Your Eyes Are Spectral Machines
This special program is a selection of films in which Luis Macias investigates the concept of what he calls spectral cinema. Exploring each of the different components of the film spectrum: the process and structure as a challenge, the photochemical transformation in the laboratory of created and/or appropriated images, editing/manipulation and re-photography through the optical/contact printer, and the projection as an event.... These are parts of filmic forms organized in closed structures allowing intermediate spaces that force/activate improvisation.
The properties of the image and its forms and the modification/alteration of the mechanical structure of the projector are combined in new proposals for the exercise of a human eye that explores the images of nature and/or how it is revealed to us.
The eyes empty and the pupils burning of rage and desire
(2 x 16mm projectors, silent, color & b&w, 25 mins)
Without image. Without sounds. Without description.
The Kiss
(35mm (screening in video HD), sound, b&w, 9 mins)
Based on the film The Kiss (T. Edison 1896) in its original 35mm format, this video-film project is based on a structural re-shooting and re-recording of the original film in all the existing formats: analog, electronic and digital, in an evolutive form. The film is a reiteration of the act of kissing. The emphasis on the kiss, repeated and multiplied, while deteriorated in its own progress. The history of the evolution of formats through a kiss. An intimate and aesthetic relationship between media and audiovisual formats.
Spectral Landscape
(3 x 35mm slide projectors, silent, color & b&w, 25 mins)
Expanded Cinema performance // A Landscape. Without color and movement. Only a Landscape.
“At that beautiful moment between reality and dreaming, an incorporeal animal emerges from the darkness and light. Dark, violent and self-assured, it shares its fears of nature’s despair. But don’t be afraid—it’s an animal just like you. Did you see it? Wake up and open your eyes.”
About the Artist
Luis Macías (1976, Barcelona, Spain) is an artist, filmmaker and image composer. His pieces deal with the formal and spectral properties of the moving image through the exploration of the cinematographic device itself, and the photochemical nature of the medium. Focused on experimental and procedural practices of analog image, his works in Super 8, 16mm, 35mm and/or video format are composed for projection, performance or installation. His films and pieces of expanded cinema have been shown in prestigious film, art and music festivals as well as art centers, museums and alternative spaces around the world.
He's been part of collective exhibitions and has had one individual show so far. He has also collaborated with various artists, musicians and filmmakers in the creation of collective works. Co-founder and an active member of Crater Lab, an independent laboratory for analog cinema, he alternates his art work with specialized teaching in experimental cinema and the exploration of analog formats.
His visit is cosponsored with the Cornell Council for the Arts.
more info at this website: luismacias.es
Ithaca Premiere