In 2012, as part of its CROSSROADS film festival, San Francisco Cinematheque presented a program which was deliberately focused on recent films that used abstraction to address political issues. See: http://www.sfcinematheque.org/crossroads2012_p2/
*Seeking the Monkey* *King* by Ken Jacobs is entirely abstract visually but uses textual intertitles to specifically comment on capitalism, the current economy, the Occupy movement, etc. The works in the program by the Moyah Pravda Newsreel Collective were filmed at Occupy Oakland and describe this collective protest action but are also casually and formally "lyrical" poetic documents in the style of home movie-influenced small gauge avant-garde film work. *Awe Shocks* by Anja Dorneiden and Juan David Gonzalez Monroy pairs kaleidoscopically fragmented, visually dazzling, modified porn footage (to some unrecognizable) with an antiquated lecture on capitalism to comment on the commodification and rationalization of just about everything. Christine McPhee's *Penumbra Blind* is similarly abstracted and prismatized footage shot during Gulf of Mexico/Deep Water Horizon oil spill clean-up. The films in this show by Katherin McInnis and Deborah Stratman are less visually abstract than these but (describing Stratman's *Village, silenced*) use discordant sound/image relationships to comment on the contemporary trend of fearful oppression, restriction of speech and general creeping dread while McInnis' flicker film rushes over boom/bust capitalist cycles and news-as-propaganda. And—speaking of personal data intrusion—some program note type info on this program is available on Cinematheque's Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/events/370213549681291/ On Sun, Oct 6, 2013 at 7:59 PM, Kelly Sears <[email protected]> wrote: > Dear frameworkers, > > I would love to pick your collective brain about some film/videos that use > abstraction to address political, social, or cultural histories. I would > double love it if anyone had any suggestions of writings on this topic as > well. I'm interested in learning more about how this visual strategy and > lack of the figurative or representational could be used in a > political/critical way. > > Many thank yous. > > Kelly > > > > _______________________________________________ > FrameWorks mailing list > [email protected] > https://mailman-mail5.webfaction.com/listinfo/frameworks > >
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