Films by Aldo Tambellini
Nov. 19, 7pm

ERC Presents: Films of Aldo Tambellini
Sunday, November 19
7pm
@ AFS Cinema, 6406 N I-35 Suite 3100 Austin, TX 78752 (map)
$11.25 general (tickets)

Experimental Response Cinema is bringing selected films of renowned filmmaker Aldo Tambellini to Austin, including his Black Cycle, made between 1965 and 1968. These films, presented digitally, are dynamic happenings, made with treated stock and overprinted industrial films and other sources.

The program include a live accompaniment of No Name Film 1 by local sound artists Rick Reed and Tara Bhattacharya Reed.

Films included in the screening are:

Black Is, b/w, 4min (1966)
Black TV, b/w, 9min (1968)
Black Plus X, b/w, 9min (1966)
A Black Trip, b/w, 4min (1965)
No Name Film 1, b/w, 20min with a live synthesizer soundtrack performed by Austin, TX’s Rick Reed and Tara Bhattacharya Reed.

Directed by Aldo Tambellini

1h 10min, film presented on digital video


Aldo Tambellini, circa 1967

Aldo Tambellini was born in Syracuse, New York in 1930, his father from Sao Paolo, Brazil, his mother from Italy. He was taken to Italy at the age of eighteen months where he lived in Lucca (Tuscany). At the age of ten, he was enrolled in art school in Lucca. His neighborhood was bombed during WWII; twenty-one of his friends and neighbors died and he miraculously survived. In 1946, Aldo returned to the United States. With a full scholarship at Syracuse University he received a BFA in Painting, ‘54 and a Teaching Fellowship at the University of Notre Dame, MFA ’59.

In 1959, Aldo moved to New York City’s Lower East Side. He founded the underground “counter-culture” group, “Group Center,” which organized alternative ways and non-traditional presentation of the artists’ work to the public. He pioneered in the video art movement in the late 60’s. In 1965, he began painting directly on film beginning his “Black Film Series” of which, “Black TV,” (made using both film and video) was the winner of the International Grand Prix, Oberhausen Film Festival, 1969.

Simultaneously, Aldo began a series of “Electromedia Performances” which organically brought together, projected paintings, film, video, poetry, light, dance, sound and live musicians. He founded the Gate Theatre, the only daily public theatre showing avant-garde independent filmmakers and in 1967, he co-founded with Otto Piene, the Black Gate, a second theatre which presented live multi-media (Electromedia) performances and installations.