forms made mobile: an evening with Kerry Laitala
Retrospectroscope (Kerry Laitala, 1997)
the latent image presents a program of films by local filmmaker Kerry Laitala alongside 16mm prints from her personal collection and more. Laitala’s work synthesizes ideas and ephemera from the realms of science, history, and technology. Her multifarious investigations into evolving systems of belief involve installation, photography, para-cinema, performance, kinetic sculpture, and single-channel forms. Special live sound to be performed by Cyrus Tabar.
Out of the Ether (Kerry Laitala, 2003)
Program:
Seeing the Unseen (Harold Edgerton, 16mm, b&w, silent, 20 min, 1936)
Print courtesy of Kerry Laitala
Seeing the Unseen is a silent black-and-white film that Harold E. Edgerton produced in October 1936 to showcase a variety of examples of his stroboscopic and high-speed photography work.
Retrospectroscope (Kerry Laitala, 16mm, b&w, silent, 6 minutes, 1997)
Print courtesy of the maker
As a paracinematic device, the Retrospectroscope traces an evolutionary trajectory, encircling the viewer in a procession of flickering fantasies of fragmented lyricism. Streams of images revolve around in an attempt to harness notions of a cinematic prehistory tracing past motions and gestures to burn the dance of the Muses of Cinema on the surface of the retinas.
Shock (16mm, color, sound, 6 minutes, 1972)
Print courtesy of Kerry Laitala
An industrial first aid film.
Hallowed (Kerry Laitala, 16mm, color, sound, 11 minutes, 2002)
Print courtesy of the maker
Hallowed portrays a mystical voyage made back in time by an unconscious woman in the throes of a cataleptic state. She finds herself in Plato's cave where flickering flames incite a prehistoric cinematic reverie evoking an experience of magical proportions. Hallowed evokes a transcendent state that could only be traversed and negotiated through ritual contemplation of the elusive pictograms and archaic petroglyphs on the cave wall, as the realm of cinema becomes an antidote for the emptiness of earthly existence.
Le Retour à la raison (Man Ray, 16mm, b&w, silent, 5 minutes, 1923)
Print courtesy of UC Berkeley
In Paris in the 1920s, Man Ray began experimenting with photograms–pictures made by placing objects on photosensitive paper and exposing it to light. In Le Retour à la raison, Ray extended the rayograph technique to moving images.
Phantogram (Kerry Laitala, 16mm, b&w, silent, 11 minutes, 2008)
Print courtesy of the maker
Shivery bits of elusive emulsion, refractive light sprays ignite the depths of two dimensions to expand the terrain of undulating forms. Vertical motion of frameless space testing the limits, Phantogram unites the torch and surface, forms made mobile. Indecipherable messages from the dead, a telepathic telegram captured on the medium of film.
Cinegram workshop film (16mm, b&w, silent, 3 minutes, 2020)
Results from Kerry Laitala’s Cinegram workshop, taught at Black Hole Collective Film Lab on Sunday March 1, 2020.
Out of the Ether (Kerry Laitala, 16mm, color, sound, 11 minutes, 2003)
Print courtesy of the maker
Out of the Ether re-assembles disquieting images from decades-old hygiene and science films, merging them with the filmmaker’s own Bolex camerawork. It was re-photographed on the optical printer, toned and tinted to bring out pulsating hues of oozing greens and yellows.
http://www.kerrylaitala.com/
Friday March 20 2020
doors at 8 // films at 8:30
Suggested donation $5-10, notaflof
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Beauty Supply, downtown Oakland
Email apparatus.cine@gmail.com for address
the latent image is generously supported by Southern Exposure.
