Sasha Soren

ARTE SIX
JUNE 2004
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Arte Six: June 2004
All the arts. All the time.
[Art – Music – Dance – Film – Books – Travel – Life]
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Arte Six is the official newsletter of SashaSoren.com.

Read online: http://www.sashasoren.com/newsletter.htm
Subscribe: artesix@sashasoren.com

NB: Use info listed at your own risk. Arte Six gives no warranty to completeness, accuracy, or fitness for any purpose, ie. use your head, like yo' mama said.
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IN THIS ISSUE:
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LIVES
Elizabeth Hand, novelist

ART
NYC/”Convergence”
NYC/“Scarlets in Ghent”@Rare
Berlin/“Claustrophobia”
LA/”Royal Elastics Streetwise – 3”
LA/”The Summer Show”@sixspace
Torino, Italy/ “Imaginary Geography”

MUSIC
Disc series/Mylene Pires
Reviews/Melodrome, F, “Illusion’s Carnival”, “Church of Sky”, “The Alice Project”

DANCE + THEATRE
Insight/Jodi Lomask, for Capacitor – “Digging in the Dark”
Oakland, CA/“Digging in the Dark”
LA/"Blanc d'Ombra/White in the Shadow"
NYC/ “Ecstatic Poems”
NYC/Pilobolus
NYC/“The Impersonation of Mr. Peacock”

FILM/SCREENWRITING
NYC/Screening series/”Premiere Brazil”
NYC/Festivals/BIFF
LA/Los Angeles Film Festival
Munich/Filmfest München

BOOKS/WRITERS
Writers Bloc series – Editor Natashya Wilson, on writing kick-ass action-adventure Sneak peek/excerpt: “The Perfect Cover”, Maureen Tan
The Agent series – Jenny Bent

TRAVEL
Art Cities: Barcelona

LIFE
Redefining ‘free’ press…
“Iliad” IM: Helen M.I.A./ Get ships.

SCI/TECH
Clubbing with Orwell
Losing Face

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LIVES (interviews and profiles)
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LIVES: Elizabeth Hand, novelist

Visual: Elizabeth Hand, novelist [http://www.elizabethhand.com]
Omnium exeunt in mysterium: all ends in mystery.

Most of my writing stems from a single intense emotional experience, usually
recalled long after the fact; maybe even just from the nuances of a single
emotion.

I’m less concerned with plot than I am with creating characters capable of channeling what I felt, so when I work, I try to tap into that
emotion again.

I trained as an actor, and the one thing I think I kept from that experience is the ability to immerse myself in a character’s emotional life and recreate it, on the page rather than on the stage.

Laurence Olivier said “I scavenge for that tiniest little bit of human circumstance. Observe it. Use it.” That’s what I try to do.

When I’m working, especially in the early stages of developing a character, I’ll listen to music compulsively -- obsessively -- until I hit on a song that evokes that character or the emotional experience associated with her/him.

It’s never the song I was listening to at the time the original event occurred, and it’s not the Soundtrack From My Life, say, fifteen years ago, or five; it’s whatever music makes me feel wistful or furious or exultant right now.

Once I’ve hit on that one note, I’ll just play it over and over while I’m writing or driving around; say, twenty or thirty times a day. Maybe more. It’s like scoring the soundtrack to a film – an individual character will also have a theme, or theme songs. I tend to use popular music rather than classical; “Tristan and Isolde” is a bit beyond my
reach, so I wouldn¹t presume to channel Wagner.

A short story or novella might have one song, or two or three; a novel has an entire soundtrack.

Once I’m finished with any individual work, it can be difficult for me to listen to that piece of music again -- the connections are too intense.

Some songs get heavy rotation, and I use them over and over again for different books: Biber’s Violin Concertoes, Chopin, Schubert; a lot of medieval music. Phillip Glass.

THE DAILY

In theory, I should be writing a book a year – that’s what publishers want, and the public. In reality, it takes me at least two years. “Mortal Love” took almost five, but I think it shows the time and effort that went into it.

My writing rituals are pretty much what I described above, listening to the same music obsessively. My routine consists of getting my kids off to school,
then getting down to my cottage to write.

If I’m doing my normal day-to-day writing -- i.e., if I’m not writing a particular scene or chapter that’s ‘scored’ by an individual song -- I listen to Nick Drake’s album FIVE LEAVES LEFT (less intense than BRYTER LAYTER) and Paul Westerberg’s
FOURTEEN SONGS.

I’ve been listening to these two albums every day for years and years. I set myself a quota of 1,000 words a day. Sometimes I do more than that, rarely less.

I write very intensely, and a lot of the time it’s emotionally draining material, so those five pages can really tap me out.

NOVELS VS. SHORT FICTION

Short stories are easier in some ways. For me, a short story tends to form completely in my head, i.e., I know what’s going to happen at the end. It’s then just a matter of getting it out, though it can be years between a story’s genesis and its completion.

Whereas with a novel I often have no idea what’s going to happen, or how the story will come together at the end. I learn as the reader does, by struggling though with the characters. Which can still take years. I’m a very slow writer.

DISCIPLINE

Writers are just born with the talent, probably; just as anyone with an innate talent for music or art or athletics or business is born that way. But if you don’t discipline yourself and practice your craft, it’s useless.

So in that sense a writer creates herself. Anyone can learn to write reasonably well, by reading a great deal and writing a great deal. Whether or not one gets published is another thing (especially these days).

LIFE, THE DRAMA

Most of what I do is drawn on real events or real people. I’m not good at making stuff up, but I’m pretty good at taking earthbound material and
ornamenting it so that it takes on a more resonant, mythic sensibility.

“Waking the Moon” was in many ways the alternate take of certain events in my life, with characters inspired by friends of mine; ditto “Black Light”.

I did a reading from “Mortal Love” several years ago, when it was still a work-in-progress, and people in the audience began to laugh as they recognized various characters, because they knew their real-life
counterparts.

Woody Allen was a huge influence on me -- when I was eleven, that’s who I wanted to be when I grew up. His best work seems to embellish his own life
and acquaintanceship, the places he loves.

New York isn’t really as breathtaking as it is in “Manhattan” and “Hannah and Her Sisters”; but of course sometimes it is, and Woody Allen distills those moments, that vision, into his work. It’s something I aspire to, on a much smaller scale.

As for the major difference between fiction and real life, I’ll quote Richard Thompson on this one --

“Life is just as deadly as it looks,
But fiction is more forgiving.”

LIFE LESSONS

The most startling thing anyone ever said to me was “don’t be a victim”.

This was from my friend O.J., the model for Oliver in “Waking the Moon”.
We were in college, I guess about nineteen years old.

He looked at me one night and right out of the blue said, in this really chilling tone, “Don’t be a victim.”

I was very taken aback. I didn¹t understand what he meant. I hadn’t been behaving particularly melodramatically -- certainly not any more than usual.

We had an intensely close, almost psychic friendship for a few years, but that was so strange, because it seemed out of context, almost like he was making some oracular observation.

