University at Buffalo (UB)
DMS @ BIFF OCT 5-9, 2023 AT-A-GLANCE SCHEDULE
still from "If You Were Last" directed by Media Study alum Kristian Mercado
DMS @ BIFF OCT 5-9, 2023 AT-A-GLANCE SCHEDULE
Installations
@ Hallwalls (341 Delaware Ave) Thursday, October 5 - Monday, October 9
BIFF Offscreen: “woolgathering” (Kalpana Subramanian (current Faculty + DMS PhD 2023) in attendance)
BIFF Offscreen: “Cage Match Dress Rehearsals” (Barbara Lattanzi (DMS MAH Alum + former faculty) in attendance)
@ Silo City / Duende (85 Silo City Row) Thursday, October 5 – Sunday, October 8
BIFF Offscreen: “Arena” (Peer Bode (DMS MAH Alum + former faculty) in attendance)
Friday, October 6
3:30 - 4:30 PM: Live @ Buffalo Toronto Public Media + live streamed to social + website
SPACE-BASED FICTION PANEL discussion with Kristian Mercado, DMS Alum and Director of If You Were the Last. Moderated by Kathryn Larsen, VP of Content Distribution at Buffalo Toronto Public Media + Anna Scime (DMS BA + MFA Alum & Executive Director of BIFF)
5:30PM @ Hallwalls Cinema, 341 Delaware Ave. Buffalo, Ny 14202
BIFF Offscreen: “The Flicker” Tony Conrad (Former DMS Distinguished Professor)
7:15PM @ North Park Theatre, 1428 Hertel Avenue, Buffalo, NY 14216
BIFF’s Opening Night Gala Film
“If You Were the Last” (Kristian Mercado (DMS Alum) in attendance for Q+A)
Saturday, October 7
1PM @ North Park Theatre, 1428 Hertel Avenue, Buffalo, NY 14216
Featuring: "Saha: The Book of Earth Mediums" (Elia Vargas (current DMS Faculty) in attendance for Q+A)
9:30PM @ Silo City / Duende, 85 Silo City Row, Buffalo, NY 14203
BIFF Offscreen: “Video Nasty” (aka Brian Milbrand (DMS BA Alum) in attendance)
Sunday, October 8
12PM @ North Park Theatre, 1428 Hertel Avenue, Buffalo, NY 14216
Featuring:
"Receiving" (Blake Barit (DMS MFA 2024) in attendance for Q+A)
"What Is Up With Trans People?"(Jamie Hager (DMS MFA 2025) in attendance for Q+A)
"Don't Forget Me" (Nick Criscitello (DMS BA 2024) in attendance for Q+A)
2:15 PM @ Hallwalls Cinema, 341 Delaware Ave. Buffalo, NY 14202
Featuring:
"Riwayat Ceti"/"What Ceti Does" (Azalia Muchransyah, DMS PhD 2021)
2:30PM @ North Park Theatre - FREE SCREENING!!! - NO TICKETS NECESSARY
Featuring: Short works by faculty from the 'Buffalo Heads’ era (1973-1990) – Steina Vasulka + Woody Vasulka, Tony Conrad, Gerald O'Grady, Peter Weibel, James Blue, Paul Sharits + Hollis Frampton!
4:45PM @ North Park Theatre, 1428 Hertel Avenue, Buffalo, NY 14216
Featuring:
“[six years]” (Paige Sarlin (current DMS Faculty) in attendance for Q+A)
"Accordion" (Tony Conrad (Former DMS Distinguished Professor))
Current Media Study Faculty & Students
BIFF Offscreen: The Flicker (Tony Conrad) –Hallwalls Cinema @ 5:30PM on Fri Oct 6
In this quintessential structural film, Tony Conrad invites his audience to watch with eyes open or closed. Composed entirely of black and white frames (title cards and warning aside) this stroboscopic experiment has inspired countless others and gave birth to perhaps the most recognizable of all experimental film tropes. The brain is a screen and the image is nausea for some, frisson for others. Experience it as intended – on 16mm film projected in a pitch-black theater!
Please note that no physician will be in attendance.
https://www.buffalofilm.org/events/biff-offscreen-the-flicker/
BIFF Shorts: Experimental – North Park Theatre @ 1PM on Sat Oct 7
Featuring:
"Saha: The Book of Earth Mediums" (Elia Vargas – in attendance for Q+A)
An experimental video made in collaboration with Leonard Atawugeh Kubaloe that presents four vignettes exploring alternative formulations of media cultures in northern Ghana, including shea oil light fuel, “Kayayo” women, and juju (Ghanaian magic). The video argues for a nature-cultural lens of media art in northern Ghana, specifically that media art practices occur outside of the sphere of Western and humanist binary conceptions of life practices.
https://www.buffalofilm.org/events/biff-shorts-experimental-2023/
BIFF Shorts: Students – North Park Theatre @ 12PM on Sun Oct 8
Featuring:
"Receiving" (Blake Barit - in attendance for Q+A)
Attempted connection across distance. Memories and emotion traveling on radio waves. A slight reprieve from longing.
+
"What Is Up With Trans People?"(Jamie Hager – in attendance for Q+A)
A transmasculine filmmaker (Jamie Hager) plays an exaggerated version of themselves to conduct humorous and satirical interviews with their friends (both trans and cis), artists, and their mother; in which they ask thought-provoking and uncomfortable questions about the trans experience.
