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Grand Detour Presents Bob Moricz:

I AM UGLY AND I WANT TO DIE SO WHY DON’T YOU JUST PLEASE FUCK ME

Tuesday, May 31, 2011, 8:00 PM

Recess Gallery, Oregon Brassworks Building, 1127 SE 10^th

Suggested Donation $3-6

Fans of filmmaking’s freaky fringes will not want to miss this special Grand Detour presentation by Bob Moricz, a self taught underground filmmaker and musician living right here in Portland, Oregon. “I AM UGLY AND I WANT TO DIE SO WHY DON’T YOU JUST PLEASE FUCK ME is a documentary Bob Moricz made about himself, and it will screen at 8:00 PM on Tuesday, May 31 at the new Recess Gallery in the Oregon Brassworks Building. Quotes Moricz, “I hate documentaries. They’ve become cookie cutter clichés and I wanted to do something completely different. My movies are yanked from the nether regions of my sullied soul, so I figured I could assemble clips culled from the last twenty years of my movie making in a stream of consciousness fashion, revealing a good deal about the things that drive me, my own personal mythology and obsessions, as well as my creative process.”

Growing up in the Zodiac-Killer-haunted San Francisco Bay Area in the 1970′s and 1980′s, as a latch key child, Moricz couldn’t wait to get home and watch movies on the bulky family VCR. In college he started working for an independent film production company based in San Francisco, determined to somehow break into the business, but was horrified with the waste, indecision, and ego-fueled tomfoolery in this strange world of “real” movie making. Just then, like manna from heaven, Moricz found George and Mike Kuchar’s incredible book Reflections From A Cinematic Cesspool at City Lights bookstore and was forever changed. Since then, Moricz has shot over thirty shorts and features on Super 8mm film and video. His music video for the Xiu Xiu song Bog People appears on their album La Foret. The Miami Underground Film Festival awarded him the prize for best director in 2008, and FELONY FLATS, his newest feature, will be opening the Portland Underground Film Festival on Thursday, June 9th. It was shot locally on a Flip video camera.

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=203449813028140
Bridgeport Brewing Presents Sound + Vision Fest 5/12-5/14

A three day festival featuring works in progress by Michel Gondry and Lance Bangs, new work from Spike Jonze and Matt McCormick, a rare screening of “Who Took the Bomp: Le Tigre on Tour,” as well as performances by Eluvium, Goodnight Billygoat, the Corin Tucker Band and Hurry Up (featuring members of the Thermals).

* May 12 at 7pm: Award winning filmmaker, Matt McCormick (“Some Days are Better than Others”, “The Subconscious Art of Graffiti Removal”) will curate the evening. Matt is also known in music circles for his work directing videos for The Shins, Sleater- Kinney, and YACHT . Matt will provide visuals for a live performance by Eluvium, and screen short films by Vanessa Renwick, Karl Lind, Melody Owen, and Kurtis Hough. Good Night Billygoat will close.

* May 13 at 7pm: Carrie Brownstein (Portlandia, Wild Flag, Sleater Kinney) will curate Friday night’s festivities. Carrie’s most recent project includes WILD FLAG, formed with former Sleater-Kinney drummer Janet Weiss, former Helium guitarist and singer Mary Timony, and Rebecca Cole of The Minders and of course, Portlandia. Carrie will screen “Who Took the Bomp: Le Tigre on Tour.” Hurry Up (featuring members of the Thermals) will close the night with their debut performance.

* May 14 at 7pm: Lance Bangs will curate the evening, screening a work in progress of his own on the band the Slints, as well as “Animated Conversation with Noam Chomsky” (work in progress) directed by Michel Gondry, and “Mourir Auprès de Toi” (To Die by Your Side) directed by Spike Jonze & Simon Cahn. The Corin Tucker Band will close.

TIX AVAILABLE NOW: http://tinyurl.com/3quog43

Tuesday, April 26th
(the new) RECESS GALLERY
1127 SE 10th Ave

8pm
$3-6 suggested donation

“What does it mean to get lost? What happens when we try to remember an experience which overwhelmed all our reference points? What is the relationship between the stories we tell and the lie of the land we traverse? What would the world look like if we no longer tried to stand at its centre? My recent film and video work interrogates disorientation, both as a simple fact of life, and as a metaphor for the irretrievability of memory, and the impossibility of representation.

I address these issues through everyday encounters, storytelling, and bodily gestures (including those made by or with the camera). By remaining faithful to this vernacular context, I try to show the aporia of experience for what they are – not as obstacles to reaching our destination, but as that which sets us on our path.”

