16mm performance with a live soundtrack by Nathan Hill 30 minutes, 2014
Towards the Death of Cinema is a celluloid performance that allows audience members to savor the individual photograph of the film frame for longer than 1/24th of a second at the expense of the integrity of the image. Cutting off the sprocket holes located on the edge of the frame, the projectors inherent movement forward is bypassed. By allowing the film to warp in the heat of the projector, the audience is also given the rare opportunity to savor the destruction of film. If, as Paulo Cherchi Usai argues, cinema is the art of destroying moving images,* Towards the Death expedites this inherent process before the eyes of the viewing audience.
(*The Death of Cinema: History, Cultural Memory, and the Digital Dark Age, 2000)
Festivals and Exhibitions The Nightingale; Chicago, IL: 06/14