But I took his words very seriously, and I’ve always tried to live by them, to take responsibility for my own life, refuse to let someone else dictate the
terms by which I succeed or fail.

A few years after O.J. said that to me, I was abducted and raped – I’d been with him just minutes before it happened, and he and my boyfriend were the first people I saw when the police came.

I always wonder if he somehow saw what was going to occur. In the aftermath what got me through was remembering that one phrase: “Don’t be a victim.”

I’ve never forgotten it.

WORDS AND THE MUSE

If I were an album, I’d be the Replacements PLEASED TO MEET ME.

In a more general sense, if I got to pick an alternate artistic arc, I’d probably choose that of Paul Westerberg, former lead singer of the Replacements.

The way his youthful career careened between great, crazed, drunken Fuck You excess, and beautifully disciplined, restrained songs like “Skyway” and
“Sadly Beautiful”, and his later Prozac-tinged ballads remind me of the way I work, and the way I was, once upon a time.

He’s an artist who now faces the realities of middle age, but he’s still able to tap into the energy and rage and exultance that fired his youthful work.

He has an intensity and an integrity that I find genuinely inspiring; his music has been firing me up since about 1987, and I still listen to it about every day. So he’s obviously doing something right.

For a more specific discography, these are the songs or albums I associate with various novels and stories:

WINTERLONG: Love & Rockets, EXPRESS; Replacements, PLEASED TO MEET ME; Strawbs, “Autumn”, from HERO & HEROINE

“Snow on Sugar Mountain”: Phillip Glass, GLASSWORKS

“The Have-Nots”: “Elvis Bought Dora A Cadillac,” Wall of Voodoo

“Snow on Sugar Mountain”: “The Welcome,” Fred Frith (“The Welcome” was the
original title for this story)

GLIMMERING: “Pepper,” Butthole Surfers; FOREVER CHANGES, Love; “The Man Who Sold the World”, Nirvana

WAKING THE MOON: “Northern Sky,” Nick Drake; “Ignoreland,” REM; “The
Beautiful Ones,” Prince; “She Lives,” John Wesley Harding; “I Have Always
Been Here Before,” Roky Erickson

MORTAL LOVE: “20th Century Man,” The Kinks; “Waterloo Sunset,” The Kinks;
“Fade into You,” Mazzy Star; “April Fools,” Rufus Wainwright; “Danny Boy,”
Rufus Wainwright; MOCK TUDOR, Richard Thompson; SUMMERTEETH, WIlco

“Chip Crockett’s Christmas Carol”: “Danny Says,” The Ramones; “That Happy
Feeling,” Bert Kaemfert & His Orchestra; “Welcome Christmas,” Love Spirals
Downwards; “Morning of Our Lives,” Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers;
“I Just wasn¹t Made for These Times,” Beach Boys; “Round the Bend,” The Beta
Band

BIBLIOMANCY

“Bibliomancy” is a collection of four novellas, so the individual works came
first. I just liked the word.

It’s actually taken a bit out of context -- bibliomancy is an act of divination using the Bible, whereas stichomancy, technically involves divination by the written word.
But “Bibliomancy” scanned better as a title.

WRITERS, AN ODD BREED

John Gardner said the most important thing is for a writer to marry money,
or to inherit it. I agree: the freedom not to have to do something else
for a living is critical.

I think discipline is crucial as well. The ability to get up day after day
and just do it, knowing you¹re not going to get paid, or paid enough.

And being well-read -- I teach writing workshops and am consistently amazed by how poorly-read people are -- and these are people who want to be
writers!

There’s a Beach Boys song called “Hang on to Your Ego.”

If you don’t have an ego, I suggest you buy or rent one from a reputable source.

You can’t be thin-skinned in this business, and you have to have a very, very strong sense of yourself and the value of what you’re doing. Because you can’t
depend on anyone else to value it as much as you do --not a publisher, or a reader, or an editor. Ultimately it’s the work itself that has to sustain
you. So it had better be good.

There are a few things I wish someone had told me before I started out: that it would be a really good idea to learn how to touchtype. And that it was going to be a lot more important for writers to look like movie stars -- or to be movie stars -- than any of us ever imagined.

Also, there was one thing that surprised me most about my last book: how long it took for me to write it -- almost five years. And how much I loved writing it.

There was one morning in early 2002 when I realized I was going to finish “Mortal Love” within the next few months (I completed the first, close-to-final draft on July 4, 2002) and it hit me, that I was writing a novel I absolutely loved.

I’d never really had that happen before, except with “Chip Crockett’s Christmas Carol,” which was a very short novel and so no quite as much an investment in time and energy (though “Chip” did took me two years).

Favorite authors: Laurie Colwin, Robert Stone, John Crowley, James Salter, M.John Harrison, T.H. White, Vladimir Nabokov, J.R.R. Tolkien, Hope Mirlees.
Shakespeare -- I’m constantly rereading Shakespeare. And I’m currently on a John Fowles kick.

Books I wish I’d written: Too many to list! Laurie Colwin’s “Happy All the Time”, because it’s such a perfect domestic romance. I reread it at least once a year. John Crowley’s “Little, Big”. Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night.”

Favorite quote from fiction:
“It is all one long day.”
- James Salter, “Light Years”

IN PASSING…

If I meet someone who interests me, I make a point of getting to know him, or her. So, most of the strangers in my life have ended up as friends:
“We only truly regret the things we haven¹t done, not the things we did.”

I did meet Tom Stoppard when I was about nineteen, but I was too shy to say anything much more than “hello.”

I’m trying to think if there’s any marvelous stranger who ever got away...

I don’t think so. Not yet, anyway. There are definitely one or two people out there in the ether I’d like to know better, in realtime. They know who
they are.

MYTHOLOGY

The biggest myth about being a writer is that it’s exciting.

Mickey Spillane said the essence of writing is “Get your ass in a chair. A miserable, lonely life.”

If I wasn’t a writer, I would definitely be: depressed all the time, instead of just in the winter.

No, in my dream life, I’d be a classical archaeologist, studying Mycenaean culture. In real life, I’d probably be a hospice nurse. I’ve worked as a home health aide, living with people who are terminally ill. It’s something I’m good at, and it’s an important job, so I’d probably do that.

Before I die, I’d like to: Continue having an interesting sex life. And have a really big party with everyone I’ve ever known and loved, or even liked, all together at one time in the same place. I’d also like to see Paris. I guess if I had enough money, I could combine all three of these.
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Author bio: Elizabeth Hand [http://www.elizabethhand.com] is the author of "Mortal Love" (July 2004), "Bibliomancy” and numerous other works. Her first novel, “Winterlong” was published in 1990, and followed by “Aestival Tide” and “Icarus Descending”.

Contemporary fantasy “Waking the Moon” won the Mythopoeic Society Award. That book was followed by science fantasy “Glimmering” and contemporary fantasy “Black Light”.

Hand’s story collection “Last Summer at Mars Hill” includes the Nebula and World Fantasy award-winning title novella. Among more recent short fiction, "Cleopatra Brimstone" (2001) won the International Horror Guild Award. With longtime friend Paul Witcover, Hand created DC Comics' post-punk, post-feminist cult series “Anima”. She has also written numerous movie and TV novelizations.

