Announcing our Spring 2014 lineup

For a PDF version of this press release, click here

Experimental Response Cinema began with a mission to address the dearth of avant-garde and experimental cinema in Austin, TX. Since its inception in February 2012, along with its partners, ERC has hosted ten visiting filmmakers, a field trip, two surveys of Austin-based artists, and close to 300 films and videos, ranging anywhere between 46 seconds to 4 1 / 2 hours, from 8mm home movies to large-scale experiments on 35mm. We are proud to present a sampling of our program for Spring 2014 – our third year of operation. Detailed listings can be seen on our Current Season page.

Please contact us if you are a member of the press and would like a press pass. Screeners are available for some of the works as well.

We will be adding even more screenings soon – subscribe to our mailing list to find out when!

Experimental Response Cinema Programmers
Ekrem Serdar
Scott Stark
Rachel Stuckey

Partners and Sponsors
Alamo Drafthouse at the Ritz | Austin Film Society | Blaffer Art Museum | City of Austin Cultural Arts Division | The Contemporary AustinFusebox Festival | Intermedia Workshop | MASS Gallery | Mexic-Arte MuseumTiny Park Gallery | Visual Arts Center

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January 24th, 2014
KATABASIS 
@ MASS Gallery
A term used to describe a journey to the underworld, Experimental Response Cinema and MASS Gallery present KATABASIS, a trip to a land of spectacles, of alchemical concoctions, of the most precise hallucinations. Don’t fear, there is a way out – near, far, wherever you are. A screening with a focus on performance, featuring work by Mary Helena Clark, Lawrence Jordan, David Lebrun, Jesse McLean, Shana Moulton, and Stuart Sherman.

February 8th, 2014
Betzy Bromberg’s a Darkness Swallowed
@ Alamo Drafthouse at the Ritz
Experimental Response Cinema and the Alamo Drafthouse at the Ritz are proud to present a special screening of Betzy Bromberg’s a Darkness Swallowed! Bromberg is currently the Director of Film and Video at CalARTS, prior to which she worked for years in the Hollywood special effects industry. Her work is widely celebrated, and has been shown extensively in the United States and abroad, most notably at the Museum of Modern Art (New York City), the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and the San Francisco Cinemateque. Holly Willis writes “All of Bromberg’s films are from that same ‘extremely personal place.’ They stand out because they are about merging experience with the very act of filmmaking, and about staging the process of knowing who you are in the very work that you create. ” We are excited to present one of her most acclaimed films!

February 15th, 2014
Nelson / Abate
@ MASS Gallery
Experimental Response Cinema and MASS Gallery are pleased to present the unlikely pairing of works by Gunvor Nelson and Bobby Abate. Nelson hails from Sweden and entered the scene as a fixture in the 1960s/70s Bay Area avant-garde film scene. Abate is a New York based artist of the internet generation, working primarily with video. Both artists explore topics of identity, family, and society.

February 16th, 2014
From the Border: Fiamma Montezemolo in Person
@ UT Campus (exact time and location TBA)
Screening works about life on, near, and across the border between Mexico and the United States of America. In association with the Intermedia Workshop (Dept. of Anthropology at UT Austin) we will be looking at Fiamma Montezemolo’s award winning short experimental documentary, Traces. We will also be showing two works by Tijuana based artist Sergio De La Torre. Fiamma Montezemolo will be present for the screening and for a Q&A afterwards.

February 24th, 2014
(IN)DETERMINATE SPACE: Vincent Grenier in Person 
@ AFS at the Marchesa
Experimental Response Cinema, in collaboration with the Blaffer Art Museum in Houston and the Austin Film Society, is excited to present a screening of work by Vincent Grenier!  Grenier, a widely celebrated film / video maker who began working in the 70s, is an artist who brings a patient and revealing sensitivity to the image. Rigorous, beautiful, and with a wry sense of comedy, we are proud to present these very special works with Vincent Grenier in person!

