Sur face is a series of video experiments that I did while thinking about two things: the relationship
between an image and the object in the world that it is “of” (in this case my face), and the relationship
between an image and the surface on which it appears. That surface, so necessary for the image’s
existence, seems both fragile and impenetrable, a barrier and an opportunity.

This project was developed during a residency at 911 Seattle Media Arts Center.

Sur face (bubbles)
2009
Single channel video
1 min 20 sec

Sur face (glass)
2009
Single channel video
35 sec loop

Sur face (water)
2009
Single channel video
2 min loop

BEN WEINER’s Opening explores the structure of paint at a microscopic level, unveiling the organic origins of a man-made material. Weiner bases his paintings on highly magnified views of the paint on his palette. Viewed at a perspective alien to the naked eye, blobs of paint appear as organic terrains and hyperpigmented, trompe l’oeil landscapes. These paintings chart the evolving topography of his palette, with the process creation of one painting generating source imagery for the next.

Weiner’s time-lapse video projections magnify the process by which pigment, linseed oil, varnish, and turpentine are mixed together to make paint, distilling days of footage into several minutes. The resulting videos bring the viewer into a fantastical molten universe, where landscape and material is ever in flux.

Ben Weiner was born in 1980 and lives and works in New York City. His work has been included in exhibitions at The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, The Carnegie Art Museum, The Frederick R. Weisman Museum of Art at Pepperdine University, and The Riverside Art Museum. Weiner has had two solo exhibitions with Mark Moore Gallery in Los Angeles, and his works are in the permanent collections of the Sammlung Mondstudio (Germany), Progressive Insurance (Ohio), and the Frederick R. Weisman Foundation (California). In 2010 Weiner was awarded the New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship.

Charles Lindsay has had a diverse career, working first as an exploration geologist in the arctic, and then as a photojournalist in the jungles of southeast Asia. In the last decade he has blended photography, video and sound art in an installation project he calls CARBON. Lindsay received a 2010 Guggenheim Fellowship to further develop this work.

At the heart of CARBON is a camera-less photographic process Lindsay invented. The process begins with a unique carbon-based emulsion on a transparent base, which he then freezes, electrifies and manipulates. The resulting negatives are scanned, digitally layered and printed in large scale or animated for video projection. “CARBON combines my interest in the aesthetics of space exploration, scientific imaging and the evolution of symbols.” Lindsay’s CARBON installations offer an immersive alternate world, where all the senses are engaged to consider fundamental questions about our place in the universe.

Not Otherwise Specified is a project in which L.A.-based artist David Gutierrez investigates the violence and exploitation present in medical photographs used to display abnormalities — specifically, intersex genitalia — in order to pathologize and later surgically eliminate the conditions. In this video, Gutierrez re-performs the gestures of the physicians’ hands as they present the parts that are, in their minds, problematic. Gutierrez removes the patient, transferring the focus onto the invasive physicians. The accompanying audio is a reading of the Disorders of Sex Development (DSD), which has been edited, rearranged, repeated, and digitally altered to lower the pitch of the reader’s voice, rendering both the voice and system of classification nearly unrecognizable. For the duration of the video, the voice slowly increases in pitch until it is almost unaltered, as a way to refer to the construction of sex through medical procedures.

This video is from the “American Cockroach” series.  I raised the twenty different species that form the cast. – CATHERINE CHALMERS

SAFARI, video stills, installation image, Scientific Visions, Ochi Gallery

ALISON VAN PELT, THE HORSE, CLOSES

INSTALLATION IMAGES

PREVIEW & DISCUSSION OF DESIREE FAWN’S NEW FILM

6 – 7:30 PM, 350 WALNUT AVE

PRESS RELEASE

EXHIBITIONS WALKTHROUGH WITH CATHERINE CHALMERS, MIA BABALIS & PAULI OCHI, SATURDAY, TIME TBA

JOIN US TUESDAY, MARCH 12, 6 PM
350 WALNUT AVENUE
FOR A SHORT PREVIEW & DISCUSSION OF DESIREE’S NEW MOVIE
CAPTURING WILD HORSES

Desiree capturing Ochi artist, Alison Van Pelt’s show, THE HORSE

What is your earliest memory/ awareness that you wanted to be involved in the “creative life”?