“Bibliomancy” has been nominated for a Bram Stoker Award by the Horror Writers of America.

Official site: http://www.elizabethhand.com


More about Elizabeth Hand:

Funniest movie I’ve ever seen: “To Be or Not to Be” (the original, with Jack Benny and Carole Lombard). Or “The Navigator” -- I adore Buster Keaton.

Saddest: The very first movie I ever saw, when I was about three years old, was Walt Disney’s “Pinocchio”. I cried at the end -- I thought it was so sad
that he turned into a real boy. It was so much more interesting to think I lived in a world where puppets could be alive. More recently, I thought
“Lost in Translation” was lovely and heartbreaking.

Favorite downtime reading online: The New York Times, The Onion, and The Maine Emergency Management Agency Weather Page, so I can keep up with blizzards.

What I’m reading right now: Rereading “The Collector”, John Fowles
Other interests: I’m an armchair archeologist.

Interesting fact that nobody knows about me yet:
Except for some things which will remain private, anything interesting about me is in my fiction. So everybody knows it already. Or will.

Life is…unutterably mysterious. Omnium exeunt in mysterium: all ends in mystery.

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ART (events and news – painting, photography, sculpture…)
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Art/NYC
“Convergence:
June 3 – 19
Reception: June 3, 6pm
Artist discussion: June 5, 1pm
“Convergence” is an exhibition where new media art and communications technology challenge traditional concepts of portraiture, art, and gallery space. “Convergence” tells of a new role for technology in contemporary art, one where the boundaries are blurred between old and new media and between digital and physical realms.
In the traditional museum and gallery setting the visitor is an observer who is physically separated from the artworks. “Convergence” invites Museum visitors to touch and manipulate the works which brings them to life. In this way, the artworks foretell a future in which more democratic and powerful modes of communication allow a greater multiplicity of people to express themselves and share ideas freely.
The exhibition features the innovations of nine visionary artists, designers, engineers, programmers, and musicians from the U.S. and Europe. Among those exhibiting are professor Jean-Marc Gauthier and Daniel Shiffman, an artist, mathematician, programmer, and ITP researcher.

Highlights:

“Infinite City”
Artists: Jean-Marc Gauthier, Miro Kirov, & James Tunick
"Infinite City" is an interactive multimedia installation that transports audience members to a futuristic 3D cityscape. Surrounded by a 30-foot immersive projection display and a multi-channel surround sound system, viewers establish control of their surroundings through ultrasonic sensors. Hand movements guide a virtual camera through the 3D world and alter the spatial position of ambient sound.

“Swarm”
Artist: Daniel Shiffman
Swarm is a live video installation that implements the pattern of flocking birds (using Craig Reynold's "Boids" model) as a constantly moving brush stroke. Taking inspiration from Jackson Pollack's "drip and splash" technique of pouring a continuous stream of paint onto a canvas, Swarm smears colors captured from video input, producing an organic painterly effect in real-time.

“Interactive Sound Installation”
Artist: Konrad Kaczmarek
This installation piece transforms fragments of conversations into rhythmic and melodic patterns. As the participants approach the installation, the relative sound level of their conversation triggers individual words and phrases to be recorded into the mix.

“See-Through Wall”
Artists: Dana Karwas, Gabe Winer
See-Through Wall is an interactive video art work that redefines of space by blending the real architecture of the gallery space with virtual architecture, giving viewers “x-ray” vision to see through the walls of the gallery and out into a virtual urban landscape.

The "See-Through Wall" is collecting what is present in reality, reinterpreting it within a virtual space, and recontextualizing reality through the process of architectural projections.

“Convergence” is being produced in conjunction with the current exhibition at the Chelsea Art Museum, “Surface Tension”, curated by Manon Slome, which addresses the influence of technology on contemporary painting.

The exhibition is part of the Project Room program series and “Introductions” workshops in the arts and technology produced by Nina Colosi with the Electronic Music Foundation.

“Introductions” is a series of discussions with leading artists in music and art and technology who perform and/or demonstrate their ideas and techniques in working with computers, software, synthesizers, video, and other technologies. The June 5th discussion focuses on the issue of – guess what -- convergence.
Find it: Chelsea Art Museum
556 West 22nd Street@ 11th Ave.
Metro: E or 1,9 or 6 to 23rd Street.
Get info: (212) 255-0719
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Art/NYC
"Scarlets in Ghent”
Through June 12th

In contrast to the booty queens and misogynist rap-masters of our day, Xiomara De Oliver's new paintings are symbolically and literally filled with praise of the feminine. She paints her female figures in decadent settings: beaches; luxurious rooms; lush, ambient, semi-paradisiacal gardens.

Painted in a manner that balances the naive and the expressionistic, her work demands to be read intuitively. Depicting only women, and surrounding them with metaphorically female objects, she creates realms that are visually opulent and sexually charged. Seemingly utopian, her paintings engage the viewer with their beauty, only to belie their intensely psychological content.

In “Queen Me”, (2004), the central figure (self-portrait) is attended to by smaller figures, her portrait on the wall mirroring her place in this self-enclosed society. She is adorned with a rose on her ankle and eats rings of calamari, testament to the sea, which emphasize her significance as a source of creation.

Similarly fertile is Xiomara's use of color, as evinced in “I Never Got to Do a Spa Weekend in Palm Springs”, (2004). A vivid field of blues and greens creates an atmosphere reminiscent of Qing Dynasty landscapes. This undulating space is dotted with female figures indulging in bright red strawberries. Mirroring this opulence are flowering trees, beds, and red bathtubs. Some figures rest on white towels, cleansed, while others flop about within the garden paradise.

This is the artist's third one-person show at RARE. Xiomara currently is participating in the Brooklyn Museum's Open House, and exhibits regularly at MW Projects in London and at Galerie Anne de Villepoix in Paris. She lives in Brooklyn and works in Manhattan.

In the accompanying “Rare Plus” event, Karsten Krejcarek creates a tableau of calamity, half-scaled, in which a lone female figure lies sprawled on a green tennis court with racket and balls by her side.

Her diminutive size and disjointed posture implies a crestfallen state of tactical emotional withdrawal. Using tennis as a metaphor for interpersonal relationships, this installation suggests the nature of botched adoration, the demoralizing quality of tormented loss, and the resulting incapacity for reconciliation. This is Karsten's first one-person exhibition at Rare.

Find it: Rare
521 West 26th Street
New York, New York 10001
Get info: (212) 268-1520

Visual: Scarlets in Ghent, 2004
Mixed media on canvas
76" x 80"
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ART/Berlin
“Claustrophobia”
Through June 12th

Spooky staircases and bedrooms full of memories. Bizarre rooms seething with color. What on first impression resembles film stills is the impressive work of photographer Raïssa Venables. With the exhibition “Claustrophobia,” Venable invites viewers to explore haunted rooms, nightmares and psychological labyrinths of breathtaking power.

