About Us
In an effort to promote explorations into the tangible boundaries of the moving image the Metro Gallery presents Videopolis, showing chosen works for free in a non-competitive event. Held across the street from the Charles Theater during the Maryland Film Festival, we hope to feature work that doesn’t make more traditional festival formats. Videopolis hopes to juxtapose various forms of film and video, along with other mediums that comment upon or investigate the moving image, together in a relaxed environment for the enjoyment of artists, festival-goers and random passers-by. With people on all sides of the lens exploring how different disciplines may work together the results are expected to be innovative and entertaining. To encourage creative interaction amongst as many people as possible the entire process will be without fees.
Videopolis is a not-for-profit enterprise between a volunteer staff of co-curators and the Metro Gallery in Baltimore, MD. We are generally filmmakers and artists as well, and generally just want to enjoy the whole thing. If you want to contact us you can email film@themetrogallery.net.
Videopolis 2010
Thursday May 6th Opening Party! (8pm – 2am)
No Rule is Baltimore’s hottest new weekly dance party hosted by Baltimore Club legend Scottie B (Unruly Records) and Cullen Stalin (Taxlo) every Monday at Metro Gallery. This Thursday No Rule is hosting Videopolis 2010’s opening party with special guest SYSTEM D-128.
System D-128, aka Duey FM, makes music videos, installations, and live visual backdrops for numerous artists, tours and special events. He is currently working with Mad Decent, Mishka and his independent production company, Stemspot. http://www.stemspot.com/
Come and check out installations by: Matthew Fishel, Chang Deng-Yao, Julie Benoit, Liz Donadio, Phil Davis, James Amoeba, Bennii Denrich, Alan Resnick.
Friday May 7th (Doors Open at 7pm, Screenings begin 8pm, Music starts around 9pm)
Three collaborative experiments by Baltimore based experimental music duo Lurch and Holler and Brooklyn based video artist Julia Oldham.
Overwintering (2010) TRT 1:48 Using bottles as instruments and adding their voices, Lurch and Holler evoke the sounds of one who is dreaming while in the state of hibernation. Julia Oldham performs gestures of growing and rotting fungi as a response to these quiet songs.
Cicada’s Opera (2010) TRT Using chopped and looped field recordings and their voices, Lurch and Holler’s watery rhythms are a soundtrack for shedding one’s exoskeleton. Julia Oldham performs a series of movements based on the frantic movements of Summer insects, who need to accomplish so much in such a short time.
The Waking Fern (2010) TRT Using bowed banjo and electronically altered voices, Lurch and Holler create a song of the ancient forest floors and their inhabitants who are now part of the dirt. Julia Oldham, inspired by the old forests in the Catskill Mountains, channels the growth and death of trees, ferns and mosses in her movements.
Two short films by Baltimore artist Catherine Pancake
Keeper of My Heart (2009) TRT 3:30 A short experimental film highlighting over 300 medical sketches on index cards created by Miriam Stewart as part of her intense studying process at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. The soundtrack is from a vinyl cardiology training record meant to help physicians in training identify heart murmurs.
Bitterbittertears (2009) TRT 3:50 A short experimental narrative created as a n homage to Fassbinder’s “The Bitter Tears of Petra Von Kant”.
Friday Performances (Music starts around 9pm)
Catherine Pancake is a filmmaker, artist, and organizer currently living in Baltimore. She is founding member of the Transmodern Festival and High Zero Festival. Her award-winning films have been screened and broadcast internationally including the Museum of Modern Art, Washington Project for the Arts, and will be featured in Toronto at the InsideOut Festival, and Baltimore at the Videopolis Festival in May 2010. Her experimental music has been presented at the Shanghai Conservatory, International House Japan, Bard College, Princeton University and a wide range of experimental music venues.
Musicians will perform live music with video “optical scores” using dense color fields, flicker effects, and evolving images to break-down cinematic barriers and provide an immersive audio-visual experience.
