Monday June 15, 7:30pm
Cure The Night
works by: Soojin Chang, Sophie Merrison-Thieme, Solgil Oh, Johanna Wagner, Antonia Kuo & Lily Jue Sheng, Chris Penalosa & Sean Julian, Shona Masarin & Cori Olinghouse, Lili Chin
curated by Bradley Eros / part of Microscope YES series
admission $6 – artists in person
Glass slide from the collection of Bradley Eros
Microscope is pleased to present Cure The Night, an evening of film, video, slides, sound and performance curated by Bradley Eros and the second installment of our new YES program of emerging artists.
Eros says about the evening:
Cure The Night
Landscape, dream, impersonation, architecture, rhythmic patterns, identity, memory, invention, fantasy, dance.
The night returns to light: from conception to realization, through nocturnal travels in the shape-shifting of visual materials, you must bring it back alive, giving it a form that can exist on its own, for now the work must rise, quiver, writhe, tremble, even, in the light of projection.
“Only by accepting the physical presence of night have we come to accept it morally.” ~ Isidore Ducasse, (Lautréamont), Poésies
“Cure the night . . .” As you might “cure a sickness”? Or “cure a ham, or tobacco, or fruit, or an animal skin”? Or, to preserve the inspired night?
Or perhaps, as one might “cure a photographic negative in the fevered darkroom like a botanist tending to a nocturnal-blooming orchid in a hothouse garden.” A curé, is also a priest, in this case, an agnostic witchdoctor of the wayward crafts. Or a treasure-hunter, who, instead of a map, has only a compass of the constellations to guide his way. In this night of discovery, I’m a selenological prospector, with only the reflected lunar light to indicate where to dig, similar to the illuminations that ricochet from the screen.
“When a finger points at the moon, the fool looks at the finger.” ~ An ancient Chinese proverb. In this instance: Eyes on the tender reflections pulsing before you.
Bringing together works, nurturing fresh shoots, in the growing process, a curator is a caretaker, a night-nurse who only comes during a fever, a surgeon of culture, like a worm processing the fertile soil from the underground.
~ Bradley Eros, June, 2015
Program:
Mare Nubium
Soojin Chang & Sophie Merrison-Thieme, 22 minutes (3-screen installation version, in 3 parts: 9min, 7min, 6min)
A stripped away Bildungsroman, coming of age story.
ME_ON_YOU
Johanna Wagner, video performance, 2015, approx. 4 minutes
Point Line Plane
Antonia Kuo and Lily Jue Sheng, b&w 16mm, sound, 2015, 13 minutes 45 seconds
A dual projection pairing positive and negative photograms, accumulating rhythmic patterns with an analogous optical track. With Mike Sidnam.
Dwell
Lili Chin, Super 8mm to HD video, color, sound, 2012, 5 minutes 4 seconds (installation version). Original score by Carolyn Chen.
Drawing from a diverse range of facades and interiors, the film explores vernacular architecture and the unison of cross-cultural geometry and pattern in structures of worship. This arabesque study with portals and passages yields an unexpected sojourn into sacred dwelling sites.
Tree Stump
Lili Chin, HD video, color, sound, 2011, 4 minutes 5 seconds
Shot on location at Skowhegan, ME, summer 2011
Salt
Solgil Oh, 16mm and video, sounds, 2013, 4 minutes 36 seconds
Sanitary confinement on the Hudson. This film is scratched by Oh’s parents.
Riders of Death Valley
Solgil Oh, 16mm film, sound, 2012, 2 minutes 51 seconds
Airport Love Theme by Waldir Calmon
Balm
Solgil Oh, video, silent, 2013, 2 minutes 58 seconds
Moisturize me.
Ghost line
Shona Masarin & Cori Olinghouse, 16mm transferred to HD video, sound, 2013, 15 minutes
Ghost line is an experimental dance film by filmmaker Shona Masarin and choreographer/performer Cori Olinghouse. Together they merge the rhythmic and comedic timings of silent film and Vaudeville with the absurdist impulses of Dada and Surrealism in a kinetic spectacle of light and shadow.
untitled #5
Chris Penalosa & Sean Julian (The Modular Slideshow), found 35mm slides, live modular synthesis sound, 2015, approx. 22 minutes
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SOOJIN CHANGE is a filmmaker and writer based in New York City. She was born in San Francisco, CA and raised in South Korea and California. Her works blend performance art and cinema, addressing notions of time, memory, identity, and technology. Sophie Merrison-Thieme is a performance artist and filmmaker who is currently working in Peru. She grew up between London and Berlin, and studied at King’s College London.
LILI CHIN is an artist based in New York City. She works in various media to investigate themes of ritual in nature and architecture. Her choice of materials reflects a desire to preserve and bridge the ancient with the new through personal memory and cultural archetypes. She has exhibited in New York and abroad, in galleries, museums and screening venues. She graduated with an MFA from the University of California, San Diego and a fellowship at the Showhegan School of Painting and Sculpture.
ANTONIA KUO and LILY JUE SHENG began their collaborative filmmaking practice after meeting at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston in 2006. Their films explore the fleeting temporality of an immersive optical experience, emphasizing oscillating, flickering compositions that exploit the frame-by-frame structure of 16mm film through in-camera and stop-motion collage animation.
SHONA MASARIN is a New York City-based Australian filmmaker whose work involves the physical, alchemic, and sculptural manipulation of found images and materials to create abstract animations. CORI OLINGHOUSE is Brooklyn-based choreographer, teacher, and archivist whose work explores the shapeshifting capacities of the body, space, and time.
SOLGIL OH – “I tend to take notes regarding the peaks and falls of our interactions as people. Other things too. I am curious. I like variety. I am impressionable, though particular.”
CHRIS PENALOS & SEAN JULIAN (aka The Modular Slideshow) is an audiovisual duo that began in a living room in Queens.
JOHANNA WAGNER is an artist based in Karlsruhe, Germany. She is a student at the Academy of Fine Arts in Karlsruhe.
BRADLEY EROS is a New York-based artist working in various mediums including film & video, collage, performance, expanded cinema and installation. Eros’ works have exhibited and screened extensively in the US and abroad including at The Whitney Biennial, The Whitney Museum’s series “The American Century”, The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), The Andy Warhol Museum, MoMA P.S.1, The New Museum, Anthology Film Archives, Participant Inc., The Kitchen, Performa09, Arsenal (Berlin), Camden Arts Center (London), and The New York, London and Rotterdam Film Festivals. Collaborations include the Alchemical Theater , the band Circle X , Voom HD Lab , and the expanded cinema groups kinoSonik , Arcane Project and currently Optipus. Eros has also curated screenings and visual performances for Ocularis, Eyebeam, Light Industry, Union Docs, Anthology Film Archives, Film-makers Cooperative, The Andy Warhol Museum, and the Robert/a Beck Memorial Cinema – which he organized with Brian Frye for 10 years.