March 19th, 2014
Stephanie Barber’s DAREDEVILS
@ Alamo Drafthouse at the Ritz
Experimental Response Cinema and the Alamo Drafthouse at the Ritz are proud to host a screening of DAREDEVILS, with filmmaker Stephanie Barber in person! Receiving its world premiere at the NY Film Festival’s Views from the Avant-Garde, DAREDEVILS is the first of two screenings featuring Barber’s work. Come see the film described as giving “utterance to the power of cinematic haikus, while juxtaposing three film segments (or lines), and separating them with a kireji. [Barber] belongs to a territory that underscores the subjective and lyrical, a playground of artistic milieu. Her words evolve from the mouths of wounds, often expressed with a smile. Her film manifests an intolerance of rules, exhilarating thinking, and commercial disobedience, through two monologues, a dialogue, and a song.” (Lumiere Magazine)

March 22nd, 2014
Stephanie Barber’s JHANA AND THE RATS OF JAMES OLDS (or31 DAYS / 31 VIDEOS)
@ Tiny Park Gallery
Our second screening with Stephanie Barber in person! Between June 25th and August 7th 2011 Barber moved her studio into the Baltimore Museum of Art where she created a new video each day in a central gallery open to museum visitors. The goal of this project, entitled Jhana and the rats of James Olds or 31 days/31 videos, was to create a series of short, poetic videos in the playful and serious footprints of Oulipo games and daily meditations; creating one new video each day. The exhibit was both a constantly changing installation as well as a collaborative performance in which museum visitors were present as spectator and often creative partner.

April 9th, 2014
MACHINE VISION
@ Alamo Drafthouse at the Ritz
A collection of classic works describing, investigating, expanding, detonating the dream machine. An essential Hollis Frampton performance, a rarely seen 16mm double projection by Paul Sharits, an expansive video by Steina Vasulka, and Tony Conrad’s legendary The Flicker. Four artists – each associated with Buffalo’s legendary Media Study department – take up the essentials of the moving image. Heather Pesanti, Senior Curator of The Contemporary Austin, will introduce the screening.

April 20th, 2014
BURNING BUNGALOWS: Experimental Film and Animation from L.A.
@ Tiny Park Gallery
‘Burning Bungalows’ brings new and unseen experimental film from Los Angeles on the road this coming April. With a handmade mix of animation and live action on video, super 8, 16mm and 35mm slides we’re covering all the bases for an eclectic hour and 20 minutes. The films tend toward an ethereal conjuring of spirits with a dystopian punk attitude.

April 21st
SHOOT YOURSELF: Artists in their own light
@ Fusebox Festival
What is it that draws artists to stand in front of their own lenses? Perhaps it’s vanity; perhaps it’s having a convenient and willing body, or perhaps it’s just the draw of the limelight, a way to manufacture their own 15 minutes of fame. Or maybe it’s a chance to reveal, in a public way, something personal that only the unblinking neutrality of the mechanical eye can expose. The film and video artists in this program point their cameras at themselves to frame their explorations of body, psyche, sexuality and social construct. Featuring works by Lori Felker, Jeroen Offerman, Sharon Hayes, Miranda July, Joe Gibbons, kate hers RHEE, Bridget Irish, Jun Jalbuena, Dara Greenwald, Amaranta Sanchez, Scott Stark and Ekrem Serdar. Programmed by Scott Stark.

April 26th, 2014
Focus Group: 16mm Direct Animation Workshop
@ Visual Arts Center
Focus Group welcomes filmmakers Rachel Stuckey and Lee Webster, who will lead a workshop that explores cameraless animation. This form of animation, also known as direct animation, involves the application of materials directly onto 16mm filmstrips, which results in gorgeous, abstract animations. Preceded by a short screening and a brief lecture on the history of the medium, the all-day workshop will demonstrate how to draw, paint, etch, and collage directly onto 16mm film to create beautiful and rhythmic moving pictures. A screening at the end of the workshop will premiere the participants’ animations and also feature a curated selection of seminal and contemporary filmmakers working in the medium. The screening is open to the public, so participants are encouraged to invite friends and family!