 Hmm. That is a very good question. I think the creative life is just the way I have always lived. I grew up on a 600 acre ranch about an hour from Sun Valley. It was actually a farm, because we grew wheat, not animals, but for some reason I always think a farm needs chickens or something, so I call it a ranch. The closest little town was 30 minutes away and our nearest neighbor was a mile. I spent most of my time outside, figuring out ways to entertain myself. My two older sisters and I would play “make-believe,” build forts, color and paint anything with a surface, catch butterflies, and play dress up with our pets. We had a lot of interaction with animals and nature. In the wintertime, I would just sit for hours playing by myself in the snow. I was always talking to myself and singing. My mom just let me be and I was encouraged to be in my own little creative world. We had an old black and white TV with access to local Idaho PBS.  My mom would plop me down in front of the Bob Ross painting program while she vacuumed or worked around the house. As a result of my childhood and my mother’s support and encouragement to develop my artistic side, I have a very active internal, visual world.  My dreams are especially vivid. I tend to spend a lot of time sorting through all of the pictures and stories running through my head. It is good that I now have a camera and editing software to help with this process!

-When people ask you what Capturing Wild Horses is about, what do you say?

Capturing Wild Horses is a documentary about the wild horse roundup that recently took place in Challis and also the process of trying to “capture” what wild horses are to me.

 How did your perspectives on wild horses change throughout the course of this project?

Last spring and summer, I spent some time poking around Idaho’s wild horse country, near the Lower East Fork of the Salmon River. I interviewed several wild horse advocates leading up to the controversial roundup that took place last fall. Then I spent about a week filming the roundup and interviewing the BLM officers who were in charge of the operation. It was very informative, but also tough to watch. When I came to your opening of the Alison Van Pelt paintings, “Horses”, I kind of freaked out.  In her paintings, she captured everything I wanted to see when I was filming the wild horses, but what I witnessed was the exact opposite. It is for this reason I am so excited to show a bit of my footage and talk about my film in the context of her beautiful paintings.

What are you working on now?

Right now, I’m working on a fundraising campaign which is launching April 1st on Kickstarter, a website dedicated to help artists meet their project fundraising goals. I’m hoping to raise enough money to complete the film by this summer.

Favorite films?

For being a filmmaker, I have not watched a lot of movies! I most recently watched Beasts of the Southern Wild and Life of Pi, which I admire for bringing such a magical quality to the screen. Off the top of my head, the first movie that really impacted me was a film called The Bear.  It is a first person account of a little bear cub making his way in the wild.  It was made by a French filmmaker in the 80s and filmed in the Dolomites, so what’s not to love!  The first movie I ever saw was Jaws (we drove all the way from the ranch-farm to Hailey for that one) and the movie I have probably seen the most is Greece 2.  It was available as a rental from the supermarket/gas station/post office that serviced our local community.

DeSiree’ Fawn is a recent graduate of The New School’s innovative MA in Media Studies graduate program in New York City, where she focused in new media and documentary studies. While earning her Master of Arts, DeSiree’ was one of a select group of students from NYU, Columbia, and The New School appointed to The Producers Guild East student membership program. Prior to attending The New School, DeSiree’ lived in San Francisco and worked for six years in public relations for Silicon Valley based media technology companies, including four years at Electronic Arts. During her undergraduate studies, DeSiree’ spent several semesters studying art in Italy and earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts from Montana State University in Bozeman. In her first documentary, The Phantom Wolves of Sun Valley, DeSiree’ explores the conflict over wolves in her hometown community of Sun Valley, Idaho.

More on Fawn Films here.  Or contact the filmmaker here.