On Saturday April 8, I will be moderating a Q and A discussion with filmmaker Paige Sarlin as part of the premiere of [six years]. [six years] marks the anniversary of the filmmaker and musician Tony Conrad’s death with images and sounds created in the apartment in Buffalo, NY, where Sarlin and Conrad lived together. To commemorate the film’s premiere (and another anniversary of Tony’s death), [six years] will be presented alongside two videos Conrad made with other collaborators. Balloons will be provided.

More information on this program can be found at Anthology’s Website

On March 14, I will be moderating a discussion with Christina Corfield as part of the PLASMA (Performances, Lectures, and Screenings in Media Art) speaker series hosted by the Department of Media Study at SUNY Buffalo. The series is open to the public and also viewable via Zoom: https://arts-sciences.buffalo.edu/media-study/news-events/plasma.html

Recent exhibitions at Book Arts, Buffalo, NY

Biance L. McGraw, Winter 2023

Muhammad Zaman, Fall 2022

still from “Grading Tips for Teachers” (2003), Tony Conrad, part of “Tony Conrad: Later Works in Video”

Tony Conrad Later Works in Video, 1989-2011, co-curated with Anna Scime, will be on view at Culturgest Lisbon from March 12 -July 3, 2022 as part of the exhibition “Tony Conrad.”

I have curated the current season of the Massachusetts Multicultural Film Festival at UMass Amherst focusing on the theme “Indigeneities.” Over the past decade, Indigenous cinema has emerged from geographically-scattered and locally-based production centers to become part of a globally-linked media network with increasing reach and transnational presence. “Indigeneities” will explore how contemporary Indigenous filmmakers and media artists leverage moving image forms to directly address the politics of identity and representation. The films screened this season address Indigeneity, or Indigenous identity, through a range of cinematic genres– animation and 16mm film; hybrid documentary and feminist philosophy; historical reenactment and science fiction – both engaging and challenging the dominant mainstream media forms. The festival will feature films and media artworks by Zacarias Kunuk, Danis Goulet, Vick Quezada, Sky Hopinka, Tracey Moffet, Rhayne Vermette, Aleksei Vakhrushev, and a special lecture by Ng’endo Mukii. Please refer to the schedule for more information on how to access the films and videos online

Survivance: Arnait Video Productions is now on view at Hallwalls Contemporary Art Center in Buffalo, NY through December 23. Survivance: Arnait Video Productions celebrates the 30th anniversary of the Igloolik, Nunavut-based women’s media collective, Arnait Video Productions (AVP). The exhibition includes videos, installation, mixed media sculpture and fiber works spanning AVP’s career.

 Gerald Vizenor’s defines survivance as an active sense of presence, the continuance of native stories, not a mere reaction, or a survivable name. The exhibition explores how AVP have utilized communication technologies to reconnect to lost traditions & give voice to contemporary issues of urgency, while also celebrating the range & depth of AVP’s artistry.

AVP was formed in in 1991 by Madeline Ivalu, Susan Avingaq, Martha Makkar, Mathilda Hanniliaq & Marie-Hélène Cousineau. Their films & videos have focused on themes ranging from post-contact family life & the transmission of oral traditions to vital contemporary issues such as youth suicide, climate change & environmental destruction from mining. AVP has engaged a range of genres to depict Inuit life including historical reenactment, animation & mixed media artworks.

Survivance: Arnait Video Productions is curated by Laura McGough

Excerpt from a longer live expanded media performance by Art Jones presented as part of “Art Jones: Disidentifications” October 22, 2021, UMass Amherst, curated by Laura McGough. The event was live streamed over Instagram and FaceBook.

I will be co-moderating a panel for the ASAP 2021 Conference on October 19, with Jef Kasper. The panel, entitled “Tending Relationships: maintaining connections between artists, audiences, and institutions in time of crisis” will examine strategies utilized by curators and arts organizations to connect artists and audiences during the pandemic shut-down. Panelists include
Jaimes Mayhew, American University, Bonnie Crawford, The Shed, Baltimore, Micaela Martegani, More Art, and Meghana Karnik, Independent Curator.

Art Jones: Disidentifications, a show I curated for the Heter Art Gallery at UMass Amherst, is now on view.

Art Jones: Disidentifications celebrates the 30-year career of artist, Art Jones. Working across film, video, live media performance, and 3-D printed sculptures, Jones’ explores how social information is both transmitted and received. Experimentation with traditional media forms through the manipulation of image, sound, text, and data is a key component in this exploration. In the early 1990s, Jones developed a unique visual hip hop aesthetic that translated the aural qualities of rap music to moving images. In a series of three videos addressing the early hip hop music scene, Jones introduced video noise, rapid-fire repetitive editing, and image distortion to the traditional documentary format. Two of these videos, Media Assassin (1990) and Know Your Enemy (1991) are included in the exhibition. With Fell on Financial Crisis (2018), Jones’ returned to the documentary format, this time producing a karaoke-style video that remixes footage from Operation Wall Street and the French yellow vest economic protests with lyrics from “Fell on Black Days” by Soundgarden. Other recent videos playfully examine the interplay between moving image, audio, and text. Afro-Futurist Vernacular (2019), for example, explores the poetic possibilities of mis-translation as a computerized Siri-like voice misreads the lyrics to “Earth People” by Dr. Octagon (aka Kool Keith). The exhibition also features blue/lives (2018-2021), a moving series of 3D-printed topological sculptures that map the sites of fatal encounter between unarmed civilians and law enforcement in the United States. 

Art Jones’s multimedia, video, and installation work has been exhibited in the U.S. and internationally at venues such as Ars Electronica, MOMA, Tate Gallery, Jamaica Center for Arts and Learning and LA Freewaves, among others.  He works in a variety of old and new media interfaces and continues to perform at various locations. He is from the Bronx, New York, and lives in New York City. 

Art Jones: Disidentifications will open for viewing with special evening hours on Thursday, September 23, 2021, from 4:00-6:00 p.m. A closing event, featuring a live video performance by Art Jones, will take place at the Studio Arts Building at UMass Amherst on Friday, October 22 at 6:00 p.m.

“Vegetal filmmaking is not concerned with the thematic or symbolic use of plants in cinema, What it aims at, instead, is the incorporation of the perspective of plant-thinking as a structural mechanism for the production of images.” Graig Uhlin, “Plant-Thinking with Film: Reed, Branch, Flower.”

As part of my research into the materiality of film conducted during a virtual summer residency with Project:Soils, I am creating a number of Arbor Film Loops. Found footage film stock is looped around trees and left to the elements to naturally alter. As rain and elements degrade and sunshine illuminates the filmstrip, twigs, leaves and branches become part of the image.

The Arbor Film Loops are meant to be experienced live, in-person, as cinema, but are also documented in photographs and short video clips.

Arbor Film Loop No, 1, Berkeley Springs, West Virginia, June 2021 featuring The Kirtland’s Warbler, 16mm color, produced by Walter and Myrna Berlet.