Places and their strong influence on people’s mood and imagination fascinate the young photographer. Venables begins her process by shooting a location from all possible angles. She then arranges the individual shots into a “picture carpet,” which is finally transformed with the aid of a computer into a new, large-format photograph. The result is a photographic “portrait” of a room, a “history of a place” -- never a mere record of found reality.

For the artist, photography is always a profound emotional confrontation with her suroundings. Her photographs capture claustrophic, distorted rooms of intoxicating color. In her skillful, digitally-composed details of spaces, she intelligently and intimately records the history of these places.

The result: literal rooms become rooms of the soul. Her photographs tell the story of their inhabitants’ deeds, dreams and nightmares. Without showing us any people, Venables shows us the traces of themselves they’ve left behind.

Find it: SPHN
Koppenplatz 6
10115 Berlin
Get info: +49-30-27594925

[Visual: “Elevator”, (2003)]
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ART/LA
Royal Elastics Streetwise 3 – LA
Through June 16th
Royal Elastics Streetwise 3 - LA is a quintet of interrelated, but unique exhibitions, featuring works by 20 top American urban artists. Live DJs, and painting accompany each exhibition.

As the Urban Art movement continues to grow, RE SW3 continues to grow along with it. RE SW3 is comprised of five self-contained exhibitions featuring leading 'urban influence' artists. The exhibit runs from March through August, and features new works each month.

In June: New paintings by Michael Leon, Tony Llarson, Rob Abeyta, Rich Jacobs

The Lab 101 aims to showcase the urban art that has evolved from a form of inner city expression to a massive global art movement. Rooted in the creative voice of inner city youths, this art forum continues to evolve.

The Royal Elastics Streetwise concept began two years ago when its inaugural exhibition took place at a gallery on London's Portobello road - featuring 28 of the most cutting-edge and established artists, commercial designers, illustrators and anonymous makers of streetwise scenes. Following the success of RE SW – 1, the bar was set to create a unique, but equally memorable, event experience for Streetwise - 2 the following year.

For Streetwise - 2, nine internationally recognized 'urban artists' came together for a week to paint large murals in a historic gallery in the heart of Berlin. As they painted live, the public and press could watch their work develop. This encouraged an open platform for the artists and the onlookers to open a dialogue about this rapidly growing art movement.

This year Royal Elastics Streetwise – 3 will feature five unique exhibitions. There will be 20 of the top American urban artists showcasing their art.

The Lab 101 aims to showcase the urban art that has evolved from a form of inner city expression to a massive global art movement.

Find it: The Lab 101
1534 17th Street, #101
Santa Monica, CA 90404
Get info:(310) 453-5225
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ART/LA
“The Summer Show”
June 26-July 31
Reception: June 26, 7pm

Just in time for beach season, sixspace opens an exhibition featuring sunny, playful new works by three emerging artists: Jen Corace, Caroline Hwang, and Deth P. Sun.

Illustrator Jen Corace makes her Los Angeles debut with new acrylic and pencil works. LA-to-NYC transplant Caroline Hwang showcases her unique assemblage style sewn pieces that incorporate fabric, thread, and paint.

Deth P. Sun presents larger-scale paintings on canvas of his sometimes cute yet mostly deviant characters.

Artist bios: Jen Corace, based in Rhode Island, has done record covers for Red Square Records and web design for public art commission, “The Color of Palo Alto.”

Caroline Hwang was born in Minneapolis, but has spent the majority of her life is sunny SoCal. Finding inspiration in everyday things, including crafts, graphic arts, quilting, films, and music, Hwang’s tactile assemblage style incorporates fabric, thread, and paint to create collaged images that communicate raw human emotion, self-reflection, and the dynamics and difficulty of human relationships.

Deth P. Sun’s work has been included in exhibitions in New York, Los Angeles and London. His artwork has been featured in and was recently on the cover of Asia cult-pop magazine, “Giant Robot”. He enjoys the work of: Takashi Murakami, Inka Essenhigh and James Jarvis.

Find it: sixspace
549 West 23rd Street
Los Angeles, CA 90007
Get info: (213) 765-0248
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ART/Italy
“Imaginary Geography”
Luigi Ghirri retrospective
Through July 24th

Photographer Luigi Ghirri had a knack for photographing not only the tangible and present, but the intangible and absent. His tableaus of simple everyday scenes have an element of expectation in them; many of them are mildly puzzling, as if the human figures in the landscape are present but not able to be seen.

Ghirri’s visuals often seem to be bookplates to accompany a well-worn phrase by Marcel Proust: "The real voyage of discovery does not consist in searching for new lands, but in having new eyes.”

His works focus mainly on details picked out of landscapes, elements of architecture, candid snaps of ordinary people. Apart from that, his work is not really reducible to simple terms, as it contains a deeper, poetic quality beyond the visual captured on film.

There’s an element in his work which is present in the most intriguing works of photography; the dichotomy of memory versus documentation, the exterior versus the internalized, history versus the physical place, the private versus public, the ''two categories of the world'', synthesized by Ghirri.

But never the one without the other: images delineate an ‘imaginary geography’; not a map of an imaginary place, but kilometer zero for the imagination -- space that stops time, fixity that moves. It is through this journey of the intensified (the telescope, replaced by the camera) that we learn how to use our mind’s eye to fill in the rest of the story. This exhibit includes more than sixty of Luigi Ghirri's photographs.

Find it: francosoffiantino artecontemporanea
Via Rossini 23
Torino, Italy
Get info: +39 011 837743


[NB: We’d like to cover more art events. If you’re in touch with artists or gallery directors who’d be interested in being mentioned in upcoming issues, please tell them to get in touch:
“Arte Six” c/o artesix@sashasoren.com]

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INDIE MUSIC (reviews, features, events, info)
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MUSIC/Insight
Mylene Pires, “Mylene”
http://www.fasthorserecordings.com/jukeMylene.html

Every morning, singer/songwriter Mylene goes to a local Rio de Janeiro bakery for coffee and inspiration, watching to see what happens in this picturesque environment.

There was a time when her friends wondered about her rushing home without notice to write down an idea for a song or poem. It wasn’t until after her friends resigned to this odd habit saying, “oh well, it’s a writer thing” that Mylene started carrying a notebook in her purse at all times.

Ideas come while she drinks coffee in street cafés, passes by a square where old men discuss soccer, or simply when friends visit and talk about the day’s news.

For her debut album, Mylene intentionally sought out the universe of what a new generation of Brazilian musicians was creating, melding it to the experience of everyday people.

“I went to various raves and traditional Brazilian parties, I talked to DJs and producers,” says Mylene. “I read a lot of poetry by contemporary writers and I went to Lisbon, too, looking for our roots.”

“I searched for a possible reconciliation of Portuguese and Iberian music with Brazilian music, since we were colonized by Portugal and this influence and all its inherent peculiarities got kind of hidden in the corners of our history,” Mylene says.

