Films | Animation! Shorts!

Animations! Shorts!
Thursday, Oct. 22 @ Stanley Milner Library, Edmonton Room

We're excited to be presenting a series of short experimental and animated films by ESPA member artist Robert Pasternak (Winnipeg), Emanuele Kabu (from Italy, produced by ESPA member collective Islands Fold in B.C.), and Cartune Xprez (based in Portland). Tucked in are a couple short films by Microcosm Publishing & Paper Tiger Television - enjoy!

SUMMARY (Film & Presentation Bios Below):

  • 6pm:
    Cartune Xprez (40 min.)
  • 6:45pm:
    Central Kansas: Canvas Central (11 min.)
  • 7pm:
    Experience with Humans by Robert Pasternak (30 min.)
  • 7:30pm:
    Experiments with Humans by Robert Pasternak (30 min.)
  • 8pm:
    Eyes & Trees by Emanuele Kabu (30 min.)   *Kids will love these, so bring 'em!
  • 8:30pm:
    Infiltrating the Underground: The Corporatization of Radical Culture (30 min.)
Thursday, October 22nd
6
PM
Cartune Xprez
USA/CANADA, 40min.
Playing in the Edmonton Room
Cartune Xprez is a collection of 8 crazy contemporary animated videos. These are our favourites from their 2006 travelling roadshow.
  • SLOW DANCE RECYTTAL (7:37)
    Peter Burr, Christopher Doulgeris & Cassandra C. Jones
    Vibrating forests, crazy insects & wild exploration.
  • THE LITTLE FOX (6:21)
    Luke Meeken and Andrew Negrey
    Envisioned in the tradition of a Russian animal tale, this wordless film describes the awe and discovery of two friends' experiences during their fleeting moment together.
  • MOMENTS IN LOVE (3:19)
    Francine Spiegel
    A diamond life clip art fantasy adventure starring a female protagonist exploring a world of porcelain kittens and gold chain obstacles.
  • WHAT TEN PLANETS TILT FOR THIS + THE MONKEY WRITES (2:23)
    Drew Pavelchak
    These newspaper animations use the international and national news from the New York Times for visual content and sound. The result is a regurgitation of headline information crafted into a new narrative.
  • SATANDEATHSNAKETRAINAWESOME (0:35)
    Hooliganship
    Blood, monsters, and skateboarding drawn on a chalkboard and shot on a webcam.
  • HOOLIGANSHIP: ADVENTURE (6:00)
    Hooliganship
    Electronic basement band with some funky moves & a singing guest discover a psychedelic world of fast food and casino capitalism through a portal of used pizza boxes.
  • WALK FOR WALK (10:29)
    Amy Lockhart
    A colourful tripped out animated landscape filled with catchy songs, eyeball kicks, goofball characters, and a great variety of babies: Warm Baby! Mister Baby! Rich Baby! And more!
  • TACO MONDE (2:44)
    Phillipe Blanchard
    An absurdist exploration of North American popular culture and fast food. It deals ironically with themes like sensory overload and the obsession for interactivity.
6
:45
PM
Central Kansas: Canvas Central
Directed by Joe Biel
USA, 2007, 11min.
Playing in the Edmonton Room

Central Kansas: Canvas Central is a affectionate mockumentary about the obsessive nature of punks with patches as a kind of media. For years Portland-based Microcosm Publishing tabled at bookfairs and sold primarily patches to young, excited individuals who ignored their reading material. Joel set out to get the inside story from this interesting young set. A highly entertaining glimpse into punk-patch-mania.

7
PM
Experience with Humans
Robert Pasternak
Canada, 2008, 11min.
Playing in the Edmonton Room

Ten short experimental videos & soundscapes by one of our favourite member artists.

