The concept of film is so often limited to mainstream, commercialized aspects that other artistic visions are frequently ignored. Squeaky Wheel, as part of the Beyond/In WNY exhibition, gives a collection of works that go beyond such limitations.
Squeaky Wheel's assistant director, Tammy McGovern, gives a rundown of the projects they're showing.
"Film collectives like this are an alternative to the generally commercial medium of filmmaking," she said.
In collectives, the works seem to have a more personal aspect, she said.
"A sense of the idea of community runs through these works," McGovern said.
Julie Perini's A Look at a Look at the West is located directly outside the building. Based on Perini's own trek across the US, the piece consists of three television sets of various US citizens looking west. The locales, from Buffalo to Portland, are as varied as the people, who range from children to seniors. It is portrayed with a very unique effect.
Perini's other project is oddly unsatisfying and is titled Videos to Be Constructed in Your Head. Based on Yoko Ono's Paintings to Be Constructed in Your Head, the videos are in fact sets of instructions telling viewers what to think about in their own heads. The pure meta-ness of the work earns a chuckle, but that's about it.
McGovern is quick to point out that West has been situated so that the television images are in fact looking westward. McGovern praised Perini's work as "interactive, bringing the audience, strangers and friends alike, in on the project."
On a loop at the other end of the building is R.M. Vaughn's Shit Storm, a verbal ranting reaction mixed with images of a disturbed man in his room. On first listen, rambling angry prose on "untouchable," "important Canadian art" and "releasing the beast" is a bit much to take in, but the work's odd energy somehow digests easy. Vaughn's statement identified the work as an indirect response to a mysterious "Vancouver Incident."
Vaughn, intentionally opaque on the statement, remains so under questioning.
"I've always been fascinated with artists advocating censorship," he said. "I presented my opinions on the Vancouver School, because I thought it was ugly and I thought it was garbage and I said so."
On Vaughn, McGovern believes, "There's a certain bravery in Vaughn's work. He isn't afraid to say things; he puts everything out there."
In transit to the lower level, Yvonne Buchanan's piece, Bridge, plays. Billed as a "timeless multidirectional experience," the video is indeed shot beautifully, and the fluid movement creates a hypnotizing effect.
Downstairs, Buchanan's This Blackness and Blink are showing. The unique style of presentation is reminiscent of a toy Viewfinder attached to the wall. This Blackness is a group of moving circular black bodies, while Blink features a mid-30s woman gazing at the viewer and then blinking, to which the video itself blinks back.
"The female gaze is the subject of 'Blink.'" Yvonne said. "Around the age of 35, a woman begins to stop being the object of the male gaze," and Blink plays with this concept.
Buchanan's most striking work is An Untitled, 1955, a collection of chairs given direct lighting. On a first glance, the effect is of a crowd that had recently dispersed. Buchanan's artistic statement gives this dispersed collective a different feel, as a lynching is implied.
"Though I don't mention it in the statement directly, a major inspiration was the Emmett Till lynching of 1955, a major predecessor to the Civil Rights Movement," Buchanan said.
Buchanan doesn't mention Till specifically in the statement so as to leave the work somewhat open to interpretation.
The works on display should be a point of interest for anyone interested in a different view on uses of film. For those who enjoy what they see, all three artists will have screenings of new works at Squeaky Wheel on Friday, Oct 5. at 8 p.m.
Photo: Courtesy of SUNY
