Live @ Festival Aural 2016 by melinda shopsin

Okkyung Lee and I performed an untitled one-time only piece at Festival Aural in Mexico City on November 30, 2016 at the invitation of Blank Forms. Our show inlcuded a conversation about boy bands, visits to the Far East, a cameo gchat appearance from C. Spencer Yeh, and much more. There was a little music and a lot of everything else.

Bruce Conner Conversation @ MoMA by melinda shopsin

Revisitations: An Evening with Michelle Silva
Friday, September 30, 7:00 p.m.
The Museum of Modern Art

Michelle Silva of the Conner Family Trust will share rare films and clips that feature Bruce Conner in front of the camera, including selections from Conner’s unfinished feature length documentary SOUL STIRRERS (1984–), George Kuchar’s Tempest in a Tea Pot (1990), Ben Van Meter’s Me & Bruce & Art (1967), and more. Following the screening, Silva will be joined by artist, archivist, and curator Andrew Lampert. This event accompanies the exhibition BRUCE CONNER: IT’S ALL TRUE as part of the screening series Movie in My Head: Bruce Conner and Beyond.

PATENT PENDING @ Issue Project Room by melinda shopsin

PATENT PENDING
@ Issue Project Room
September 29 2016

My muckraking solo performance piece PATENTS PENDING premiered as part of the series After 9 Evenings: A 50th Anniversary Celebration on a bill shared with LoVid. Special thanks to Lauren Rosati, Christopher McIntyre and Bob Bellerue.

From September 25 to October 1, 2016 ISSUE Project Room presents After 9 Evenings: A 50th Anniversary Celebration, a dynamic series of performances, talks, screenings, and workshops to mark the 50th anniversary of 9 Evenings: Theatre & Engineering (1966).

For the second performance of the series, LoVid premieres a new performance work, Interplayce. This piece stems from their ongoing project "Reaction Bubble," an installation that utilizes homemade electronics, analogue video, audio­visual synthesizers, and ceramics activated by performers. Drawing inspiration from the study of proxemics, which is concerned with the distances between people depending on the relationships and contexts in which they interact, “Reaction Bubble” examines the relationship between the body and architectural instruments. Interplayce is a collaboration with artist/engineer Tyler Henry and dancer Sally Im.

A rover between mediums who favors formal structures and humorous ruptures, Lampert’s slippery live shows disrupt expectations of concept and execution, intention and results. Tonight, Lampert premieres a new video performance that takes as its subject the culture of corporate "technology, ownership, registration, royalties, and patents."

PERFECT MAKES PRACTICE @ ANX in Oslo by melinda shopsin

PERFECT MAKES PRACTICE
A collaborative performance with Greg Pope
Performed at ANX in Oslo, Norway
As part of @ Ultima Contemporary Music Festival
September 14, 2016

Greg Pope and I reunited for the first time since 2011 as POPE/LAMP for a performance dedicated to Tony Conrad, whose pants played a prominent role in the proceedings. This was our non-descriptive blurb:

The end times aren’t here yet, but let’s start preparing. First thing you’ll need to assemble is an all-purpose survival kit: Unchewed bones, triple fried rice, positive thoughts, edible paper, guilt-free love, freckled vegetables, canned applause, serpentine movements, pre-faded genes, speckled light, one silver glove, and ‘some idea swimming in the blue gelatin of the reptilian brain, seeking out the gossamer-thin difference between illusion and the real’*

Infinity will be a blast. At long last there will be time to re-read favorite books, listen to stacks of records, organize hard drives, leaf through photo albums. The eternal means eating without consequences so enjoy another pizza. Don’t forget, there will be orgies.

* Baudrillard, Fragments, 1997. Although we don’t subscribe.

BRAKHAGE SYMPOSIUM by melinda shopsin

I was an invited guest at the 2016 Brakhage Center Symposium: A Tribute to George Kuchar
held at the University of Colorado Boulder on March 4, 5 and 6. My program featured rarely screened class productions staged by Kuchar at the San Francisco Art Institute, School of the Art Institute of Chicago and Cal Arts. In addition, I moderated a panel featuring Nancy Andrews, Denah Johnston, Donna Kerness and Mike Kuchar.

Mike Kuchar and Nancy Andrews

Mike Kuchar and Nancy Andrews

THE HOT SEAT @ TRANS-PECOS by melinda shopsin

THE HOT SEAT is my new talk show. It isn't a podcast, it's not being streamed, it won't be broadcast. I ask my special invited guests a lot of questions. There is a theme song and a monologue. It happens live. Tonight marks the world premiere.

