Category Archives for Alia Penner

Arthur co-presents Tues Dec. 14 at Cinefamily: HENRY JACOBS SPECTACULAR

We are positively giddy to be co-presenting this evening at Cinefamily that dublab has put together to celebrate the work of Henry Jacobs (pictured above). Arthur readers with fine memories will recall that Henry was lovingly profiled in Arthur No. 26 (August 2007) by Joel Rose (read “One Man Goofing” ) and saluted by filmmaker/artist Mike Mills in the same issue (“Red Goo, Paper Cut-Outs and Conscious Digressions: Henry Jacobs’ handmade absurdism”). Two episodes of Jacobs’ early ’70s PBS show “The Fine Art of Goofing Off” (memorably described as “Sesame Street for adults”) were screened on the main stage between music bands at ArthurFest in September, 2005. But enough about the past. Here are the details for this Tuesday’s event…

TUESDAY, December 14

dublab, Arthur and Cinefamily present

THE FINE ART OF GOOFING OFF AND OTHER WIDE WEIRDNESS OF HENRY JACOBS

All Ages / 8pm / $12

the Cinefamily
611 N Fairfax Avenue
Los Angeles, 90036

www.cinefamily.org

www.dublab.com

From Cinefamily:

What happens late at night when the television fuzz melts together with your subconscious mind? They become one entity and blossom into bright bursts. The TV channels the waves of your id and every unknown notion your cerebrum has hidden away in dusty recesses becomes a glowing explosion of sight and sound. Does this ultimate, brain-tickling television program sound too good to be true? In this day and age of narrow focused broadcast beams it is, but open your eyes wide because in 1972 a few episodes of this magic was made real. Sound artist Henry Jacobs got together with producer Chris Koch and visual artist Bob McClay to create a series of half-hour television programs for San Francisco public television station KQED. This show titled “The Fine Art of Goofing Off” is an ultimate revelation. It is like Sesame Street’s psychedelic, philosophical cousin who lives on the top floor of a tenement on the weird side of the road. It’s a wild, tangential ride through richly layered imagery and hypnotic, non-matching sources. One familiar voice heard on the program is that of Zen philosopher Alan Watts. This is no strange coincidence as Henry Jacobs was as tight with Watts as tight can be. Jacobs is somewhat the voice behind the voice behind the voice behind the voice of Zen. As the co-founder and manager of the Alan Watts archive he has continued spreading his pal’s Eastern Philosophy to the world.

Jacobs is the living, breathing, acting, thinking, laughing, swimming expression of life lived with a mind wide open. This vibe made him fast friends with Alan Ginsberg, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Ken Nordine, Lenny Bruce, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, and many other luminous minds in motion. In the company of stellar collaborators Henry’s creative output has influenced modern music with its inventive twists. He is often considered the originator of modern surround sound due to his “Vortex: Experiments in Sound and Light” which came to life at the San Francisco’s Morrison Planetarium and at the 1958 World Expo in Brussels. He also hosted the very first ethnographic radio show on American radio and released an album “Radio Programme No 1 Audio Collage: Henry Jacobs’ Music and Folklore” on the legendary Folkways Records in 1955. He even provided improvised soundtrack material and background dialogue for George Lucas’ film “THX 1138″ and was nominated for an Academy Award in 1964 for his work on the short film “Breaking the Habit.”

Wow, we could go on and on and on but the point is, you should not miss this screening. We’ll be showing Henry’s favorite moments from “The Fine Art of Goofing Off”, some amazing short films and excerpts from “THX 1138.” We’ll also share audio snippets from Vortex and other moments from “the Wide Weird World of Henry Jacobs.” We’ll even have Henry on the line for a live remote Q&A from his wild outpost on the Northern California Coast. Oh yeah, there will be a live tape loop performance and probably some left-handed ping pong action happening as well.


Henry Jacobs: official website

Henry Jacobs: Important Records

Henry Jacobs: Locust Music

NEW KENNETH ANGER FILM FOR MISSONI —WOWOWOWWOWWOWOWOWOWOWOWOWOWM

KENNETH ANGER NEW FILM

(with titles by Arthur’s Psychedelic Healing Visions Correspondent, ALIA PENNER)

From Vogue Italy:

“I’m fascinated by Kenneth Anger’s use of color and his ability to transform a film into a three-dimensional texture, a fabric of images in movement,” explained Angela Missoni. This is how she introduced her decision to entrust the Missoni F/W 2011 campaign to one of America’s most famous authors and directors of avant-garde cinema.

Anger — a hyperactive octogenarian who loves working in the wee hours of the night and at dawn using sophisticated instruments such as the RED digital camera that has the characteristics of a classic 35 mm camera – flew in from Los Angeles to film the campaign in Sumirago that involved all the members of the great Missoni family. They are the stars of this campaign that was conceived as a series of superimposed and overlapping portraits. Vogue.it presents a preview of this film: a vibrant and impalpable evocation of unique patterns, patchwork motifs, stitches, knits, and styles, it is a symbolic weave as ephemeral as a dream.

“The images of Juergen Teller for the S/S 2010 campaign reflected and portrayed our everyday family life,” said Angela. “Kenneth Anger’s experimental approach and his narrative style, on the other hand, transformed the new campaign into a sublimation of our world.” The style of this ad campaign that verges on art clearly reveals the taste of this Californian filmmaker, who directed the films “Fireworks”, “Puce Moment” and “Scorpio Rising”, wrote successful books such as “Hollywood Babylon” dedicated to the secrets, manias, perversions and scandals of early Hollywood film stars, and is a favorite of young fans. Included in the 2006 edition of the Whitney Biennial of New York, he currently works with some of the most important international galleries of contemporary art and enjoys much popularity today.

A man of few words, this fascinating former actor who still takes care of his appearance first filmed the settings for his film “Missoni”: mostly locations near bodies of water in the Sumirago countryside and part of Rosita and Ottavio’s garden. For the indoor sequences, he built a set in the Council Room of the Sumirago Town Hall, a basement room with a vaulted ceiling. The mood of the film and the poses and movements of Margherita, Jennifer, Angela, Rosita, Ottavio, Ottavio Jr. and all other family members are reminiscent of Sergei Parajanov’s “The Color of Pomegranates”, a 1968 film that inspired Anger to create his Chinese box-style storyboard.

The intertwining and blending of moods, micro-plots, and situations make his “Missoni” a dream of a film within a film, a surreal dreamy interaction of spaces, faces, gestures, clothes, and costumes with different ages and narrative tempos. “Before he left,” said Angela, “he gave my mother, with whom he became fast friends, a film award he recently received.” To the question, “What did he leave you?” she answered with her usual humor, “Twenty-five wigs!” In Anger’s film, the wigs appear in a minimum part and are worn by Margherita, the protagonist with Jennifer of a project that will enchant, document, but not illustrate fashion.

The film expresses Missoni’s sophisticated choice and desire to amplify the role of images, making them a communication means and not an end, instruments for personal forms of appropriation and interpretation.

Mariuccia Casadio

Published:
07/26/2010

(Hipped to this by Veronica’s dad)

Previously in Arthur:
WHAT KENNETH ANGER WAS DOING INSIDE THE PENTAGON, OCTOBER 1967

he loves me. he loves me not.

daisies_arthur

cinespia & cinefamily present DAISIES, a film by Věra Chytilová.  I made this poster for the event & will be selling a very limited run, also the original painting will be for sale at the event. Seeing a print of this movie is going to be amazing, the colors are going to be glorious!

http://cinefamily.org/calendar/saturday_early.html#czech

LOVE