Dispatch 12.18.19
(L to R) Courtney Stephens and Mathilde Walker-Billaud presenting the last screening of their series.
On Saturday evening, December 14, 2019 Flaherty NYC screened Program 6, CONTACT HIGHS, part of the six-part programed series SURFACE KNOWLEDGE. The series was curated by programmers Courtney Stephens and Mathilde Walker-Billaud, and the sixth screening acted as closing night to the Fall 2019 program. The final screening took place at Metrograph, and was co-presented with Verso Books. Artists in person to discuss their screened work included Katherin McInnis, Francesca Panetta, Halsey Burgund, and Andrei Ujică.
The idea of a contact high conjures feelings of intoxication, overcome by something outside of gravity, an altered position of perception. Human encounters with outer space, artifices and artificial intelligence can cause one to experience moments of disembodiment and shifts in perspective. All three films are in dialogue with each other about the repercussions of propaganda, image manipulation, and advanced technology.
Hat Trick ( dir. Katherin McInnis, 2014)
A simple card trick uses sleight of hand and leans heavily on distraction to guide a manipulated viewership. Clouded under a veil of entertainment and joy when successfully executed, the audience is left to wonder “how?” Katherin McInnis shows you how, and more. In her film Hat Trick, an animation-esque stop motion flicker film, editing is used to cut back and forth between still images of what might be a staged moon landing, stunt men sacrificing their bodies to spectacle, and a magician performing card tricks. Mclnnis is clever in using a rhythmic editing style to braid these images together, marrying scientific documentation with the carnivalesque, registering all these materials as forms of variety entertainment. Hat Trick knocks down the wall between magic tricks, the artifice of Hollywood, and historical events in the space exploration, showing how these momentary miracles are actually visually-produced media. The film focuses on America’s proudest historical moment, the moon landing, an event that was also streamed on national television. Not completely accusatory but definitely inquisitive, Hat Trick draws parallels between the spectacle that was the moon landing within the context of the cold war and our obsession with images and entertainment, and how this contributes to our susceptibility to misinformation.
In Event of Moon Disaster (dir. Francesca Panetta and Halsey Burgund, 2019)
In the age of heightened media sensationalism, the difference between fact and opinion, real and fake proves increasingly difficult to define as we become more comfortable living within an environment saturated by information from multiple, sometimes, unfiltered sources. In Event of Moon Disaster uses artificial intelligence and hyper realistic reconstructions to test the audience’s perception of what is and isn’t real. Although the moon landing was a success, the possibility for it to go completely wrong was heavily considered, and in this case, a speech was prepared for Nixon to deliver to the U.S. nation. Burgund and Panetta use CGI, artificial intelligence and voice reconstruction to broadcast this speech and create a completely fabricated scenario — a “deep fake.” Our familiarity with Nixon as an historical public figure disarms us and suggests an alternate reality. The disclaimers preceding and following the film state clearly that what we are watching is not real. If we had not known this, the question of authenticity might not have come to the foreground — we might have assumed it was a recorded speech that was never aired. How sure are we as contributors and consumers of content, that the digital information we ingest and often pass around is accurate? Things that we know are true can now be weaponized against their sources and called into question.
Out of the Present (dir. Andrei Ujică, 1995)
Out Of the Present, truly acts as a meditation on time and space, and how the measurement of both impact the way we see our own position in the world. Comprised largely of archival footage show on Mir space station during the tail end and eventual dissolution of the Soviet Union, Ujică goes on an existential journey via the experiences of a cosmonaut, Sergei Krikalev, sent into space to conduct experiments only to end up effectively stranded, observing massive changes in politics on earth below. The disconnect from the news of the USSR’s demise that is experienced through the film is contrasted by scenes where human contact is close and intimate inside the Mir station. The situation in the streets of Moscow is of little concern when you’re floating around just an aluminum shield away from space’s vacuum. The durational pacing of Ujicăs film imitates the passage of time on board, and how the space station affected the bodies and minds of the cosmonauts. Ujică expressed in the discussion that he was deeply inspired by Kurbrick’s 2001, and Tarkovsky’s Solaris during the making of Out of the Present, all three films deal heavily with the psychological consequences and to some extent hallucinatory states that are brought on by living in such an extreme setting like deep space.
written by Krystalle Macqueen & photos by Abby Lord
PROGRAMME
Katherin McInnis HAT TRICK 2014, 4 min, digital
Francesca Panetta and Halsey Burgund IN EVENT OF MOON DISASTER 2019, 6 min, digital
Andrei Ujică OUT OF THE PRESENT 1995, 96 min, digital
Total running time: 106 min
The Flaherty wishes to thank all loyal readers and attendees for participating and supporting the 20th Program of Flaherty NYC. We also want to thank our amazing programmers Courtney Stephens and Mathilde Walker-Billaud for curating such a thoughtful and important series of films. Thank you to all our co-presenters and partnerships for the support and shared appreciation for experimental and non-fiction cinema. Surface Knowledge was a great series and we look forward to seeing you all at the next Flaherty NYC!