One of the biggest myths about ‘creatives’ is that they’re eccentric, she says. But everyone has a ritual that works for them: “I have to organize all my office stuff before writing. I need a lot of quiet time. I have a favorite sofa where I lie down to relax and cleanse my mind. Sometimes,” she says, “I dream melodies while I’m sleeping -- that’s why I always keep a tape recorder on the nightstand next to my bed.”

For instance, the first part of “Clareou,” which means “It Lit Up,” came to Mylene in a dream:

Tua pele que eu acho tão rara
Foi feita só para mim...
(English translation: Your skin that I find so rare
Was specially made for me...)

Mylene’s songs are based on her poetry. “Sometimes it takes just few minutes -- when that happens, the melody seems to come, pre-made. Sometimes I never finish the song. In general, I write the lyrics before the song.”

While producing an album is difficult, Mylene almost never experiences creative block. “I believe it happens, but I’ve never experienced it. What happens to me is a kind of excitement that interferes with the process, that doesn’t let me work well.”

Although none of her songs are laced with the quality of ‘confessional’ navel-gazing common in many singer/songwriters, most of Mylene’s songs are actually inspired by real life.

“My trip to Lisbon is described in the song “Rio-Lisboa”; my wanderings on the streets of Rio de Janeiro at night are captured in the lyrics for “Longa Longa Noite”:

É tão longa longa a noite e suas luzes
Meu rumo
Um sinal qualquer nessa cidade que me pare
Eu fumo
E eu liguei a luz do seu olhar e acendeu…

(English translation: Such a long, long night and her lights
My route
Any traffic light can stop me
I smoke
I lit your eyes and they brightened…)

Some songs on the album grew out of more internalized personal credos or experiences, like “Clareou”, “Promessas”, and “Pipoca Contemporanea”.

É quando a areia se espalha que eu penso em você
porque o grão se separa sem se arrepender...
(English translation: It is when the sands spread that I think of you
Because the grains separate with no regrets...)
from: "Pipoca Contemporanea/Contemporary Popcorn"

“I think some people are born with an innate ‘music skill’ and can either develop that with time and practice, or choose not to. Others have to study music and find out their own way to express their art,” she says. “Music is the language of God; in general, artists express in their art something that they can’t express in other way.”

The song “48 Horas” combines Brazilian and Moorish sonorities, subverting its Spanish roots in 6/8, with a meeting between Brazilian regional northeast instruments and samplers and electronic programming. This is reinforced by the drama of the lyrics that speak of jealousy, anguish, fear, and the wait for someone who never comes.

“Rio-Lisboa,” makes the connection between Brazil and Portugal, this time turning colonization inside out.

The lyrics tell two crisscrossing stories, an imaginary meeting of Portugal’s Tejo River and Brazil’s Rio de Janeiro.

O meu amigo, ele tem uma janela
E ele vê o Tejo e o tempo passar por ela
E lá na frente virar mar...
(English translation: My friend has a window
From which he watches the Tejo river and time passing
Flowing into the sea far ahead...)
From: “Rio-Lisboa/Rio-Lisbon”

On “Coracão Tonto,” which translates to “Dizzy Heart,” Mylene makes her way into a mantric dub with a lot of open space and 1970s-style keyboards. “Nela Lagoa,” or “Lagoon Along Her,” integrates drum ’n’ bass with the samba-reggae that is characteristic of Bahia.

…Ela novela
Eu novelinho que ela desenrola…
(English translation: …She’s a novel
And me, the skein that she unwinds…)
from: “Nela Lagoa/Lagoon Along Her”

The song is inspired by the African legends of the Orixás and Candomblé, an Afro-Brazilian religion. Mylene calls on Oxossi in search of a lost love.

Featuring an exotic blend of traditional samba and bossa nova, mixed with folkloric elements and electronica, Mylene [http://www.fasthorserecordings.com/jukeMylene.html] sings the soul of Brazil itself.

More about Mylene:

What surprised you most about your last project?
What most surprised me it was how my album was well received by different tribes, people with different music tastes, old and young.

Favorite artists: Brazilian artists ( in all the areas ) because Brazilian people are so creative, they can do stuff out of things that we can´t even imagine would be useful. I also love literature. About American writers, I really admire Paul Auster and Philip Roth.

If I could live anywhere for a month, I’d live in India, because I’d like to know more about this culture.

Saddest movie: I don´t know the name in English but if I translated it, it would be called “Dreams”, by Akira Kurosawa

Funniest movie: “Scary Movie III”

What I’m reading right now: “Rabbit Run”, by John Updike

If I wasn’t a singer/musician, I would definitely be..a psychologist, because I feel like I have an innate ability to analyze people.

What I wish someone had told me when I first started out:
That it would be VERY VERY VERY difficult.

Things I don’t understand: Hunger in places where there is a lot of food.
Life is... about living.

Upcoming:
I’m working on a book of poems and my second album. I´m planning to record an album in English, so I’m studying the language. The title may be “Exile”, but I’m not sure yet. I´ll be touring in Europe throughout October 2004:

Warsaw 8th
Krakow 9th
Prague, Czech Republic 10th
Austria 11th
Zagreb, 12th
Croatia 13th
Ljubljana, Slovenia 14th
Austria 15th
Switzerland 16th
Switzerland 17th
Switzerland 18th
Switzerland 19th
=====
[Reviews courtesy of: CDBaby.com, http://www.cdbaby.com]

It's sunny. You're happy. You're in love. Everything is perfect. UNTIL…

Before it all hits the fan – catch some sunny day music. Take a drive. Windows open. Warm breeze. Go swimming. Kick up some sand. Tra-la-la, bring your own beach ball:

MELODROME: The Sidewalk Ends
Contemporary pop/rock with a slight retro flavor. U2 meets Beck and hangs out with the Stones.

F: F
Fans of the Cure, Doves, New Order or Psychedelic Furs will love this CD, an intense mix of moody and energetic alternative rock.

RACHAEL SAGE: Illusion's Carnival
Singer-songwriter, poet and visual artist, East Village scribe Rachael Sage combines folk craftsmanship with contemporary feminist sensibilities. Rich, sensual, ethnically-tinged pop. Foxy and ferocious, like Joni, Tori and Ani. Related: Sage’s new release, “Public Record”.

SHANTALA: Church of Sky
Contemporary folk music with world influences, sunny vocals and intricate, soothing instrumentals.

THE ALICE PROJECT: Traveling With Lady Berlin
Like an orange. Fun, fresh pop with a twist of citron.

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DANCE (events, news, opps)
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DANCE/Insight: Jodi Lomask, on "Digging in the Dark"

"Digging In the Dark" is about probing the layers of the Earth as a metaphor for probing the human mind and heart. It is dark down there, it is dark in there. We search dark places for artifacts we can bring back or out.

I was interested in exploring how we relate to the Earth and the ways we get to know each other and ourselves.

The show takes its structure from the layers of the Earth, from the atmosphere, to the crust, the mantle, the outer core, the inner core, and back again.

We talked a lot in the Capacitor Lab process about what modern scientists know and don't know about the layers of the Earth and what many of them think lies below as much of what scientists think is in there is unproven.

We used these descriptions to create movement, as well as metaphors.

