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The Mac Weekly

The Student News Site of Macalester College

The Mac Weekly

The Student News Site of Macalester College

The Mac Weekly

Expanding the Frame: experimental film at the Walker

By Mariana Roa Oliva

Every year, the Walker Arts Center presents a series of film and video works that aim to “expand the frame” from which we perceive cinema. This year, the theme of the series is “Journeys,” and the works being presented offer us an insight to the journeys of the filmmakers into the unknown, which take very diverse forms.

As the title “Expanding the Frame” suggests, this series features experimental and non-mainstream works. Especially remarkable this year are the life performances by Ben Russell and Daniel Barrow, who combine live action with recorded material, blur the divides between different art disciplines and take the spectator in short but stimulating journeys through alternative ways of producing video.

With Ben Russell’s “Every Time I See Your Picture I Cry,” the spectator is immersed into a rather disturbing story where bizarre characters inhabit a colorful world created with an innovative animation-performance technique.
“TRYPPS” and “The Black and White Gods” is visually very different from Russell’s piece. A warning before the first projection warns that “this show contains visuals that may be harmful to those with epilepsy,” and it is not hard to imagine why. TRYPPS are hypnotizing mini journeys of noise music and looped images that induce the audience into a trance-like state, and maybe for that reason have also been called “psychedelic voyages.”

The series Journeys also includes films in documentary style, like Marguerite, a reflection of herself, a nostalgic film about the life of writer and director Marguerite Duras, and “Berlin,” about Lou Reed’s album that failed commercially and wasn’t performed live until 33 years later, when this concert-film was made.

“Expanding the Frame” finishes next week. The works are screened at the Walker Arts Center Cinema and tickets are $8, or five for $24.

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