  • danz (2:12): Breath Movements.
  • BRiDGiNG (0:47): A geometric meditation to get to the other side.
  • Tariffica Synthany #1 (2:00): Something clickety-clack, asphalt and tar.
  • DeVisible (1:54): Stop-motion animation using 'The Visible Man'. Scents of Metropolis.
  • 412222 (4:38): Experiment with motion and the Nazi death train.
  • Shatterglit (5:05): A meditation on changing one's vibration.
  • Whatisitwalk (2:00): Pasternak saw something on the ground one day.
  • Drawing Totemica (1:35): Stop-motion of an illustration.
  • Laser Breath (1:26): Hyper creation of one of Pasternak's Breath drawings.
  • Component for a Mechanical Landscape (6:21)
7
:30
PM
Experiments with Humans
Robert Pasternak
Canada, 2007, 30 min.
Playing in the Edmonton Room
Ten short metaphysical experiments in sound & motion. Hypnotizing. Mesmerizing. Pacifying. Beautiful audio compositions.
  • TransMission (2:45)
    An after death abstraction of time & space through the journey of separated spirit & flesh bodies.
  • FlameOn (0:47)
    Composed with over 450 stills taken with an iSight camera rigged with a handmade lens attachment, the images represent a standing Light God and speaks of transmutation.
  • Totemical (1:51)
    Documentia found. This short records a kind of future historical data of the Totemicans, a race of Aztonian wonderers that slip in and out of dimensional consciousness to translate hidden mysteries to those who accept life.
  • HivEcular (4:02)
    An industrial lullaby for the continual delicate worker inside the molecular structure of feeling.
  • Dimensia (2:18)
    A film about unlocking a dimension in our minds that will allow us to see beauty in the mundane. It can be really frightening to know the simplicity of things.
  • Moving Along (2:47)
    What should we do today?! If Pasternak had a weekly show it would be something like this. Great beats by Chris Scholl.
  • Traffiiiik (1:50)
    No cameras were used in making this film, rather it is an abstract experiment made by applying border tape directly to clear film stock, to see how the various patterns would synchronize with the frame rate and with one another. Music by Alien Radio Station.
  • Screetchain (2:50)
    Pasternak's impetus for this was to capture a sound - a fascinating 'screetch' heard every day. Shot directly in mosaic mode with a video camera, the coloured pixels bring to mind a bygone-era video game, but with industrial rhythmic patterning created through the editing process.
  • eoi (3:08)
    Pasternak's fingers, eyes & voice captured to evolve into a meditation about finding his singular identity within the micro-vastness of space, and manifesting a larger oneness of self through voice.
  • Eyeball Signal (7:11)
    This short is about opening visual communication to our physical, mental & emotional body through our third eye. It was made with a single piece of Hi8 scrap video footage. Never wanting to throw anything away, Pasternak started fooling around, manipulating the same section in 3 distinct ways and combined them with 3 forms of music. Some 'accidents' are meant to happen. Music by David Hickey & Chris Scholl.
8
PM
Eyes & Trees
Emanuele Kabu
Italy/Canada, 2008, 30 min.
Playing in the Edmonton Room

A series of delightfully whimsical animations by Emanuele Bortoluzzi & Valentina Reolon (Italy) that include Fantastical creatures, yawning mountains, happy trees, lots of pinwheels, wandering spirits and child-like imagination set to audio electronica & punk, in this collection published by one of our favourite small press collectives, Islands Fold (from B.C.). It makes no sense but who cares? Most young kids will love these, so bring 'em (crafty things provided so kids can make their own crazy creatures following the films).

  • Fridens (5:50)
  • Growing (2:50)
  • LikeUs (5:40)
  • Era (3:10)
  • Zyrkus (3:03)
  • Green and Yellow (4:20)
  • Murmur (1:00)
8
:30
PM
Infiltrating the Underground:
The Corporatization of Radical Culture
Produced by Anne Elizabeth Moore
and Paper Tiger Television
USA, 2009, 30 min.
Playing in the Edmonton Room

Featuring author & activist Anne Elizabeth Moore, this program examines how and why anti-corporate culture and independent media have been co-opted by corporate advertising and the profit-making agenda, and instances where the government and big business collude to silence independent voices and concerns for social justice.

A follow-up to Moore's 2007 New Press book, Unmarketable: Brandalism, Copyfighting, Mocketing, and the Erosion of Integrity, this video investigates what happens when the underground becomes just another market, and what independent artists and media makers can do about it. Paper Tiger Television's 27-year history of provocative independent television and Anne Elizabeth Moore's 23 years of independent print publishing combine in this compelling look at cultural production and economic censorship in this age of rampant branding.

Paper Tiger Television (PTTV) is an open, non-profit video collective that works to smash the myths of the information industry through the production and distribution of a cable access series, short documentaries, community screenings and grassroots media advocacy.