LIFT and Pleasure Dome co-presents “Intertidal” by Alex MacKenzie

The Liaison of Independent Filmmakers of Toronto (LIFT) and Pleasure Dome

are pleased to co-present

The Liaison of Independent Filmmakers of Toronto (LIFT) and Pleasure Dome

are pleased to co-present

Intertidal: A Film Performance by Alex MacKenzie
In attendance from Vancouver

Pleasure Dome and LIFT are pleased to present Alex MacKenzie’s most recent expanded cinema work Intertidal (55 min., 2012), a 16mm analytic projector performance inspired both by Ed Ricketts, the American marine biologist and philosopher, known for his pioneering study of intertidal ecology, and the mesmerizing science films of Jean Painlevé.

Intertidal presents a submersive exploration of the tidal zones and marine life off the shores of BC. Using both camera and non-camera approaches, this performance-based work presented on two analytic projectors speaks to the fragility of both the film medium and the marine environment explored. Travelling as far West as Nootka Sound on Vancouver Island and North to the tip of Naikoon on Haida Gwaii, this route purposefully emulates that which Ricketts and his close friend author John Steinbeck intended to revisit prior to Ricketts’ untimely death in 1948. The scope and materiality of both emulsion and environment are explored using elements as wide ranging as photograms, alternative film chemistry, live manipulation, and the very movement of the tides themselves. At once personal, political, visual and ecological, the work gives equal weight to representation and abstraction.

Opening the program Alex will present the 2011 projector performance work Logbook. Using black and white film emulsions handmade and painted onto raw celluloid, Logbook is a visual investigation and catalogue; traces of past life and moments passed, on a remote island mountain on the Pacific Northwest Coast of Canada. Filmed with a 1923 Cine-Kodak Model A—the first hand-cranked 16mm camera produced by Kodak—and presented live on a 16mm analytic projector. Frames are slowed, frozen, reversed and reprised in a study and interplay of surface and subject, where fleeting images crackle, tear and fold in on themselves to invoke the very silver nitrate of which they are made.

Artist:
Alex MacKenzie is an experimental film artist working primarily with relic analog film equipment and hand processed imagery. He creates works of expanded cinema, light projection installation, and projector performance. His work has been presented at the Rotterdam International Film Festival, the EXiS Experimental Film Festival in Seoul, Lightcone in Paris, Kino Arsenal in Berlin, the Vancouver Art Gallery and others. He has presented workshops and lectures at the Concordia University Graduate Studies Program, Simon Fraser University, York University, Mount Allison University, No.w.here in London, Atelier MTK in France, and elsewhere. Alex was the founder and curator of the Edison Electric Gallery of Moving Images, the Blinding Light!! Cinema and the Vancouver Underground Film Festival. He was an artist in residence at Atelier MTK in Grenobles, France and Struts Gallery/Faucet Media in New Brunswick. Alex co-edited Damp: Contemporary Vancouver Media Art (Anvil Press 2008), and interviewed David Rimmer for Loop, Print, Fade + Flicker: David Rimmer’s Moving Images (Anvil Press 2009).

MacKenzie will also be instructing two workshops at LIFT: Handmade Emulsion on June 1, 2013 and Expanded Cinema on June 2, 2013.

Friday 31 May 2013 –

Non-members: $8.00
Members: $5.00 - LIFT/Pleasure Dome members

Location:
CineCycle 
129 Spadina Avenue 
Toronto ON Canada