Please join us for a special event with New York filmmaker, Steve Cossman, during which Steve will screen four recent works for 16mm film, followed by a discussion of his process and musical background.

The work presented is a reflection on humanity’s ecological relationship. The violent pulse speaks with a sense of urgency and chaotic struggle while the hypnotic arrangement keeps us in blinding awe us to its condition. The collage films are composed of 7,000+ single frames, which were appropriated from view-master reel cells. Each frame was hand-spliced to create a linear film-strip using musical and numerical patterns to compose visual rhythms. WHITE ROUGHAGE (below) is the raw optically printed footage used to create the companion piece to TUSSLEMUSCLE, W H I T E C A B B A G E .

HAPPY HOLIDAYS
30 sec / 16mm colour / silent / 2006

TUSSLEMUSCLE
5 min / 16mm colour / optical sound / 2007-2009
Sound element by Earthen Sea (Jacob Long, Imminent Frequencies/Lover’s Rock)

The work presented is a reflection on humanity’s ecological relationship. The violent pulse speaks with a sense of urgency and chaotic struggle while the hypnotic arrangement keeps us in blinding awe us to its condition. The collage films are composed of 7,000+ single frames, which were appropriated from view-master reel cells. Each frame was hand-spliced to create a linear film-strip using musical and numerical patterns to compose visual rhythms. WHITE ROUGHAGE (below) is the raw optically printed footage used to create the companion piece to TUSSLEMUSCLE, W H I T E C A B B A G E .

RED CABBAGES
3 min / 16mm colour / silent / 2013

Silent motion studies.

WHITE ROUGHAGE
10 min / 16mm colour / digital sound / 2010-2013
Sound element by Jahiliyya fields (Matthew Morandi, L.I.E.S.)

Thursday 17 May @ Audio Foundation, doors open 8.00pm
$10

Bio:
Steve Cossman is Founder and Executive Director of Mono No Aware (est. 2007); a non-profit cinema-arts organization whose annual cinema-arts festival exhibits the work of contemporary artists that incorporate live film projections and altered light as part of a performance, sculpture or installation (Expanded Cinema). In 2016 the festival presented the work of over 150 artists for 21 nights at 18 institutions across New York (Electronic Arts Intermix, Center for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center, Anthology Film Archives and more) to an audience of over 4,000. In 2009 he helped the organization establish a series of filmmaking workshops that has grown to educate 400 participants a year locally with an outreach program servicing another 600 internationally. In support of continued practice, the organization maintains an equipment rentals program and imports / distributes a variety of film stocks out of their Brooklyn home office. Through the organization, Cossman curates an in-person screening series entitled Connectivity Through Cinema presenting the work of contemporary moving image artists. His efforts within the organization have earned the attention of Art In America, the BBC World News, The NY Times, ViceTV and GQ magazine. Operating in the fields of education, production and exhibition, has allowed him to establish long-term relationships with industry leaders like FotoKem, Technicolor, Kodak, and local institutions including the MoMA and the Thomas Edison National Historical Park. In 2015 he oversaw the acquisition of a Dallas-based film lab allowing the organization to expand upon the wet-lab facilities and begin building the nations first non-profit motion picture laboratory dedicated to artists and filmmakers.

His first major work on film, TUSSLEMUSCLE, earned him Kodak’s Continued Excellence in Filmmaking award and has screened at many festivals and institutions around the world. He has completed residencies at MoMA PS1 as part of Expo 1, at the Liaison of Independent Filmmakers of Toronto and Brooklyn Magazine named Cossman one of the ‘Top 100 most Influential persons of Brooklyn Culture.’ In 2015 he was nominated for the Herb Alpert Award in the Arts. He has been a visiting artist at Brown University, Dartmouth, Yale, SAIC, and the University of Pennsylvania. His second work on film, W H I T E C A B B A G E (2011-2014), a collaboration with Jahiliyya Fields of L.I.E.S., had its U.S. premiere at Anthology Film Archives. RELAY (2015), an experimental form documentary shot in Japan with the musician Ei Wada had its premiere at the Japan Society of New York.

Steve Cossman currently lives and works in Brooklyn as a filmmaker, and activist.

While in Auckland, Steve will also be giving a special presentation at the Te Uru Waitakere Contemporary Gallery in response to the exhibition, ‘From Scratch: 546 Moons’. Steve’s visit to New Zealand is in conjunction with the Govett Brewster Art Gallery exhibition Free Radicals: Cinema on the Wrong Side of the Tracks, a survey of experimental filmmakers including Oscar Fischinger, Steve Cossman and Jodie Mack demonstrating work beyond the limits of conventional filmmaking.