For example, many scientists believe that the inner core of the earth is crystalline. So I created a quartet of performers binding together in a crystalline fashion...with angles and symmetrical lines.

When the economy was booming and Y2K was approaching, culture's energy was expansive -- people were looking up and out. That is when we created "Within Outer Spaces", about Earth's relationship to outer space.

Now that people have less money, we have been involved in a war in which oil has played a large role, we are feeling uncertain about our future as a global community, culture's energy is contracting.

We are feeling the costs -- people are wanting to go in and down, to find out what really matters and are re-examining what is really necessary.

SCIENCE VS. ART

I grew up around a lot of scientists and artists, so in a way, we tend to make work from what is familiar to us.

I think that the childlike curiosity you need in order to make great scientific discovery is
similar to the curiosity you need to make great art. You need to want to get into things, you need to wonder how they work.

I think art and science at their best are hard to distinguish, but I am not sure that I would call them the same thing.

INPUT/OUTPUT

I have been reading "A Land in Motion, California's San Andreas Fault" by Michael Collier most recently. I have been using "Seismic Data Processing, Theory and Practice" by L. Hatton/M. Worthington/J. Makin to gain exposure to modern mapping technology.

I really enjoyed "Earth: Portrait of a Planet" by Stephen Marshak, with contributions from Donald Prothero. I have been watching many documentaries on earthquakes, volcanoes, and the earth's interior as well.

I am exposing myself to these sources of 'brain beef' searching for elements of excitement; for example, that a great earthquake can result in a sudden increase of gravity which makes the body feel like it weighs five hundred pounds. This idea is something I find fascinating as a dancer, as a motion artist, as a person whose job it is to feel deeply.

INTERSECTION

This was an email I received after our beta test of “Digging In the Dark”:

"I'm a geophysicist at UC Berkeley and saw [excerpts from] “Digging in the Dark” last year. I was thoroughly impressed! It should be required for all geology students."

Other scientists came to the beta test and filled out questionnaires that I could dig up. In general, scientists who are involved in the creative aspects of their field find a lot to relate to in our shows.

Their minds are open and they are not precious about the subject matter. They are pleased to see people engaging with it in a new way, offering other folks a portal into their world.

PROGRESSION

I hope [“Digging in the Dark”] is more refined [compared to prior works]. This is my goal -- to make the work more and more clear, more honest, more pure.

I have always had a lot of great ideas and refining them is where I need to focus.

CORE MEANING

The core philosophical theme in the work, essentially, is that a small change on the deeper layers can result in huge consequences on the surface.

Four inches of annual motion in the mantle results in the entire continental shift we experience on the surface, which means all of the earthquakes, volcanoes, mountain building, and flash floods.

A small adjustment to one's perspective on a deep enough level can change the course of one's life and all of the elements within it.

“Digging in the Dark” explores the nature of stability, vulnerability, change, memory and
the human need to make the invisible visible.

[Comparisons can be drawn between]scientific principles of stability, vulnerability to stressors, necessary change, and the same principles, and experiences, in human nature.

About this group: ca•pac•i•tor (kƒ pas‚i tƒr) n. a device for accumulating and holding a
charge of electricity.

Capacitor is a San Francisco-based performance group that creates multidisciplinary performances through intensive collaborations and in-depth dialogue with a community of artists and individuals from widely varying fields of study.

Capacitor’s mission is to explore science and technology as a portal for delving deeper into human nature and as a means for creating a new lexicon of images and movement collages that reflect shifts in the contemporary world.

To cultivate new and relevant performance concepts, Capacitor developed the Capacitor Lab, a think-tank of artists engineers, scientists and philosophers who exchange ideas, share knowledge, and ignite each other's imaginations towards the creation of innovative performance pieces.

About this artist: Upon founding Capacitor in 1997, Jodi Lomask, began exploring non-traditional combinations of arts and sciences through movement. Since that time, Lomask has directed and choreographed five full-evening performance pieces including “Within Outer Spaces”, “Avatars” and “Digging in the Dark”.

Her choreography has been produced at the Cowell Theater, ODC Theater, Dancer’s Group, Somarts Gallery, and Alice Arts Theater and has toured internationally including runs in New York, Malaysia and Scotland.

Lomask trained at the Royal Ballet Academy, Merce Cunningham Studio, London Contemporary Dance School and the Rotterdam Dansacademie. She has performed with Project Bandaloop, Kneejerk, Erica Essner, and Capacitor and has taught master classes in modern dance technique throughout the United States.

A more in-depth profile of this artist will run in an early-2005 edition of “Arte Six”.
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California
“Digging in the Dark” (Excerpts)
June 18, 19, 25, 26, 8pm

Springing from geological concepts and the geophysical technology, “Digging in the Dark” explores the nature of stability, vulnerability, change, memory and the human need to make the invisible visible. The journey that begins on the Earth’s crust moves through the mantle, outer core and arrives at the inner core.

Obsessed with the mechanics of the human body as well as machines that propel the body through space, Capacitor artists have become masters of rigging systems and large-scale props designed to stretch the limits of physical poetry.

Find it: Alice Arts Theater
1428 Alice Street (near corner of 14th St./Alice Street, downtown)
Oakland, California
Get info: (415) 345-7575
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LA/Dance
"Blanc d'Ombra/White in the Shadow"
June 25

French sculptress Camille Claudel (1864-1943) spent the last 30 years of her life in an asylum, the starting point of choreographer-performer Marta Carrasco’s work about this fascinating figure.

In "Blanc d'Ombra/White in the Shadow”, the remnants of Claudel's past life, stacked in a corner, conjure up the shadows of her days in Paris: fleeting memories of fellow artist Auguste Rodin, and her sculptures.

The work also references Claudel’s lifelong stuggle to continue her work, defying nineteenth-century conventions to establish herself in a field dominated by men.

For U.S. audiences, this is a rare opportunity to see "Blanc d'Ombra/White in the Shadow". Following her Ford engagement in June, Marta Carrasco will appear at the Avignon dance festival in France.

Artist bio: Barcelona-based choreographer Marta Carrasco started her dance career at the late age of 17. She worked with European choreographers Avelina Argüelles, Angels Margarit and Ramon Oller. Marta struck out on her own with her first solo production, “Aiguardent/Firewater” in 1995.

Find it: Ford Amphitheatre
2580 Cahuenga Blvd. East
Get info: (323) 461-3673
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NYC
“Ecstatic Poems”, Jennifer Muller/The Works
June 15 – 19, 2004
Jennifer Muller creates dance-theater works that push the boundaries of movement, text and music.

Her company of virtuosic dancers returns with innovative, new programs including the world premiere of “Ecstatic Poems”, inspired by 13th century Sufi poetry, and “Flowers”, a visual canvas with photographic images by Barbara Bordnick.

Also featured are the blockbuster “Moon”, an homage to composer Richard Rodgers, and the daring and athletic “Bounce”, where the dancers fling and fly onto a trampoline wall to new music by Lawrence Nachsin.
Find it: The Joyce Theater
175 Eighth Avenue at 19th Street
New York, New York 10011
Get info/showtimes: 212-868-4488
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NYC
Pilobolus
June 21 – July 17, 2004
They’re baaa-aack. Pilobolus returns with its transporting blend of physicality and illusion.