Feb 4th, 2016
8PM Doors, 9PM Kickoff
@ Trans Pecos (915 Wyckoff Ave, Ridgewood Queens)

• Sergei Tcherepnin/Woody Sullender
http://murrayguy.com/sergei-tcherepnin/works/
http://www.woodysullender.com/

• Andrew Lampert
http://www.andrewlampert.com/

• Cecilia López
http://www.cecilia-lopez.com/

DRAWING CENTER WITH OKKYUNG LEE by melinda shopsin

Okkyung Lee (composer, cellist) and Andrew Lampert (artist, filmmaker)
premiere their new audio-visual hybrid performance WANTS AND DESIRES .

Friday, January 29 at 7:30pm
THE DRAWING CENTER
35 Wooster Street, New York, NY, 10013
1 212 219 2166
$10 at BrownPaperTickets.com

Okkyung Lee and Andrew Lampert

Okkyung Lee and Andrew Lampert

Fridays and Saturdays in late January and early February, The Drawing Center will present Basement Performances curated by renowned composer and performer John Zorn. The six cutting edge multi-media performances in our Lab will bring together improvised music with expanded cinema and feature some of Downtown New York’s most adventurous musicians and visual artists including: Okkyung Lee and Andrew Lampert; Raha Raissnia and Panagiotis Mavridis; Bill Laswell; Kenny Wollesen and Julia Elsas; Ela Troyano and Uzi Parnes; and Ikue Mori.

The Basement Performances are produced by Brett Littman, Executive Director.

Saturday, January 30 at 7:30pm
Raha Raissnia (artist) and Panagiotis Mavridis (artist, musical instrument maker)

Friday, February 5 at 7:30pm
Bill Laswell (record producer, bassist)

Saturday, February 6 at 7:30pm
Kenny Wollesen (percussionist) and Julia Elsas (artist)

Friday, February 12 at 7:30pm
Ela Troyano (filmmaker, actress) and Uzi Parnes (photographer, performer)

Saturday, February 13 at 7:30pm
Ikue Mori (improviser, composer)

ALBUQUERQUE by melinda shopsin

ALBUQUERQUE (2015)
premiering in the exhibit NEVER TWICE
at Mircoscope Gallery
Performance on Sunday December 20, 2015 @ 7PM

Microscope is extremely pleased to present “Never Twice”, an exhibition of live moving image performance in the context of what is usually referred to as expanded cinema: works free from the constraints or presenting alternatives to the traditional theatrical screening setting – single projection on a screen before an audience. The title of the exhibit, a reference to the quote from Heraclitus “one cannot step into the same river twice”, emphasizes the ephemeral character of this art form, one always intrinsically connected to a “here” and “now”, a multi-sensorial experience that although it may be performed again, it cannot ever be replicated.

“Never Twice” features eight New York artists recognized for their extensive work with this performative practice, many for decades, including Ken Jacobs, who participated in the “Festival of Expanded Cinema” as it was described on the poster for the event 50 years ago at the Filmmakers’ Cinemathèque run by Jonas Mekas. In some cases, other terms were or are preferred by the artists to describe their works such as “paracinema”, as used by Jacobs, or “contracted cinema” as presented by Bradley Eros.

The exhibit will unfold over the course of the month with gallery hours 1pm to 6pm Friday through Monday during which the artists have the option to be present to set up or take down equipment, rehearse and engage in other activities around their live performances on that Sunday night. On Mondays the remnants of the previous night’s performances will be on view.
Among new works in the exhibit are Black Space by Ken Jacobs, a 3-part work in which the audience, seated in total darkness, is guided by the artist’s voice until surround sound and strobe flashes take over; Barbara Hammer’s Outside/In, where the artist armed with portable projectors moves about the space aiming at an inflated balloon and the artist’s collage that incorporate personal photographs and medical x-rays; and Lary 7′s performance involving 35mm film loops loaded on his ”Yeep-yop” machine, an open projector tipped on its side in which the shutter opens only when the film advances, causing light bursts and syncing mishaps.

Other new works include an untitled performance by Andrew Lampert using video and broken films in broken projectors; Bradley Eros’ Screens <>, a projection based performance and installation made of colored gels, defraction grating, mylar, glass, to be viewed from both sides and in relation to Duchamp’s 1918 “To Be Looked at (from the Other Side of the Glass) with One Eye, Close to, for Almost an Hour”; and a performance and installation work by Joel Schlemowitz An Alchemic Amalgam presenting triptychs of projections in 35mm slides, 16mm film, magic lantern and overhead projector with images sourced from alchemy illustrations, moiré patterns, science films and new footage shot and developed at the gallery during the preceding days, all with live electronic accompaniment by Enrique Paoli.

