Roach (saxophone), Scott Woodward (keys) and Michael Lauden (percussion) — perform as a collective with influences rooted in free-metered experimental jazz.
PICTURES AND MORE
