TIE Film Retrospective: 2007 Albuquerque Edition
The Guild Cinema is hosting one program featuring highlights from TIE's previous film festivals, with guest curator Christopher May in person. TIE has quickly become an exemplary festival celebrating contemporary and historical avant-garde cinema. Taking as its mission the preservation of the fundamental qualities of cinema and film exhibition, TIE produces festivals which, to date have screened over 600 films and hosted over 200 artists. TIE is renowned for artistic vision and an exaltation of the direct viewing experience of original-format film works.

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Program Line-up:
Jan. 31 and Feb. 1, 2007 (Guild Cinema, Albuquerque, New Mexico)

Frauenmuskel
(Frank Biesendorfer, 6 min., 1999, Germany/Austria, 16mm, 24fps, Sound)
Filmed during the down-time of the Hermann Nitsch action of 1998, the film covers a stroll through the countryside as well as nightly impressions of the stars and clouds above Hermann Nitsch’s residence. A score accompanies the film’s visual structure with “Night String Quartet”, an original composition from Hermann Nitsch, himself.

You Don't Bring Me Flowers
(Michael Robinson, 8 min., 2005, USA, 16mm, 24fps, Sound)
"Viewed at its seams, a collection of National Geographic landscapes from the 1960s and 70’s conjures an obsolete romanticism currently peddled to propagate entitlement and individualism from sea to shining sea; the slide show deforms into a bright white distress signal."

Secret History of the Dividing Line
(David Gatten, 20 min., 2002, USA, 16mm, 24fps, Silent)
“When using tape to make a splice, the cut pieces of film are placed end to end and the tape itself covers the gap: it is a band-aid and a bridge. But as the splice ages a line becomes visible; eventually the adhesive dries and the connection dissolves. When making a cement splice, there is more violence involved. The films are not placed end to end but instead are crushed into one another. Frames are lost, emulsions are scraped. But the well-made splice is strong: in fact, it is permanent. Unlike tape, there is no going back. And it leaves a mark—a line—covering a third of one of the frames. A splice marks difference and defines duration. To suppress that mark is to pretend that we will live forever. Instead, take your splicer and knock the blade out of alignment. Forgo the B roll in favor of a single strand of faith. Hold your breath and count the hours since you were last together. Blow softly on a wet face and watch the smile form. Float your hand across the surface and find all the words you need. Unfold the splicer and separate your image from your dream; you will feel bound, as if tied down until you are fully awake. Only then will you know for sure: this may not be final but it is definite. The landscape you see can change only when you pass through it. Regard your new object: a union: silent, tiny and bright. Paired texts as dueling histories. A journey imagined and remembered. 57 mileage markers produce an equal number of prospects.”

Let the ragged edge between the two be lightning or falling water, and figure its use: the distance away of a person poised in the air with wings on. -Mei-Mei Berssenbrugge, Empathy

Transaension
(Dan Baker, 7 min., 2006, USA, 16mm, 24fps, Sound)
"Heartbeat. Out of a sick morass of reds and yellows, blacks, burns, and direct-to-film scratches, arises the (post) post-industrial terror of our collective oil-stained subconscious. Only three color tones are necessary to conjure up a veritable prehistoric nightmare or The Element of Crime. The primordial fire gives way directly to digital-age carnage and re-enforced titanium imperialist ambition. Dripping. Syrupy glimpses of fighter pilots. Glassy eyes. Spindly towers waver in the nuclear breeze. Preparation for battle against comet field super nova background. Image would be clearer without the toxic pyro-fog. But instead, it’s heat without season, drought without cycle; this moment is the unforeseen arrival, the final annihilation. Chirp your last, all precious consumer-constituent. Representation becomes survival, as the farce of authority crumbles along with every other vestige of a frantic, deluded civilization. The sun has burst open wide and spills out a thick, sweaty mix of techno-warfare and rich, fleshy industry. This is what man-made hell looks like. Echoes. Sci-fi meets hearts of darkness. It’s a vision for rapture obsessives. But ecology replaces old time religion. Only no one’s listening. We are the Hindenburg, the Titanic, the World Trade Center. A figure appears in the lower right corner, arms outstretched, a stand-in for humanity: Welcoming?…Challenging?" - JT Rogstad, TIE

The Influence of Ocular Light Perception on Metabolism in Man and in Animal
(Thomas Draschan and Stella Friedrichs, 6 min., 2005, Austria, 16mm, 24fps, Sound)
This found footage film uses an Italian sixties soft porn soundtrack which is repeated two times. Each time a sequence of images is synched to the soundtrack. The film images are illustrating acts of ocular light perception as well as imagery with strong visual impact.

Blood of the Earthworm
(Brittany Gravely, 32 min., 2006, USA, 16mm, 24fps, Sound)
"Blood of the Earthworm is an anti-climactic barrage of original footage and unoriginal extractions from horror, science fiction, and educational films, all of which feature contemporary maladies of civilization, such as ecological devastation, bio-terrorism, consumerism, and government conspiracy in their story or subtext.

The top of the industrial/corporate food chain saps blood from Earth to feed its network of machines. In turn, these machines give birth to machine-like people who are alienated, destructive, dissatisfied, lifeless. Feeding off of the exploitation of humanity and nature, this violent system creates a new, unsustainable “web-of-life” based on power and economics. The only way to maintain this fragile system is to fully domesticate, pacify, and overwhelm through a system of contradictory messages provided by a nervous system of news, education, advertisements, movies, and television.

The manic “heroine” of the film is a product of this techno-mediated existence. Her conscience and emotions run counter to her actions; like a zombie, she is imprisoned within the motions of her routines, she speaks in words not her own. Occasionally interrupting her narrative is the educational/scientific host of this world, this film, and her life who attempts to intellectually distance himself from the horrors of this unnatural, unsettling world.

Civilization’s intervention in the natural course of evolution has created a helpless new race. Their day-to-day activity is subsumed by its own resemblance to common horror film settings and events; all are victims and accomplices in the doom which has insidiously enveloped all of existence.

No one is safe.. and it is never over..

Program curated by Christopher May