I’m pleased to notice that “Last Refuge for the Senses, or Noise Hippies Against All War” will be playing as part of the PDX Film Fest (showing 10PM, Friday, April 27 at the Hollywood Theatre, 4122 NE Sandy Blvd in Portland, Oregon). I saw this program of experimental films a couple of weeks back in Eugene, and was quite impressed, despite the showing there only being attended by a lackluster audience of dozen or so film dweebs.
I’ll have to admit that not all of the shorts on the program were to my taste, but there were some real highlights. “Black and White Trypps Number Three”—the opening film—translates audience footage from a Lightning Bolt show into some sort of cosmic-psych-love-be-in. “Echoes of Bats and Men” by Jo Derry is the least experimental, and most polemical, of the films, but somehow manages to be cute without being cutesy, and pointed without being contrived. The short features a potted history of Rhode Island as sung a skunk, followed by a return of the bats to the collapsed urban environment. The final film, “Third Annual Roggabogga” by Forcefield, is really dream-machine stuff, almost like using your television for what it’s good for—watching the static in-between channels. Some swirling reds make an appearance as it the film proceeds, and the drone-and-blip soundtrack adds to the effect. Good stuff for all those “cosmonauts of inner space,” as Trocchi would have put it. I could describe all the other films, but you should just check this out for yourself.
A few words from Ben Russell, the program curator:
“A new breed of noise/psychedelia has sprung up as the only rational response to an increasingly alienating form of global capitalism. Like the American psychedelic cinema of the 60’s and 70’s, this crop of contemporary 16mm films enunciates an emotional response to an overwhelming historical moment (now). Their use of analog technologies, of live soundtracks and camera-less processes is indicative of a DIY approach that has its political roots in resistance and its aesthetic roots in a gentler past. Geography has conspired to create a micro-movement, for these are all works from the same community - Providence, RI. The strength of these films lies in their denial of total escapism, in their collective decision to create a communal experience that can move beyond the screen and into the world outside. This is the cinema of deliverance, the theater of psychic hearts and radical love – bleeding your eyes and ears clean of the sorrow of the everyday, swelling your body full with hope for the possibilities of today.”
The sentiments generally seem nice, but noise and psych stuff as “the only rational response to an increasingly alienating form of global capitalism” is, to put it kindly, either one of the most naïve things I’ve ever read, or one of the most deeply cynical. Of course, this statement is tempered by Russell’s rejection of “total escapism” and his celebration of the communal, but it still comes off as the sort of ridiculous blanket assertion made by someone who has recently discovered the manifesto form. Are we to urge those in the Parisian banlieues, in Oaxaca, or in any number of places where power has recently been contested, to start being “rational” in their responses, centralizing the power of Super-8 films, pedal noise, subcultural gatherings and hipster accoutrements? One more effort, noise hippies, to become revolutionaries…
On the other hand, of course, the “revolutionaries” need to make one more effort themselves, if they are to become relevant, genuinely subversive and perhaps even fun. I’m pretty sick of dour, guilt-tripping efforts to save the world. It would be cool to have the noise hippies, united mutants and assorted freaks around. Even at their most silly, they at least pose the question of everyday life in a somewhat tangible manner, despite all the cultural mediation that goes on. As Russell hoped for, I took a certain sense of possibility from the films in this program.
A final note: the PDX Film Fest addresses the intersections of culture, radicalism and repression in at least two other films within their schedule. Both deal with the ongoing case of Steven Kurtz and the Critical Art Ensemble, which you can read about here. “Strange Culture” is a 75-minute video about Kurtz’s case that shows at 8PM at the same venue, directly before “Last Refuge of the Senses” on Friday, April 27. On Wednesday the 25th, the festival’s opening night, “Steve Kurtz Waiting,” a 15-minute short, plays as part of the “Charged in the Name of Terror” documentary program (starts 7PM, also at the Hollywood.) Kurtz, Robert Ferrell and possibly others continue to face charges of “mail fraud” and “wire fraud” brought by the Justice Department and carrying sentences of up to twenty years. The whole prosecution is a blatant attack on artistic expression that poses difficult questions, and engages with the world. Yet another reason why we can’t just take “refuge,” but need to fight.
A few words from Ben Russell, the program curator:
“A new breed of noise/psychedelia has sprung up as the only rational response to an increasingly alienating form of global capitalism. Like the American psychedelic cinema of the 60’s and 70’s, this crop of contemporary 16mm films enunciates an emotional response to an overwhelming historical moment (now). Their use of analog technologies, of live soundtracks and camera-less processes is indicative of a DIY approach that has its political roots in resistance and its aesthetic roots in a gentler past. Geography has conspired to create a micro-movement, for these are all works from the same community - Providence, RI. The strength of these films lies in their denial of total escapism, in their collective decision to create a communal experience that can move beyond the screen and into the world outside. This is the cinema of deliverance, the theater of psychic hearts and radical love – bleeding your eyes and ears clean of the sorrow of the everyday, swelling your body full with hope for the possibilities of today.”
The sentiments generally seem nice, but noise and psych stuff as “the only rational response to an increasingly alienating form of global capitalism” is, to put it kindly, either one of the most naïve things I’ve ever read, or one of the most deeply cynical. Of course, this statement is tempered by Russell’s rejection of “total escapism” and his celebration of the communal, but it still comes off as the sort of ridiculous blanket assertion made by someone who has recently discovered the manifesto form. Are we to urge those in the Parisian banlieues, in Oaxaca, or in any number of places where power has recently been contested, to start being “rational” in their responses, centralizing the power of Super-8 films, pedal noise, subcultural gatherings and hipster accoutrements? One more effort, noise hippies, to become revolutionaries…
On the other hand, of course, the “revolutionaries” need to make one more effort themselves, if they are to become relevant, genuinely subversive and perhaps even fun. I’m pretty sick of dour, guilt-tripping efforts to save the world. It would be cool to have the noise hippies, united mutants and assorted freaks around. Even at their most silly, they at least pose the question of everyday life in a somewhat tangible manner, despite all the cultural mediation that goes on. As Russell hoped for, I took a certain sense of possibility from the films in this program.
A final note: the PDX Film Fest addresses the intersections of culture, radicalism and repression in at least two other films within their schedule. Both deal with the ongoing case of Steven Kurtz and the Critical Art Ensemble, which you can read about here. “Strange Culture” is a 75-minute video about Kurtz’s case that shows at 8PM at the same venue, directly before “Last Refuge of the Senses” on Friday, April 27. On Wednesday the 25th, the festival’s opening night, “Steve Kurtz Waiting,” a 15-minute short, plays as part of the “Charged in the Name of Terror” documentary program (starts 7PM, also at the Hollywood.) Kurtz, Robert Ferrell and possibly others continue to face charges of “mail fraud” and “wire fraud” brought by the Justice Department and carrying sentences of up to twenty years. The whole prosecution is a blatant attack on artistic expression that poses difficult questions, and engages with the world. Yet another reason why we can’t just take “refuge,” but need to fight.
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