Monday November 16, 7:30pm
Film, Paper, Sound
Performance works by Sarah Halpern
From “Watch” (Sarah Halpern, 2015, paper on 35mm film) – image courtesy of the artist
Microscope is very pleased to present an evening of moving image and sound performance works by Sarah Halpern in connection with her current solo exhibit “The Changing Room“.
The artist’s 35mm films strip and vocal performance pieces in “Film, Paper, Sound” reflect themes of transformation, dualism, and the differences in individual perception and relate to the works on view at the gallery. In the new 35mm film strip projection collage “Watch” Halpern correlates time to magic tricks combining images from clippings about Houdini’s graphic notes explaining how certain tricks are performed, recent pocket watch collector’s catalogues, and fragments of texts from books about early cinema technology. The second piece “Strip” is a projection through a complete molted snake skin, which the artist found in a garden, stretched across a 35mm film strip.
The night concludes with a vocal performance “Nine Questions” in which the artist integrates the folksong “The Devil’s Nine Questions”, narrating how the Devil tries to ensnare a young woman through a series of riddles, with selected passages of text about demonic possession, psychological projection, spell binding and spell breaking.
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SARAH HALPERN works with paper, 16mm film, 35mm slides, sound and performance. Her work often finds sources in classic cinema imagery in the form of books or celluloid film, and has been previously shown at The Museum of Moving Image, The Kitchen, Participant Inc, Anthology Film Archives, the New York Film Festival, and Microscope Gallery, among others. She holds a B.A. in Film and Electronic Arts from Bard College, and was a recipient of the 2014 MacDowell Colony Fellowship. Halpern lives and works in Ridgewood, Queens, NY.
$7 – general admission
$5 – students with valid ID
Free for Members!
PROGRAM:
Watch
35mm film strip, 2015, approx. 15 minutes
On the relationship between magic tricks, the mechanics of motion pictures and the viewers sense of time.
Strip
35mm film strip, 2014, approx. 10 minutes
An entire discarded snake skin, stretched, flattened and affixed to 35mm clear leader.
Nine Questions
Vocal sound performance, approx 30 minutes
Live singing, pre-recorded singing, and reading of selected texts.