In the first new work, Pilobolus goes over the top with “Megawatt”, a full-tilt, full-throttle, full-company piece, blending startling energy with multi-body elements that scoot, zip, flip and zoom – not to mention music by Primus, Radiohead and Squarepusher.

Next up, a new work set in the Caribbean to an original score by Ed Bilous reinterprets the tale of Orpheus’ tragic love triangle – from his wife’s perspective. The final new piece, a duet (“Tsu-Du-Tsu”) can’t even be put into words; it’s wild, even for Pilobolus. And that’s saying somethin’.

Find it: The Joyce Theater
175 Eighth Avenue at 19th Street
New York, New York 10011
Get info/showtimes: 212-868-4488
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NYC
"The Impersonation of Mr. Peacock"
June 16–19, 7pm
Nancy McCaleb presents two new works, performed by her powerful and stunning company of six.

Created in 2002, “The Impersonation of Mr. Peacock” takes its inspiration from visual artist/collaborator Francis Alÿs who is known for his ‘paseos’ through cities that chart the terrain of urban life. “The Impersonation of Mr. Peacock” is an engaging meditation on the dynamics of day-to-day public interactions.

The work explores chance meetings, fleeting encounters, and unexpected turns of events, creating a poignant look at human interaction within a transient landscape.

Also on the program will be “Verdigris” (2001), a work inspired by Symbolist painters and poets whose exotic dreamscapes were often spurred by absinthe and its psychotropic effects. “Verdigris” is a high-powered work marked by moments of lush physicality. On stage, real time and dream time merge as one, revealing new relationships in a world that centers on the sublime.

The program includes collaborations with Eloisa Haudenschild (videodesign) and Eric Geiger (set design). McCaleb Dance includes dancers Ali Fisher, Sarah Fanoe-Kaye, Eric Geiger, Greg Lane, Troy Sellers and Elizabeth “Buffy” Swallow.

About the artist: Nancy McCaleb trained with Betty Jones and other veterans of the Jose Limón Company in NYC. Her first professional performances were with Simone Forti in Paris. She founded McCaleb Dance in 1997 after a decade as choreographer, dancer, and artistic director of Isaacs/McCaleb & Dancers.

Find it: DTW - Dance Theater Workshop
219 West 19th Street
New York NY, 10011
Get info: (212) 924-0077

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FILM/SCREENWRITING (news, events, opps)
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NYC/Screening series
“Premiere Brazil”
June 23-29

Shown: “Fala Tu” director Guilherme Coelho
Photo courtesy: Sandra Delgado, VivaFavela.com

This eleven-film exhibition presents fiction and documentary work from Brazilian directors, including the world premiere of Joelzito Araujo’s “Filhas do Vento/Daughters of the Wind”, (2004).

Highlights:

June 23
“Quimera”
Using as inspiration the Greek Chimera—a mythological hybrid of man and animal— filmmaker Eryk Rocha and sculptor Tunga create a strongly affecting, dreamlike, and purely visual mental exchange with the viewer, an homage to the Surrealist tradition.
15 min. Directed by Eryk Rocha and Tunga.

“Fala Tu/Lives of Rhyme”
Far from the MTV version of hip-hop, “Fala Tu” is a street-level view of three people who live and breathe rap, and whose lives and experiences are expressed in how they write and sing.

These resilient amateur musicians, two men and one woman, struggle to survive in the slums of Rio de Janeiro. The filmmaker’s rapport with his three protagonists gives him access to unguarded moments, as he accompanies them through a year of ups and downs around the city, in their workplaces, in various pirate radio stations, at religious ceremonies, during family gatherings, and in their private homes.

This documentary provides rare insight into what it takes to try and make something of your life in one of Rio’s poorest ‘favelas’. In Portuguese, with English subtitles. 74 min.
Directed by Guilherme Coelho.

June 24
“Filhas do Vento/Daughters of the Wind”
This first fiction feature film by acclaimed documentarian Araujo tells the stories of the female protagonists, starting at a funeral in the present and traversing back and forth between contemporary time and the 1960s and ‘70s. The film touches upon themes pertinent to women everywhere, but in small-town Brazil the ghosts of slavery and racism linger and affect the characters’ lives in subtle ways. In Portuguese, English subtitles. 85 min. Directed by Joel Zito Araujo.

“Deus é Brasileiro/God is Brazilian”
Carlos Diegues—best known as one of the masters of Brazil’s influential Cinema Novo movement—creates a poignant comedy, which was a runaway hit on its home turf.

God, having decided to take a vacation from his eternal toil minding Earth and the irritating human race, must first recruit a temporary substitute. To track down the person best suited for the job, he takes a journey out to Brazil's northeast, joined by fisherman/con artist Taoca and the tough-acting, lovely Mada.

The trinity’s road trip unfolds across stunning stretches of the diverse Brazilian countryside. The locations, the frequently odd residents, Taoca's religious-icon-filled dreams, and the wacky twists of the journey itself all become integral parts of this comic fantasy. In Portuguese, English subtitles. 110 min.
Directed by Carlos Diegues.

June 25

“Narradores de Javé/The Story Tellers”
To save their town from being flooded by the waters from a hydroelectric dam, the eccentric inhabitants of the small village of Javé decide on a unique strategy to defend themselves: they will write a report on the great achievements in their history, thus justifying their preservation.

Since most people in the community can spin a good yarn but can barely write their own names, they enlist the help of a somewhat shady postman to commit their stories to paper.

Directed with sensitivity and humor by Eliane Caffé, this is a breezy fable about the inconsistency of memory and the truth within the lie; it’s also a tribute to the indomitable spirit of ordinary people. In Portuguese, English subtitles. 100 min. Directed by Eliane Caffé.
Find it: Film Forum
209 West Houston Street
New York, NY 10014
Get info: (212)727-8110
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FILM/Festivals/Brooklyn
“Brooklyn International Film Festival”
June 4- June 13

BIFF is a festival for and by independent filmmakers. BIFF's mission is to discover, expose, and promote independent filmmakers while drawing worldwide attention to venues and local artists in Brooklyn. Yo!