Peter Snowdon (*1964) was born in Northumberland, England. He studied French and Philosophy at Oxford University, before moving to Paris where he worked in publishing and journalism, and as a consultant to UNESCO. He lived in Egypt from 1997 to 2000. On his return to Europe, he started making agit-prop documentary films in collaboration with activist groups and local communities. Over time, his work has evolved beyond the purely political to engage with the experimental and avant-garde traditions, and to address wider philosophical issues, while remaining firmly rooted in the documentary moment.

His films have been shown at Documenta Madrid, Experiments in Cinema, Ecrans documentaires, Ann Arbor Film Festival, Cinema Vérité (Tehran), Entrevues (Belfort) and Abandon Normal Devices, as well as at the Strasbourg Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art. His work is distribued by the Collectif Jeune Cinéma (screenings) and Dérives magazine (DVD).

Peter holds a Master in Transmedia from Sint Lukas Hogeschool, Brussels (2010). He is currently an LSM research fellow at Provinciale Hogeschool Limburg, where he is preparing a practice-based PhD on poetic documentary and collective memory.

Grand Detour is going back to the mall to present the multi-channel, glitch-happy, science-tastic videos of Evan Meaney, including an installation of his most recent project, the ceibas cycle at PLACE Gallery in the Settlement at Pioneer Place. The exhibition will run from April 16-30. Meaney will give an artist talk around the issues of his work on Saturday April 23, and follow with a screening of both his own past projects and inspiration from his self-appointed “spirit animal”, Hollis Frampton.

the ceibas cycle is a ten-part, multimedia exploration of ghosts, glitches and the aesthetics of entropy. Begun in 2007 and completed in 2011, the cycle offers technological rupture as an interface exploring geography, testimony, mortality and other hackable systems. Centering on an understanding of archival memory and networked representation, these pieces attempt to redefine viability. For our cyber-organized culture, glitches embody the imperfections that allow for us to be complete. A broken thing presents itself as a dialogue and not simply as a vessel. In this spirit, the ceibas cycle serves as a home for these glitchy reminders, given in all of their complex imperfection, so as to better celebrate our own.

Evan Meaney is an American-born scientist who teaches time-based media design at the university of Tennessee. His research, curation and artistic practices delve into liminalities, breaches and glitches of all sorts, equating faulty data interpretation to ghosts, seances and archival hauntology. He has been an Iowa arts fellow, an artist in residence at the Experimental Television Center, a Princess Grace nominee, and a founding member of GLI.TC/H, the international conference of noise and new media. Currently, Evan is working on new projects with the super computing team at Oak Ridge National Laboratories through generous funding from the National Science foundation. His most recent body of work, the ceibas cycle, has been exhibited in galleries, theaters, building-facades, museums, and universities both nationally and abroad.

Grand Detour is moving out of the Portland Storage Building, and its first screening as a nomadic entity is a fantastic animation program hosted by Nancy Jean Tucker! This event will take place on April 16, 2011, at The Settlement Galleries at Pioneer Place Mall. Tucker comes to Portland to screen some of her own work, as well as a collection of truly innovative films by various animators. This program explores both the serious and the ridiculous sides of animation, including tales about a pet hamster’s voyage, the collapse of a paper world, what happens when you trade heads with your cat, and a musical homage to the film Willow. The program includes work by Maureen Selwood, Telefantasy Studios, Colin Barton, Al Herrmann, Hsin-I Tseng, Keren Albala, Jed McGowan, Helen Hill, Stefan Gruber, Amy Lockhart, and more! The screening will begin at 8PM.

Tucker is a director and animator based in Los Angeles. She is originally from Louisville, Kentucky, and began making films at the California Institute of the Arts. Her films and music videos have shown around the world in galleries and festivals such as the Rotterdam International Film Festival, Anthology Film Archives, the European Media Arts Festival, and the Nova Scotia Museum of Art.

This is a big one, guys. Grand Detour will bring Seattle-based experimental filmmaker Salise Hughes to Portland on March 29 at 7PM for a screening of Recycled Visions, a collection of her work made between 2005-2011 that includes at least two world premieres. Considering that Hughes’ films have screened at the International Film Festival Rotterdam, L’Alternative- Barcelona, the Seattle International Film Festival, the Ann Arbor Film Festival, and the PDX and Northwest Film & Video Festivals in Portland, as well as the Walker Art Center, it is a tremendous honor to be able to present her work as a part of Grand Detour’s Winter Screening Series. This not-to-be-missed event will take place at the historic Hollywood Theatre, a fitting venue for this highly regarded filmmaker.

