Mills Folly Microcinema presents Smudges: Sounds and Images by Matt Blair on Wednesday, July 26. General Admission $10, Students $5.00, and free for ALL members. Advance tickets can be purchased online. Seating is limited, and doors open at 6:30 p.m.
Smudges is a work for audio and video based on recordings taken on my iPhone while on regular walks along the Yahara River as it flows into Lake Monona in Madison, Wisconsin. These audio and video recordings are combined with other composed artifacts and remembrances to form reconstructed memories that oscillate and feedback between past and future. All the video work comes from these iPhone videos, developed and processed through different feedback techniques.
The found sound and footage that has been used for this project was recorded on Teejop (day-JOPE), unceded Ho-Chunk land. Please note that some of the projections feature quick-moving and flashing lights.
“A body present is in a dissolve: out of what it is just ceasing to be, into what it will already become by the time it registers that something has happened. The present smudges the past and future. It is more like a doppler effect than a point: a movement that registers its arrival as an echo of its having just past. The past and future resonate in the present. Together: as a dopplered will-have-been registering in the instant as a unity of movement. The past and future are in continuity with each other, in a moving- through-the-present: in transition.” Brian Massumi, Parables of the Virtual
Matt Blair is a pianist, composer, and educator who recently returned to Madison, WI. His work draws upon diverse musical traditions such as contemporary classical, electro-acoustic improvisation, free jazz, minimalism, and noise. In addition to his practice as a pianist, he incorporates extended electronic processing of the Fender Rhodes, synthesizers, and the computer in his music.
Mills Folly Microcinema showcases nationally recognized experimental film and video art work from the festival and microcinema circuit. We network with regional filmmakers and organizations to bring filmmakers and guest programmers to Madison for screenings. And we incubate local experimental filmmaking by providing screen time at Project Projection events.
Mills Folly Microcinema is funded in part by grants from Dane Arts and the Madison Arts Commission, with additional funds from the Wisconsin Arts Board.