Visiting from Los Angeles, Zena Grey and Mark Toscano present 16MM BRAIN FOOD, a variation of a screening presented last year as part of their LA-based series Lightstruck, which will be shown at LaborBerlin on the 2nd of May at 20:00.
Brain Food arose from a widely shared awareness that for many of us, electronic images on digital screens dominate our daily existence, representing a kind of compulsory interface with much of the contemporary world. This resulting program was a deliberate articulation of our belief that film projection has a nutrifying effect on the brain in direct opposition to the pervasive digital hellscape.
Beyond celebrating the essentially different nature of film projection itself, we wanted to choose films that – in their construction, visual ideas, techniques, and aesthetic boldness – represented a particularly activated way of harnessing 16mm filmmaking: a resolutely stimulating cinema desiring to empathetically engage its audience.
Comprising 13 films produced between 1967 and 2003, Brain Food includes an extremely eclectic assembly of remarkable short 16mm experimental films, encompassing hand-drawn and abstract animations, optical explorations, flickering abstractions, fragmented dancescapes, secret language rebuses, illusionary kinetic sculptures, homemade lens distortions, activated slime molds, and more than a few playfully profound explorations of the fundamental principles of film itself.
Program curated by Zena Grey and Mark Toscano. Notes by Mark Toscano.
Prints courtesy of the artists and/or their families. New/restored prints of Los Ojos, Roseblood, The Maltese Cross Movement, Wirework, and Animato courtesy of the Academy Film Archive.
PROGRAM:
All films showing in their original 16mm format. All films are color and sound unless noted.
Los Ojos (1975) by Gary Beydler, silent, 2m
Evolution of the Red Star (1973) by Adam Beckett, 7m
Ephemerality (1979) by Marian Wallace, 3m
Roseblood (1974) by Sharon Couzin, 8m
Enigma (1972) by Lillian Schwartz, 4m
Fantasy (1976) by Vince Collins, 3m
The Galilean Satellites: Callisto (2003) by Courtney Hoskins, silent, 3m
The Maltese Cross Movement (1967) by A.K. Dewdney, 7m
Wirework (1992) by Michael Rudnick, silent, 4m
Object Conversation (1984) by Paul Glabicki, 10m
Small Foveal Fields (1981) by Robert Russett, 5m
Babobilicons (1982) by Daina Krumins, 16m
Animato (1977) by Mike Jittlov, 3m
TOTAL: 75m
Lightstruck is a Los Angeles-based nonprofit organization and screening series focusing on independent artists and their work.
Zena Grey is a film editor, visual artist, and curator based in Los Angeles, CA. For over a decade, she has worked on documentaries, features, shorts, television programs, trailers, and music videos. With a focus on 16mm experimental and ephemeral films, she has programmed for repertory theaters and educational spaces since 2011. As part of Lightstruck, Zena curates film programs alongside Mark Toscano. She also creates stop-motion collage animation and motion-graphics for various film productions and personal work.
Mark Toscano is a curator, film preservationist, and educator based in Los Angeles. Since 2003, he has worked at the Academy Film Archive, where he specializes in experimental, independent, and artists’ films, overseeing the collections of approximately 200 filmmakers. He is a programmer with Zena Grey as Lightstruck, as well as with Los Angeles Filmforum, and has also independently curated and presented programs at numerous international venues. He teaches in the Experimental Animation program at the California Institute of the Arts.
Address:
PA58
Prinzenallee 58
13359 Berlin
May 2
20:00