Hughes is known for her special process of digitally erasing and layering images from found footage. This collection of her recent short films showcases complex and mesmerizing works that address such disparate subjects as capturing the ephemeral, dreams of flying, and family histories. Recycled Visions will include Title Wave (2005, 2 minutes), How to Draw Clouds (2006, 2 minutes), Flying Dreams (2006, 13 minutes), Double Lives (2007, 5 minutes), Every One I Have Ever Known (2007, 4 minutes), There Were Houses Here (2006, 10 minutes), Strange Weather (2005, 3 minutes), How to Draw Dogs (2007, 3 minutes), The Tourist (2008, 7 minutes), Nothing to Fear But Nothing Itself (2009, 5 minutes), Celluloid Heroes Never Really Die (2010, 6 minutes), The Swimmer (2010, 4 minutes), Shiny Things (2007, 5 minutes), Somewhere (2009, 4 minutes),  How to Draw Flowers (2011, 5 minutes), and the brand-new Erasable Cities (2011).

CALL FOR ENTRIES

THE MUSEUM OF POCKET ART’S 2^ND ANNUAL VIDEO EXHIBITION

CURATED BY GRAND DETOUR

With the proliferation of video recording devices and the variety of ways in which to view video, the video artist’s intent can get muddled. The initial experience of watching video meant for a large screen fluctuates greatly from seeing it on YouTube. For this annual series, the Museum of Pocket Art invites video artist to submit work with the intent of seeing work on a mobile device.

This year, Portland-based microcinema and experimental media center Grand Detour will curate a program culled from entries in video, film, and animation. We want your work!

Deadline: April 21, 2011

Parameters:

Must be created specifically for viewing on a MOBILE DEVICE (smart phone, ipod, etc)

Length must be 90 seconds or less

Preference will be given to new work (created within the
past 12 months), but new work is not a requirement

Format should be a Quicktime file (H.264), up to 720p, 30fps, Main Profile
level 3.1 with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps, 48kHz

Please submit work via file transfer to info@grand-detour.org
(you can also contact the curators here with questions, etc)

About MoPA

The Museum of Pocket Art began six years ago in response to an idea by author Walter Mosley. Everyone should carry with them a small artwork in a pocket to enrich their day and share with others. MoPA took this idea and organized it into a formal venue for contemporary artists and patrons.

About Grand Detour

Grand Detour is an emerging microcinema and experimental media center committed to supporting, enhancing, and connecting the community of new media artists in Portland and beyond. Currently hosting screenings and curating video work across the city, and planting the seeds towards the larger goal of becoming Portland’s hub for innovative video and media-related artworks, Grand Detour is a haven for underground artists, digital methods classes, installations, and community discourse.

We are pleased to announce Filmmaker, Curator, Artist and all around cool guy, Bryan Konefsky will be presenting TWO shows with Grand Detour as well as doing a Workshop at the NW Film Center.

On Mon. March 14th Bryan will be hosting the workshop titled: Dead Tech Alive at the NW Film Center.  http://nwfilm.org/calendar/2011/03/14/deadtechalivew11 Continuing forth on Tuesday March 15, Konefsky will show Happiness is a Warm Projector: Selections from Experiments in Cinema v1-v6 at the historic Hollywood Theater on NE Sandy Boulevard. This program will showcase the highlights from Konefsky’s work as a festival programmer, and will have an admission price of $6. The following evening, he will show a program of his own work at the Grand Detour space in Suite 2020 of the Portland Storage Building.  “I LOVE YOU LONG TIME: Bryan Konefsky *the early years* (1998-2010) will combine screenings with a talk and question-and-answer session, and has a suggested admission price of $3-6.

Bryan Konefsky is a cultural worker dedicated to the advancement of independent experimental media arts through his work as moving image artist, teacher, lecturer and film festival director. He teaches moving image production and critical studies in the Department of Cinematic Arts at the University of New  Mexico, where he was honored in 2009 with a university-wide Teacher of the Year award. Konefsky is artistic director of Experiments in Cinema, an annual international film festival in Albuquerque that showcases cinematic experimentation around the world.  In 2006, 2007 and 2010 he served as a panelist for the New Mexico Film Office’s New Visions filmmaking awards.  He is a member of the board of advisors for the Ann Arbor Film Festival (the oldest experimental festival in the United States), and a guest curator for the Southwest Gay and Lesbian Film Festival and Videofest sponsored by the Dallas Video Association.