Forti uses the camera as a research tool to record the movements of three grizzly bears pacing anxiously behind the bars of their cage in the Brooklyn Zoo. The collected visual information becomes part of the basis for Forti's movements in Solo No. 1.
Short for "Probably The Last" (of the series), Spiral PTL uses the image processor like a musical instrument to create variations on a spiral, transforming its basic form into an ever-moving gyro. The movement is synchronous with an audio track that varies from electronic buzzes and Space Age voices to the quiet sounds of running water.
Tour Without End is an experimental hybrid feature-length video work that casts real-life musicians, artists, and actors as fictional bands on tour; the piece evolves into a cross-generational commentary on contemporary culture and politics in the Trump era. Shot over the course of four years between 2014-18 at over 15 DIY music spaces in and around NYC, Tour Without End functions as a time capsule — made more apparent by the shuttering of many of its locations due to NYC’s rapid gentrification.
The work’s multitude of characters are legendary performers in the downtown NYC arts scene, including: The Wooster Group founder Kate Valk, Jim Fletcher (New York City Players), Lizzi Bougatsos (Gang Gang Dance), Kathleen Hanna (The Julie Ruin), Brontez Purnell (The Younger Lovers), Eileen Myles, Alexandra Drewchin (Eartheater), Nicole Eisenman, K8 Hardy, Johanna Fateman (Le Tigre) Shannon Funchess (Light Asylum), JD Samson (MEN), Gary Indiana, Kembra Pfahler (Voluptuous Horror of Karen Black), Rachel Mason, Tom McGrath, Matthew Asti (MGMT), Becca Blackwell, Christen Clifford, Alessandra Genovese (Crush), Rogelio Ramos (Love Pig), Kenya Robinson (Cheeky LaShae), and Neon Music (Youth Quake).
A reflection on the phenomenon of the touring musician.
"I shot this film with a 16mm wind-up Bolex, and the 25th Anniversary tour of Dutch band The Ex, when they embarked on a 'convey tour' with about 25 performing comrades. If half the battle is getting there and half the battle is joy, then the other half is madness. I thank all of the musicians who float in and out — of the film, in particular, and my life, in general."
— Jem Cohen
Soundtrack music: Guitargument, an Andy Moor and Mia Clarke improvisation, arranged and edited by Jem Cohen.
A collaboration between Jem Cohen and the Washington DC band Fugazi, the project covers the ten-year period following the band's inception in 1987. Far from a traditional documentary, the project is a musical document: a portrait of musicians at work.
2@ is part of the Pop Manifestos series, a five-video project realized in collaboration with Cokes' former students Seth Price and Damian Kulash, and originally conceived as part of a series for the conceptual band SWIPE.
An independent film portrait of singer/songwriter Elliott Smith in Portland, Oregon in 1996, wherein he plays three songs. The songs were done live acoustic--in his old studio, a living room, and a bathroom (it was quiet in there). It's also a small portrait of Portland, Oregon.
The songs are "Between the Bars", "Angeles", and a cover of "Thirteen" by Big Star.
This is Elliott as I remember him, at his simple finest as musician.
From The Files of the Pyramid Cocktail Lounge is a series of video clips taken at the Pyramid Club, a seminal location for the East Village drag scene in the midst of the club's most influential years. While rummaging through a file cabinet full of event fliers from the Pyramid Club, an office worker in drag guides the viewer through video documentation of past performances at the club.
The University of Virginia gospel choir Black Voices returns home from a triumphant concert in Hampton Roads.
This title is only available on Can You Move Like This: Black Fire.
A whimsical science fiction comedy with a soundtrack of pop music and experimental electronica. File under experimental. Play at maximum volume.
A drummer and guitarist on a rooftop high above New York City. A beat, a song, a trance, or just a celebration…?
The film is a durational performance document, direct but mysterious.
The Double are Jim White and Emmett Kelly. Jim is an Australian drummer known for his work with Dirty Three, Xylouris White, Cat Power, Bill Callahan, and many others. Emmett Kelly is an American guitarist known for his band, The Cairo Gang, and his work with Will Oldham, Ty Segall, and many others.
