A POTENTIALITY (2020, digital, 16mm film, 16 minutes)
Winner of the Alice Guy Prize Special Mention at FID Marseille 2020. Notes from the Jury: A film which meticulously reflects upon the materiality of time following specific histories. While focusing on details, the images prevent us from accessing the whole. This gesture reflects the subject where voice has been violently stripped from the people, left silenced. The Special Mention for Prix Alice Guy goes to “A POTENTIALITY” by Dana Berman Duff.
A POTENTIALITY is a continuation of my interest in using film to shoot printed material, as in the Catalogue series. I'm especially interested in the equivalence of the film grain to the halftone print dot at the base level of the construction of reproduced image and language.
This piece is built on a graphic project by Susan Silton in which she reprinted five pages of the New York Times from the 1930s. Her project has a disturbing resemblance to present day newspaper reports.
Opera "The Emperor of Atlantis" composed in 1944 by Viktor Ulmann, libretto by Peter Kien.
2-MINUTE TRAILER
WORK SAMPLES for Arctic Circle
Proposal sketch for Arctic Circle 2021, Watercolor and pencil on paper, 11" x 18". A collaborative project with Alan Berman for the Arctic Circle ship sailing in 2022. We propose to broadcast out onto the tundra the recording of a young people's choir singing our original song to the lost creature of Mary Shelley's novel, Frankenstein, a song of apology begging the forgiveness of the creature who was rejected and reviled by his creator, hence distorting him into a monster. A song to the ice that's retreating from us.
Installation shot from 2019 What Does She See When She Shuts Her Eyes, Chicago. 2-Channel video moving through an Icelandic lava tube with sound, plus sculptures. Collaboration with Sabina Ott (1955-2018), who died during the of planning the exhibition.
Video: 3-minute simulation of 2019 installation of What Does She See When She Shuts Her Eyes . Simulation showing the action across two screens with viewer at center. Sound: A.J.McClenon; haiku: Stephanie Barber.
Still from What Does She See When She Shuts Her Eyes, 2019. Video shot in an Icelandic lava tube.
The World Is Round: Re-membering Sabina ( 2019)
6-channel videos on monitors and goose-neck stands. Audio compositions by Karen Finley, A.J. McClenon, John Cage (“Living Room Music” 1940; words from Gertrude Stein’s The World Is Round, performed by Gert Sorensen and Ars Nova Copenhagen). Viewers are able to control the volume of individual monitors creating their own sound mix.
Installation shot from 2019 What Does She See When She Shuts Her Eyes, Chicago. Ice Wall (Styrofoam, 17'x 12") and Lava Balls (ceramic, various sizes).
Catalogue Vol.3 (2017, 02:47, color, sound, digital) was made using the RH "Small Spaces" volume of the 2014 catalogue with an Arne Jacobsen 1955 Series 7 chair as protagonist. This is a a computer-generated rendering of the original chair, which was the inspiration for the knock-off version in the catalogue.
Since this chair design is ubiquitous in the realm of knock-off furniture, one imagines that these offspring will be among the last remaining objects at the end of the world, popping up everywhere—perhaps the most successful object in history.
Film still: Catalogue Volume 10 (2017, Digital video and 16mm film, color and B&W, sound, 05:40). Tenth entry in the Catalogue series. A dystopia of moving text and moving image; Modernist chairs, Georges Perec’s Things: A Novel of the Sixties and underwater photography using 16mm, GoPro, and DSLR cameras.
Film still from Catalogue Vol.6 (2016, 11:30, B&W, sound, 16mm film on digital scan) Shot using the RH “Interiors” catalogue while audio from a horror movie played in the studio. The film clips were then organized as a tour through the rooms of a house: foyer, living room, dining room, kitchen, study, bath, ending at the bedroom.
Video: Example of music by Alan Berman: Alexandra Grabarchuk and Alan Berman perform Alan's setting for voice and guitar of E.E. Cummings's poem "i carry your heart with me (i carry it in." This is song 4 in Berman's cycle "The Syntax of Things."