Highlights: Features

“Headrush”: Black comedy/crime caper about two stoners, Charlie and T-Bag, who hope to solve all their problems by working for notorious underworld criminal, The Uncle. The boys hear through their dealer Blowback that The Uncle is looking for new drug mules, so Charlie conceives an elaborate scam to smuggle a consignment of cocaine back from Amsterdam. As they lay their plans, each one egging the other on, each one refusing to admit to any fear, a series of coincidences start unraveling their carefully laid plans. Director: Shimmy Marcus

“Outpatient”: A stylish psychological thriller of duplicity and the descent into madness. When a soft-spoken young writer, inadvertently committed to an asylum for years due to a systems glitch, is released into the “real” world, his writing begins to blur the boundaries of reality and paranoid hallucination and his therapist, Dr. Patricia Farrow begins to suspect she has inadvertently unleashed a ruthless murderer. Director: Alec Carlin

Highlights: Short films

“Underground”: A political thriller set in the subway of an anonymous city. A woman riding the subway is being followed. What lies ahead is not what you expect and will leave you thinking. “Underground”…what are you afraid of?
Directors: Aimee Lagos & Kristin Dehnert

“Mother’s Crossing/Passagères Clandestines”: The film tells the story of an Iranian woman and her two daughters on the run from her violent husband. A smuggler takes them on a dangerous journey trough the marshlands that separate Turkey from Greece. At four o’clock in the morning Rojanne (11) - who cannot walk - is literally carried across the European border on the back of the smuggler. Smugglers are invariably labeled as criminals, who make desperate refugees the victims of their greed and operate in vast networks. The truth is different. A fair number of smuggling operations are relatively small, safe and good value for money. "The smuggler did not push me on this dangerous journey," says Sima, the mother. "I took the decision alone, in my heart." Director: Lode Desmet

Highlights: Experimental

“We Have Decided Not to Die”: Three Rituals. Three figures. Three modern day journeys of transcendence. “We Have Decided Not to Die” is about a mental state where logic drops away and anything is possible. It is an audio visual narrative that uses sound, stunts and visual effects to create a world where characters are separated from logic, space and time. The film tells the story of three characters' modern day journeys of transcendence; journeys into a place where death is no longer inevitable. Director: Daniel Askill

“Love & Suicide”: A filmmaker is asked by a stranger to document his suicide. Part documentary, part fiction, and refusing to be tied to genres, the film begins as a work of invention and ends in the belly of the real. The story centers on Richard, an eccentric, intelligent, but ultimately fatalistic 30-year-old who has decided to end his life. Searching for a perfect ending, he recruits a filmmaker to record his final minutes. Director: Rene Gabri

Highlights: Animation

“The Erl-King/Der Erlkoenig”: An animated film adapted freely from the poem "The Erl-King" by Goethe. Director: Hannes Rall

“Delivery”: Abuse leads to rage as two friends compete for a delivered package. Was the result of this conflict worth the prize found within the box?
Director: Patrick Smith

Find it: Brooklyn Museum of Art
200 Eastern Parkway
Brooklyn, New York
Get info: (718) 486-8181
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FILM/Festivals/LA
“Los Angeles Film Festival”
June 17-26

The Los Angeles Film Festival is a bastion of independent cinema in the heart of the Hollywood. The festival has premiered numerous films including “Kissing Jessica Stein”, “Dancing at the Blue Iguana” and “Washington Heights”.

Close to 200 films will be screened this year, including 83 features representing 31 countries. Guest director Mira Nair will attend opening night, and present a special screening of films that have inspired her work. On the program: features, shorts, music videos, free screenings.

For star-gossip lookenpeepers (you know you’re out there), Halle Berry and Samuel Jackson recently signed on as festival celebpresenters. Well, it’s Hollywood territory, after all.

Highlights:
“Invisible Light”
Directed by: Gina Kim
June 22, 23

Korean-born filmmaker Gina Kim's narrative debut is an intense and hypnotic examination of female depression, anxiety, and cultural identity that breaks new ground in the portrayal of Korean women on film.

“Ju-on: The Grudge”
Directed by: Shimizu Takashi
June 24

In a quiet Tokyo neighborhood, there lies a house that may be the most terrifying place on Earth and anyone who enters it is marked with a ghostly curse in this Japanese horror sensation.

“Tunnels”
Directed by: Shaz Bennett
June 20,22
Everybody is afraid of something. Shaz is afraid of tunnels.
Find it: Various venues, including ArcLight Cinerama Dome, John Anson Ford Theatre, Regent Showcase and the DGA. Call for screening locations.
Get info: (866) FILM-FEST
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FILM/Festivals/Munich
“Filmfest München”
June 26-July 3

Maybe one of the most laidback, casual film festival scenes around. Sort of like
an Oktoberfest – with films. Beat that.

It’s also the second-largest annual film festival in Germany, after the Berlinale. About 180 films will screen this year, including “The Saddest Music in the World” and “Motorcycle Diaries”.

Film festival venues, along the Munich Movie Mile stretch from Rio-Kino to Gasteig,
to the theaters in Forum am Deutschen Museum, to the MaxX and finally to the Munich Filmmuseum – but they’re all well within walking distance.

On the program this year, German feature films and TV movies, new French
cinema and American indies. This year’s retrospective honors the somewhat oddball
work of Finnish directors Aki and Mika Kaurismäki, both of whom will attend the
festival. The Kaurismäkis collaborated frequently with music co-horts “Leningrad Cowboys”, a Finnish rock ‘n roll band which started out as a joke and, inexplicably, turned into a real band. A real strange band. [http://www.leningradcowboys.fi]

Highlights:

“The Motorcycle Diaries”
In 1952, two young Argentines, Ernesto Guevara and Alberto Granado, set out on a road trip to discover Latin America.

Ernesto is a 23-year-old medical student specializing
in leprology, and Alberto, 29, is a biochemist. With a highly romantic sense of adventure, the two friends leave their familiar surroundings in Buenos Aires on a rickety 1939 Norton 500.

Although the bike breaks down in the course of their eight-month journey, they press onward, hitching rides along the way, eventually arriving at Macchu
Piccu, and then a leper colony deep in the Peruvian Amazon.

Their experiences at the colony awaken within them the men they will later become by defining the ethical and political journey they will take in their lives.

Based on the journals of both Alberto Granado and the man who would later become “El Che,” “The Motorcycle Diaries” follows a journey of self-discovery, tracing the spiritual origins of a revolutionary heart.

“Grand Theft Parsons”: Based on the true story of the musician Gram Parsons, who died of an overdose in 1973.

Parsons and his road manager, Phil Kaufman made a pact in life that whoever died first would bury the other in the Joshua Tree National Park. Parsons' death prompts Kaufman to fulfill his promise and a rather odd road trip ensues…

“The Saddest Music in the World”: It's 1933 and damn cold in Winnipeg.

The Great Depression is in full bloom. But beer baroness Lady Port-Huntly (Isabella Rossellini) has other fish to fry; she announces a self-indulgent competition to determine the saddest music in the world.

Woebegone producer Chester Kent and his amnesiac girlfriend Narcissa (Maria de Medeiros) bounce home to Kent’s native Winnipeg to vie for the prize.

The scenario devolves into a mélange of melodrama and loopy social satire, but despite the lunacy, it all gets sorted out in the end.

Find it: Various venues, but fest central is the Forum am Deutschen Museum
Museumsinsel 1
Munich, Germany
Hours: June 25-July 3, 9am-7pm
Get there: Take any S-Bahn in the direction of the Ostbahnhof to Isartorplatz
Get info: +49-89-381904-0


Read Vol. 2 of the June 2004 issue of "Arte Six" for the following sections: Books/Writers, Travel, Sci/Tech, Life.

NB: "Arte Six" subscribers will receive the second volume via email, automatically.