Capitalizing on the visual aspect of musical performance, Quad Suite explores the essential link between the image of music and its sound. In Six Vibrations, the camera is riveted to a close-up of the four upper frets of Landry’s guitar, maintaining an image of the sound easily identified with the gridded field paintings of Agnes Martin. In Hebe’s Grande Bois, Landry improvises on a bamboo flute as the camera frames his mouth, again in extreme close-up, in the center of the screen. There is something sensual, almost obscene, about Landry’s lips.
In Woodstock Festival 1969: First Aid, the Videofreex interview visitors and volunteers in and around the first aid tent about the level of health and hygiene at Woodstock. Topics range from the use of chlorine in the drinking water to protect against dysentery to the poisonous acid potentially circulating throughout the crowd. The Videofreex also interview a man with a pet lamb who discusses the relationship between vegetarianism and revolution.
"Blight was made in collaboration with composer Jocelyn Pook. It revolves around the building of the M11 Link Road in East London, which provoked a long and bitter campaign by local residents to protect their homes from demolition. Until 1994, when our houses were destroyed, both the composer and I lived on the route of this road. The images in the film are a selective record of some of the changes which occurred in the area over a two-year period, from the demolition of houses through to the start of motorway building work.
In the film Mad Ladders, the prophetic ramblings of an unseen narrator recount fantastical dreams of the coming Rapture, as crystalline imagery of rolling clouds gives way to heavily-processed video of moving stage sets from The American Music Awards telecasts of the 1980s and early 1990s. Blooming and pulsing in and out of geometric abstraction, this swirling storm of rising curtains, spinning set pieces, and unveiled pop idols forms an occult spectacle, driven by its impassioned narrator and an 8-bit leitmotif.
A video work that documents the annual orchid show at the New York Botanic Garden, Orchid Show critically observes notions of spectacle, gender and beauty as a query into the staging and imaging of nature. For the audio, the sounds of the garden fold into a classical composition for piano, Kaleidoscopic Changes on an Original Theme, Ending with a Fugue (1924) by Ruth Crawford Seeger, one of the few celebrated female composers of the early 20th century.
A structure of Lawrence Weiner.
Photography: Moved Pictures; Computer Graphics: K. Hassett; “A New Pair of Shoes”, “Ships at Sea”, “Sailors and Shoes” Music: Ned Sublette, ASCAP; Lyrics: Lawrence Weiner, BMI
This title is also available on Lawrence Weiner: There are Things that Move Outside of Motion.
“Drawing on the ancient Nahuatl concept of the animating soul or life force, Tonalli engages the ritualistic powers of the cinema, summoning fire, flowers, and many moons into a frenetic and mesmerizing in-camera collage. Here, amid thickly swirling images and textured abstractions, the gods of creation and fertility manifest, dissolving into iridescent colors and dense, corporeal rhythms.” NYFF59
"The Flag is the second part of a video series about the state-controlled national day ceremonies of the Turkish Republic. Shot during the April 23rd Children’s Day celebrations, which mark the establishment of the new Turkish Parliament, and hence the official demise of the Ottoman Empire back in 1920, this split screen film documents a pompous patriotic performance devised by elders to be performed by children.
When everyone has forgotten the romantic refrains of the Internationale sung in different languages, Pablito, a blue front Amazon parrot, capable of living to 100 years old, will remember. He rings bells and is learning to whistle, hum and sing the Internationale in French, Spanish and German.
Lesser Apes tells the story of a love affair between a primatologist, Farrah, and a female bonobo ape, Meema. Bonobos are the species with which humans share the most DNA, but unlike our species, they are matriarchal, live without conflict, and are unabashedly sexual. A paean to perversion, the film combines animation, live action and song to challenge attitudes about sex, language and our relationship to nature.
Silver directs and performs all the roles in this raucous and hilarious music video rendition of Lynyrd Skynyrd’s "Freebird", the infamous Southern rock anthem for an entire generation of 1970s male youth. In this spoof of straight mass culture, Silver flips ironically between roles; from a lesbian proudly proclaiming her sexuality at the Academy Awards, to an in-concert Coors-drinking Ronnie Van Zant, and, finally, to a black-lace lesbian lounge swinger celebrating the wild, colorful world of “out” visibility.
The University of Virginia gospel choir Black Voices returns home from a triumphant concert in Hampton Roads.
This title is only available on Can You Move Like This: Black Fire.
6^ is part of the Pop Manifestos series, a five video project realized in collaboration with Cokes' former students Seth Price and Damian Kulash, and originally conceived as part of a series for the conceptual band SWIPE.