+
"Don't Forget Me" (Nick Criscitello – in attendance for Q+A)
College dropout Dan Hoover reflects on his time at school and his relationship with art in this slice of life documentary.
https://www.buffalofilm.org/events/biff-shorts-students-2023/
DMS@50+ Shorts Block – North Park Theatre @ 2:30PM on Sunday Oct 8
Canonical works by legendary makers; and highlights from a rich and eclectic media art archive, encompassing a long and storied past. This inaugural installment of DMS@50+ (University at Buffalo’s Department of Media Study's 50th Anniversary Celebration) features work by faculty from the 'Buffalo Heads’ era (1973-1990) – Steina Vasulka + Woody Vasulka, T0ny Conrad, Gerald O'Grady, Peter Weibel, James Blue, Paul Sharits + Hollis Frampton! Lineup and runtime coming soon.
https://www.buffalofilm.org/events/dms-50/
[six years] w/ "Accordion" – North Park Theatre @ 4:45PM on Sun Oct 8
(Paige Sarlin – in attendance for Q+A)
[six years] marks an anniversary of the filmmaker and musician Tony Conrad’s death with an assemblage of documentary images and sounds created in the apartment in Buffalo, NY where Sarlin and Conrad lived together.
On the night Tony died, Paige played cello to him for hours as his breathing slowed and changed. [six years] contains excerpts from that audio recorded at Hospice Buffalo and explores the capacity of expanded cinema to function as a holding space for grief.
This experimental documentary is meant to be watched while holding a balloon supplied by the filmmaker. This prosthetic provides access to the deaf and hard of hearing and amplifies the somatic dimensions of experiencing loss.
+
"Accordion" (Tony Conrad)
Off-screen chatter coupled with an enthusiastically improvised musical performance, offers an early take on the control and construction of the televisual image.
https://www.buffalofilm.org/events/six-years-w-accordian/
BIFF Offscreen: woolgathering (Kalpana Subramanian – in attendance) – installed at Hallwalls Thur Oct 5 – Mon Oct 9
Cinematic breath, and breathlessness. A pandemic reverie.
https://www.buffalofilm.org/events/biff-offscreen-woolgathering/
Work by DMS Alums:
If You Were the Last – BIFF’s Opening Night Gala Film (DMS Alum Director Kristian Mercado - in attendance for Q+A)
Adam (Anthony Mackie) and Jane (Zoe Chao) are three years into a NASA mission that has gone very wrong. Their ship is broken and now they drift between Jupiter and Saturn, finding ways to pass the time as they become more certain that no one is coming to save them. Adam paints, Jane attempts to repair the ship. They argue over what movies to watch. And every day, they dance. One day, Adam poses that maybe they should sleep together. Jane laughs the idea off — why mess up their great dynamic just to add one more (admittedly very fun) activity to their list of time-passing options? Thus begins a friendly, flirty debate about whether they’re better off spending their remaining days as friends or something more. Directed by University at Buffalo Media Study alum and BIFF award winner (Nuevo Rico) Kristian Mercado.
Director Kristian Mercado (DMS Alum), and Producers Andrew Miano (Buffalo-born) and Dan Balgoyen in attendance.
https://www.buffalofilm.org/events/if-you-were-the-last/
BIFF Offscreen: Cage Match Dress Rehearsals (Barbara Lattanzi – in attendance) – installed at Hallwalls Thur Oct 5 – Mon Oct 9
This Offscreen video installation features moving image in four movements: bodies and patterns set to motion, rippling bodies all mixed up, pattern expression of the space itself, and liquid darkness. This video is a selection from numerous studies created during the making of "Cage Match Refractions" (2021 BIFF alum). These studies are organized into four sections and were generated with code for exploring various formal effects in extended moments applied to a single photograph (an MMA cage match). In these recordings one sees the effects of Lattanzi's actual rehearsing of interactions in real-time (using computer keyboard to trigger visual changes in the code) to animate dripping, rippling fractal spaces.
https://www.buffalofilm.org/events/biff-offscreen-cage-match-dress-rehearsals/
BIFF Offscreen: Video Nasty (aka DMS Alum Brian Milbrand - in attendance) – Silo City / Duende @ 9:30 PM on Sat Oct 7
Live mixing, bastardizing cinematic treasures, and more! VJ Video Nasty brings you nothing but the hits. Nothing but the hits. Nothing but the mother#@&%in' hits…
https://www.buffalofilm.org/events/biff-offscreen-video-nasty/
BIFF Shorts: Homefronts – Hallwalls Cinema @ 2:15 PM on Sun Oct 8
Featuring:
"Riwayat Ceti"/"What Ceti Does" (DMS Alum Azalia Muchransyah)
In Indonesian w/ English subtitles.
Ceti is a woman from Bogor who is experiencing financial difficulties during the COVID-19 pandemic. Her clothing kiosk in Bogor Market was forced to close. Her husband, who works as an online loan debt collector, cannot collect debts from people who had lost their jobs, and her son asks for a smartphone to go to online school. Inadvertently, she finds a solution to her problems when she collects a debt from the family of someone who recently died.
https://www.buffalofilm.org/events/biff-shorts-homefronts/
BIFF Offscreen: Arena (Peer Bode – in attendance) – installed at Silo City / Duende Thur Oct 5 – Sun Oct 8
This Offscreen video installation features intermodulations; oscillator, floor, light, bell, print, piano, book, memory ... . Electronic performative spaces, acts, the free play of signifiers. Open form. 1985 recordings, real time, digital experimental video, revisited in 2001 and then again in 2023. The recent iterations of this work are active and performative, in three channels. The vibrational content, in its spatial and temporal distribution, unleashes diverse perceptual and conceptual events including potential allegorical readings. Suggested are multi-temporal and evolving communication realities and their material histories.