Performing with Catherine will be the Violet Hour, Jenny Graf, Shana Palmer, Andy Hayleck, Paul Neidhardt, Susan Alcorn and Liz Downing.
Saturday May 8th Screenings (Doors Open at 1pm)
2 pm – Narrative Program
J.Wallace Parker
Wasting Daylight TRT 18:33
A man named Carl creates a non-profit activist group to fight Daylight Savings Time. The semi-annual custom of “changing the clocks” is not only wasteful and impractical – it also ruined his childhood. Watch as he battles apathy, group infighting and government opposition to spread his message.
Franciska Farkas, Diana Gross, and Amy Genevieve Kozak
Life In Death (2010) TRT 6:51
Edgar Allan Poe’s “Life and Death” is a tale of love, art and obsession. Told from the perspective of an ill and exhausted traveler resting at an inn, he gazes upon a striking portrait. Its story is reveled as he is transfixed.
Matt Szychowski
Broken (2009) 9:08
A stop motion animated short about a young man that enters what appears to be the perfect Church. The more time he spends in the Church the more he realizes that all isn’t as it seems.
Armando Valle
The Waterboard TRT 14 min.
A rogue CIA agent interrogates a nameless CIA spook and turns into a serial killer.A psychological horror short, depicting a man who slides into evil doing the government’s bidding.
Nathan Meyer
No Milk TRT 4:19
A narcotic short story with a dark comical twist.
4 pm Feature – China White
The Robinson Brothers
China White (2009) TRT 1:04 Drawn into a web of drugs, misunderstandings, lies and double crosses, a group of young women in Baltimore try to leverage a drug stash for the release of their drug dealer/friend held captive in NYC. They seek help from a man named Sammy who in turn uses them in his own personal scheme of revenge.
6:30 pm – Experimental Program
Chang Deng-Yao
I am killed by…, and I am killed by…, again… TRT 6:15
After coming to the US, I still keep being killed by… TRT 6:50
This is a series consisting of two performance based videos. The performances were recorded in real time in various public spaes in Taiwan, where the arists is originally from, and of Baltimore where he currently lives.
Jennifer Hardacker
The Nightgardener (2010) 9 min.
The life of a garden after dark… Balinese dancers sway on the petals of clematis flowers, Russian singers perform on a Calla lily. In “The Nightgardener” disparate images that capture an idea about the humanity of the world play on floral screens.
Madam X
HBS-TV News Now (2009) 3 min.
There’s breaking news on the Human Being Society channel. Everything is changing! Visit the Human Being Society Channel on the web at www.youtube.com/madamx
Benjamin Rosenthal
Loops and Bonds (2010) 7 min.
This experimental short investigates of the tension between the spontaneity and subliminal violence of the open-mic scenario and the fraternity. It uses the juxtaposition of immersive and chaotic images and sound against the austerity of menacing and suggestive actions. Evolving out of an exploration of metered utterance, rhythms collapse into frenzie and amorphous experiences.
Charles Fairbanks
Wrestling With my Father (2009) 4:30
A video of the filmmaker’s father animatedly watching the filmmaker wrestling. His father was also a wrestler, and you never really stop being a wrestler.
Corrine Bot
Kissboxing (2009) TRT 1 min
A boxing game results in a kissing game in which the opponent is being knocked out by a kiss.
Living Together Apart (2008) TRT 2:40
A boy and a girl are having breakfast and totally ignoring each other. The two are the same person, who feels caught inbetween.
Michael Bartolomeo
Apartmental (2010) 8:52 Our protagonist sits quietly in his apartment, watching television. His boredom is cut short by unwanted guests: a series of obliquely malevolent doppelgangers who begin showing up and taking over his apartment. Running a Kafkaesque emotional gamut, our hero is finally forced to choose between the life within and the possibilities without. Made from over 20,000 still photos, played back at various speeds.
