review: 05.18.01- Tiny Picture Club/sUPER8UNDERGROUD's "Science Fiction" and Red76 Music for Buildings at the OMSI Planetarium and Medicine Hat Gallery
This is an review and comparison of the Red76 Music for Buildings that I just attended, with the Tiny Picture Club/ sUPER8UNDERGROUND presentation of "Science Fiction," that occurred at the OMSI planetarium last night.
The Tiny Picture Club appears to be the brainchild of several local super 8 filmsters here in Portland. Many of them I recognize to be occasional exhibitors at the monthly Charm Bracelet Microcinema/Expo, which is something I've been attending and enjoying for two or three months now. The difference between the Tiny Picture Club and the Charm Bracelet seems to be the presence of a theme in the Tiny Picture Club events, but I have to say that lacking a theme doesn't stop the Charm Bracelet being enormously interesting and entertaining. Both have stellar live accompaniments in the form of various local musicians who compose the score especially for each film.
Although the Tiny Picture Club has a cutesy name, they pose as covert and secretive. And although this secrecy or vagueness of their collective seems pretentious, they're actually... cutesy. Using the OMSI planetarium as the cradle of their new babies, "Science Fiction" opened with a brief and funny introductory film that succinctly explained who they were and what they were about. Involving lots of stop action (probably not what it's called, but oh well), the super 8 filmsters ran around the parks and streets of Portland in matching jumpsuits and wielding their weapon of choice, the super 8 camera.
The rest of the films had the super 8 filmsters threaded periodically into them. Shorts featuring overzealous aluminum foil and mysterious metallic balls (bowling?) showcased the wonderful texture of the super 8 format while directing a narrative that was spooky, weirdly entertaining, and even hilarious. I can't forget to mention: one of the shorts centers around angry potatoes too.
I especially enjoyed the Reed Harkness film starring a little boy named Sam (I finally remembered his name!). This adorable boy, in the awkward stages between being a child and a teenager, is omnipresent in Reed Harkness super 8s. In this episode, he is a lonely aspiring pirate who is lead, by paranormal powers, to a clear, shiny half-orb buried beneath a dirt ground where "X" literally marked the spot. From this half-orb he digs up emerges a new friend who happens to be clothed in the super 8 filmster jumpsuit! The super 8 filmster/ superhero is here to be Sam's friend and savior from the awful bullies at his school. Reed Harkness manages to take Sam's series and incorporate sci-fi without taking away the preciousness that was present in truckloads.
All of the films shown preserved a pretentious-free sensibility that allowed myself to be entertained without feeling dumb or dumbed down to.
Playing live music alongside the films were members of a group known as Halide Audio Test. I've been told that this group features members from other killer Portland bands, and I have to say that, as excellent as the films were, I actually enjoyed the music better. I honestly wished I could have taped it. Featuring drums, guitar, a turntable, and various spooky-noise gadgets, the live score was kind of transporting me to another world, where everything moved the way the super 8 filmster heroes did. Stop-and-go, suspended in air at times, direction-less but always with caution. It was effective in creating a certain space and completely appropriate for the films' theme.
There were breakdowns in the super 8 projection machine that forced us to watch dorky 3-D laser animations while waiting, as well as miss the last piece due to time constraints. But the collection of films definitely gave me something fun to chew on for the days to come, which is what film and other mediums of artistic expression should do.
In contrast, the Red76 Music for Buildings gave me little to chew on, save some mental clips of indie scenesters collecting and chatting noisily at the tables behind me and a massive headache.
The Red76 collective is a group of artists who aim to present their works (music, slides, artwork) in a "comfortable non-gallery setting." The idea is pretty marvellous, especially given that the monthly shows are also thematic now. Last month they presented an odd one called "Red76 Journals: Fact or Fiction?" which showcased personal (?) timeline accounts through artistic and musical presentations. I was unable to attend, but the idea was particularly interesting to my nosy self.
This month's show, "Music for Buildings," featured a huge orchestra of sorts with, again, many members of wonderful Portland bands. The 20 or so musicians were sprinkled all around the cavernous Medicine Hat Gallery. Set to perform a score to the slides of architect Rodd Santos' proposed-but-never-built archives building for the University of Michigan, the preparations and sound checks ran horrifyingly late (maybe an hour?). But what was I expecting, right? I guess it was slightly more music-oriented than film-oriented.
After a brief and extremely confusing introduction (shots for insurance companies?), the slides/film started, and the musicians began their homage of cacophony. Saxophone, cello, bass, drums, all very loud and out of touch with one another. It was interesting for the first few minutes, but then, as I was intently staring at the shots of what appeared to be a cardboard model of the proposed archives building, I began to get impatient because the music and the film wasn't really telling me anything. It wasn't really stressing any themes that I could gather, and it wasn't narrative in anyway. There were so many shots that I felt like I was seeing the same ones twice or three times. The way the model of the building was vaguely framed and shot didn't really allow me to come away with any new thoughts or ideas.
The music also lost me after it realized that I failed to ascertain any connection between the lackluster slide film and the score. With the unstructured score that I think meant to create a sense of depth to the experience, something was wrong, because it didn't really take me anywhere in my perspective and thoughts. The musicians were clearly skilled; individually, their pieces were interesting, but it just got jumbled up in a mess. The problem was a lack of dynamics. The music was just loud, and, as a whole, moved around very little. In a building of such odd dimensions as the Santos project was, there are parts that are stark and cutting, and parts that were warm and full. Saxophone and clarinet players walking around while drummers play in every corner of the room is a poor substitute for the power of alternating quiet and loud to create such dimensionally varied space.
Unfortunately, I didn't not have the patience to stay after the ungodly 25-minute intermission for part two of the show. I wasn't entirely disappointed, because it's sort of interesting to look at something new and perhaps be inspired by it. The concept was high brow in its interpretive nature, and that alone was inspiring. But it failed to convey a theme or plants the seeds for later thoughts.
I thought that 20 musicians inspired by various shots of a magnificent building would dazzle me far more than a tiny group of musicians accompanying a bunch of light-hearted super 8 sci fi tales. I was wrong. It's fucking cliched, but sometimes less really is more.