Monday June 26, 7:30pm
Lynne Sachs & Mark Street
A Marriage of Remakes
artists in person
Still from “Barbara, Carolee & Gunvor” by Lynne Sachs (2017) – Image courtesy of the artist
Microscope is pleased to premiere Marriage of Remakes, a new project and conversation in moving images between Lynne Sachs and Mark Street in which the New York-based filmmakers remake works of the other. Three previous works by each will be followed by the other’s interpretations, which are not meant to be literal recreations, but rather responses and reflections to the work in part or in whole.
“It is with curiosity and a tremor of fear that we embark on an unusual filmmaking project that involves each of us remaking a few selected short films from the other’s body of work. The remake production process will start with picking up the camera and reacting to the other person’s selected films with a combination of humor, insight, irony, pathos and perhaps critique”, says Sachs.
Lynne Sachs and Mark Street have been making films individually and collaboratively under the name “XY Chromosome Project” for over 30 years, which is also the length of the relationship as a couple. Both will be in attendance and available for Q&A after the screening.
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Lynne Sachs makes films, installations, performances and web projects that explore the intricate relationship between personal observations and broader historical experiences by weaving together poetry, collage, painting, politics and layered sound design. Sachs has made over 25 films. Between 1994 and 2006, she produced five essay films that took her to Vietnam, Bosnia, Israel, Italy and Germany — sites affected by international war – where she looked at the space between a community’s collective memory and her own subjective perceptions. Recently, she presented Your Day is My Night (2013) and Every Fold Matters (2016) as live performances and then as films in alternative theaters around New York City. In 2017, she completed Tip of My Tongue which premiered as the closing night film in the Museum of Modern Art’s Documentary Fortnight. Since 2006, Sachs has collaborated with her partner, filmmaker Mark Street, in a series of playful, mixed-media performances called “The XY Chromosome Project”. Her films have screened at the New York Film Festival, the Sundance Film Festival and Toronto’s Images Festival amongst others. They have also been exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum, Walker Art Center, Wexner Center for the Arts and other venues nationally and internationally. Sachs was awarded Guggenheim Fellowship in the Creative Arts in 2014.
Mark Street has been making films, videos and installations for 30 years. His work has moved from tactile, abstract explorations of 16mm film to essays on the urban experience to improvised feature length narratives. His film works have been performed live with accompanying musicians, including Marc Ribot, Zeena Parkins, Bradford Reed and Jane Scarpantoni. Street’s works have shown at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, Anthology Film Archives, Millennium Film Workshop, and the San Francisco Cinematheque, among others. His work has appeared at numerous festivals such as the Tribeca Film Festival, Sundance Film Festival, International Film Festival Rotterdam, and others. He has been a recipient of grants from the Jerome Foundation, the Film Arts Foundation, New York State Council on the Arts, the Maryland State Arts Council and the New York Experimental TV Center, among others. He has also curated film and art exhibitions at venues including Anthology Film Archives, Pacific Film Archive, and Fordham University’s Center Art Gallery, among others. Street is Associate Professor of Film in the Visual Art Department at Fordham University – Lincoln Center where he teaches film/video production and other courses that engage contemporary artistic practice. He graduated from Bard College (B.A, 1986) and the San Francisco Art Institute (MFA 1992).
General admission $8
Members and students w/ ID $6
Program:
Mark Street films with remakes by Lynne Sachs
Brooklyn Promenade
by Mark Street, 16mm, 2001, 3 minutes
“I did my best to shield my kids from the events of 9/11: mildly explaining the ashes that enveloped our Brooklyn neighborhood, turning off the TV as images of the planes hitting blared, flipping over the newspaper as it arrived on our doorstep with shots of the WTC burning. But, of course, the horror was percolating in them, too, despite my best efforts. Eventually, they found ways of talking about it, wrapping their heads around it like the rest of us.” – MS
And Then We Marched
by Lynne Sachs, 2017, 3 minutes
“I shot Super 8mm film of the January 21 Women’s March in Washington, D.C. and intercut this recent footage with archival material of early 20th Century Suffragists marching for the right to vote, 1960s antiwar activists and 1970s advocates for the Equal Rights Amendment. A few days later my seven-year-old neighbor Sophie recounted to me her experience in her first-ever political march and demonstration. Sophie’s reflections remind us that you’re never too young to speak truth to power.” – LS
Oiltowns
by Mark Street, 2016, 5 minute excerpt from 40 minutes
From 2012 to 2015, Mark traced the boom and bust cycles in and around the Men’s Camps of Williston, North Dakota.