Andrew Mausert-Mooney
Untitled TRT 3:53
A memory is recalled, and than hung onto.
8pm Feature – Flying Sutra for Beginners
Geoff T. Graham
Flying Sutra for Beginners (2010) 43 minutes
An exploration of visual montage and the music of Flying Sutra, an avante garge rock band featuring veteran improviser Robert Cozzolino (percussion) and multi-instrumentalist George Draguns (guitar, electronics). The project developed with Draguns sending Graham various recordings and Graham collecting images to capture the emotion and poetics of the music.
Sunday May 9th Screenings (Doors Open at 1pm)
1:00pm Group Focus
Wide Angle Youth Media is a 501c3 non-profit that provides Baltimore youth with media education to tell their own stories and become engaged in their communities. Through after school programs, community events, their annual Youth Media Festival, and their youth-run television show, Wide Angle strives to make media make a difference. Four shorts by Wide Angle Youth Media will be screened.
3:00pm Documentary
Healing Neen (2010) Thom Stromer
“Healing Neen” follows the amazing recovery of Tonier “Neen” Cain from a lifetime of abuse and drug addiction to a career as a nationally-known speaker and educator on the devastation of trauma and the hope of recovery. For 19 nightmarish years, she lived on the streets. Her story points to the consequences of untreated trauma to individuals and society at-large, including mental health problems, addiction, homelessness and incarceration.
Installations:
Matthew Fishel, Chang Deng-Yao, Julie Benoit, Liz Donadio, Phil Davis, James Amoeba, Bennii Denrich, Alan Resnick
Videopolis 2009
May 8-10, 2009
Metro Gallery 1700 N Charles Street
Videopolis 2009 May 8th-10th
Metro Gallery 1700 N Charles Street
The festival included features, shorts, and live performances that manipulate the moving image, as well as video installations that were available for viewing for a month. The festivities began Friday, May 8th with music videos and performances by System D-128, DrewTube, Dubpixel and Bardot’s Gems From the Vault. Saturday, May 9th featured the film “One Down” by Brian Morrison, comedy shorts and performances by Steve Strohmeier, Jana Hunter and the Papercuts. Sunday, May 10th we screened feature “Isle of the Damned”, documentary shorts, and closed with a live performance of an original score to Fritz Lang’s “Metropolis” by Adrian Bond and Joanne Juskus.
Friday May 8th
Dubpixel Live VJ Set
Music Videos
Bardot’s Gems from the Film Vault
Systen D-128 aka Duey FM Live VJ Set
Drew TV YouTube Mixx
Saturday May 9th
Partita: Mathew Bainbridge
One Down: Brian Morrison
Written World: Kevin Blackistone
Comedy Shorts
Billy Dee : Unicorn, P.I.
Geoffrey Kixmiller /
Gideon Chase: Brand New Feelings
Mobtelevision: Death Takes a Holiday, Motel 6
Jason Dove: Klang Tour Journals
James Hollenbaugh/ James Roden: Dec. 2666
Stephen DeCubellis /Jim Bianco: I Got a Thing for You
Sunday May 10th
Isle Of The Damned: DireWit Films
Documentary Shorts
Morgan Showalter: NTSC
Jane Cottis: It’s a Lesbian World After All
Becka Dowding: Love, Mississippi
Narrative Shorts
Katherine Boule/Glenn Nelson: Misplaced
Joel Haddock: Better View
Experimental Shorts
Mike Bartolomeo: A Model for the Motion of a Spring
Emma Walters: Travelling Gnome
Brendan Sullivan: Monoliths
Suzzi Skripkina: The Garden
Suzzi Skripkina: Soundscape
Emily Slaughter: Arizona
Amy Mann: Hair
James Robert Brasic: Dream
Selina Loper: Dominoes
Eric Dyer: Copenhagen Cycles
Kinetic Sandwich
“Metropolis” w/ Live music by: Adrian Bond and Joanne Juskus