Some Minor Effects of Gravity, with Rosa Aiello & Kari Rittenbach
January 16, 7:00 p.m. 155 Freeman Street, Brooklyn, NY
What happens when a body that by all rights should fall—e.g., the roadrunner escaping the coyote by hurtling across thin air—remains, in flagrant contradiction of the laws of physics, suspended? Artist Rosa Aiello and writer and curator Kari Rittenbach will examine how animation acts as a technique and as a state that may be suddenly and surprisingly assumed by seemingly inanimate things. They will explore the ways in which filmmakers lend matter agency, will, or activity by means of mechanical techniques and editing tricks that alternately reveal, conceal, amplify, and defy the grip of natural forces on persons as well as objects. How does the manipulation of these forces provide credibility to realms in which standard causality is perturbed, if not jettisoned entirely? The visceral effect of such works on the viewer, which may even lead to physical disorientation, is a tribute to the animator's craft.
Aiello will read from her forthcoming Triple Canopy project on computer-generated representations of physicality, affect, and liveliness, and the feelings these representations inspire. Then she and Rittenbach will screen film and video works by artists Bas Jan Ader, Hannah Black, Robert Breer, Ian Cheng, Judith Goddard, Alex Hubbard, Dina Kelberman, Nina Könnemann, David Lamelas, Maggie Lee, Rivane Neuenschwander, James Richards, and Erwin Wurm, as well as a work by Aiello. The reading and screening will be followed by a discussion with Rittenbach and Aiello.