Also on view are Bruce McClure’s performance for shoeless projector previously presented in Paris at the Centre Georges Pompidou, Textiles Through the Ages (2014), involving a found 16mm film projected through an Eiki projector from which the artist has removed film shoe and bracket assembly to allow the filmstrip to be pulled in front of the aperture completely disengaged, and “Aldebaran” by Rose Kallal, featuring original 16mm film loops containing imagery of video synthesis, film and computer animation accompanied by a live modular synth score.

A round table discussion about the practice of expanded cinema as well as its definition both historically and today, will be held on Monday January 4th, 7:30pm at the gallery. Several of the exhibited artists will be joining the discussion, as well as other guests TBA.


MOBY DICK by melinda shopsin

I was invited to the Whitney Museum of American Art on November 14, 2015 to participate in MOBY DICK: A MARATHON READING. The entire Herman Melville novel was read over the course of two days in the space of Frank Stella's retrospective exhibition.


THE SCREAM HOUSE: NEW COMPOSITIONS 2015 at Issue Project Room by melinda shopsin

ISSUE PROJECT ROOM presents:
Andrew Lampert: The Scream House, Compositions 2015
Monday, October 19, 2015
8:00pm
$15 General, $12 Members / Students, $0 All-Access Members

Andrew Lampert presents a collection of new and recent pieces from his deep back catalog of films, videos, and performances. A rover between mediums who favors formal structures and humorous ruptures, Lampert’s slippery live shows disrupt expectations of concept and execution, intention and results. This evening is built around a number of new instruction-based performances, combining elements of predetermined structure, and improvisation. Among the works presented is a new entry in Lampert's unruly Projector Destruction series, a piece involving a telephone, a new video, and— to give fair warning— a piece requiring audience participation.

Photo by Greg Pierce.

Photo by Greg Pierce.

PRELUDE IN ANGER at Peephole Cinema/UnionDocs by melinda shopsin

Peephole Cinema presents
SPACETIME SINGULARITIES
guest curated by Elle Burchill and Andrea Monti (Microscope Gallery, Brooklyn)

Opening reception/BBQ on Friday, July 24th, 7:30 PM 
@ UnionDocs Center for Documentary Art
322 Union Ave
Brooklyn, NY 11211

SPACETIME SINGULARITIES is a program of new moving image works made for the occasion of Peephole Cinema by Bradley Eros, Sarah Halpern and Andrew Lampert. The works, hand shot by each artist in the darkness – of a cave, a nightclub and on the streets of NYC in the wee morning hours – collapse sensations and sounds into a single focus viewing experience in which stalactites appear as sonograms, Kenneth Anger conducts a ceremony on the theremin, and liquid nitrogen tanks become ticking time bombs in the city’s rain-slicked streets. – EB & AM

Peephole Cinema is a “miniature cinema” collective with satellite projects in three cities: San Francisco, Brooklyn, and Los Angeles. In each city, silent film shorts are screened 24/7 through a dime-sized peephole installed in a public location that can be visited anytime day or night. 

 

PRELUDE IN ANGERSuper 8mm transferred to digital, color, silent, 1 minute 50 seconds.

PRELUDE IN ANGER
Super 8mm transferred to digital, color, silent, 1 minute 50 seconds.

ALL MAGIC SANDS/CHAPPAQUA at Spectacle Theater, Brooklyn by melinda shopsin

The intrepid programmers at Spectacle have chosen to unleash the full brunt of my feature length double epic ALL MAGIC SANDS/CHAPPAQUA on the public as part of their commendable tribute to the singular Ornette Coleman. The only other public screening that I'm aware of occurred at the International Rotterdam Film Festival in 2013 to an unprepared and irritable audience. Will the local crowd be better equipped to handle the collision of free jazz with endless outtakes from an unfinished film starring children, a donkey and a some sort of Jesus guy stuck on an island? There will be three chances to find out!

SATURDAY, JULY 18 – 7:30 PM
MONDAY, JULY 20 – 10:00 PM
WEDNESDAY, JULY 22 – 7:30 PM – FILMMAKER IN ATTENDANCE!

Spectacle is located at 124 South 3rd Street, Brooklyn, New York, between Bedford Avenue and Berry Street.

JAZZY FOR JOE at BAM CINEMAFEST by melinda shopsin

JAZZY FOR JOE
by Owen Kline and Andrew Lampert
2014, 14 minutes, video.

A twilight tale of a talk show host seeking a successor
and the little girl who comes a-knockin' at his door....

Starring Joe Franklin, and introducing Zazie Nam June.

Premieres at BAM CINEMAFEST on Wednesday, June 24 st 9:45 p.m.

Poster art by Drew Freidman

Poster art by Drew Freidman