Barbara, Carolee & Gunvor
by Lynne Sachs, Super 8mm and 16mm film transferred to digital, 2017, 8 minutes
From 2015 to 2017, Lynne visited with Barbara Hammer, Carolee Schneemann and Gunvor Nelson, three multi-faceted artists who have embraced the moving image throughout their lives. From Barbara’s West Village studio to Carolee’s 18th Century house in the woods of Upstate New York to Gunvor’s childhood village in Sweden, Lynne shoots film with each woman in the place where she finds grounding and spark.
Still Here
by Mark Street, 2015, 10 minute excerpt from 25 minutes
The empty nest swirls around him as a filmmaker shoots a series of stills in and around the city. His only sibling dies; he ages and politics offer a brief reprieve. He tries various medicines but ultimately ends up irrevocably himself.
A Year in Notes and Numbers
by Lynne Sachs, video, 2017, 5 minutes
A year’s worth of to-do lists confronts the unavoidable numbers that are part and parcel of an annual visit to the doctor. The quotidian and the corporeal mingle and mix. Family commitments, errands and artistic effusions trade places with the daunting reality of sugar, cholesterol, and bone.
Lynne Sachs films with response/remakes by Mark Street
Investigation of a Flame
by Lynne Sachs, 2001, 10 minute excerpt from 45 minutes
On May 17, 1968 nine Vietnam War protesters led by Daniel and Philip Berrigan, walked into a Catonsville, Maryland draft board office, grabbed hundreds of selective service records and burned them with homemade napalm. “Investigation of a Flame” is Lynne’s intimate, experimental documentary portrait of the Catonsville Nine, this disparate band of resisters who chose to break the law in a defiant, poetic act of civil disobedience.
Let Me Stand Next to Your Fire
by Mark Street, 2017, 5 minutes
A montage of protests from around the world in which things are set on fire. Flags and trash cans are ignited as the protest becomes spectacle.
Same Stream Twice
by Lynne Sachs, 2012, 16mm film transfer to digital, 4 minutes
”In 2001, Lynne photographed our daughter Maya at six years old, spinning like a top around her. Even then, she realized that her childhood was not something she could grasp. Eleven years later, Lynne pulled out her 16mm Bolex camera to film her again – different but somehow the same.” – MS
Boys To Men
by Mark Street, digital, 2017, 5 minutes
Seven-year-old twins run around my camera as their father does his own revolution. The soundtrack challenges this moment in time.
Coney Island of the Mind
by Lynne Sachs, digital, 2008, 3 minutes
A collage homage to Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s great poem “Coney Island of the Mind”. Layers of video capture the kinetic topsy-turvy amusement world.
13 Corners
by Mark Street, dual 16mm film projection, 2017, 6 minutes
Two 16mm projectors show negative and positive images of 360-degree pan on 13 NYC street corners. The projectors are slightly offset and mimic the motion of Coney Island rides.
X Y Chromosome Project 2007
by Lynne Sachs and Mark Street, video, 2007, 11 minutes
“Back and forth and always forward. No regrets or over-thinking. In this way, the diptych structure is sometimes a boxing match and other times a pas-de-deux. Newsreel footage of Ronald Reagan’s assassination attempt is brushed up against hand painted film, domestic spaces, and Christmas movie trailers. Together, we move from surface to depth and back again without even feeling the bends.” – LS & MS
Running time: 78 minutes
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With the underwriting support of the Robert D. Bielecki Foundation
