The PDX Fest, Day 3.2
Arachnogasmic! Short films by Martha Colburn
The first thing I must say about Martha is that she has the kind of acerbic and challenging wit that I truly enjoy. Never sour or bitter, but most certainly sharp and biting, she is hilarious in her observations and summations of the observed. This wit definitely infuses her films, though I can imagine many audiences being so shocked by her materials that they would miss this wit entirely. Fortunately, that wasn't the case with this PDX Fest audience, at least after a few of her films had shown. There seemed to be a collective discovery that emerged over time, an understanding that, while dark, her work is also very very funny.
I'm not going to comment on specific films, though I will list my favorites. Instead, I want to talk about an overall impression of her work.
Martha's films are raw and rough, with an intense DIY aesthetic. Her past work has strong and direct connections with a strain of punk/skronk/noise music that I've always sought out because I find it to be both hilarious and liberating. Her films have music in them from the group Red Balune, for instance, and people like Mick Hobbs and Jad Fair (to name a couple), and I would say her work would also have strong affinities with other groups like Ron Pate and His Debonairs, Shockabilly, KrackHouse, or any number of Shimmy Disc artists. A lot of those people have an extraordinary ability to create distorted and disturbed narratives that revel in their crudity. Her DIY aesthetic runs at the same pace so a collection of her work this large verges on the edge of onslaught. But, having seen this program, I wouldn't have missed it for any reason but an accident that left me unconscious or a death in the family.
I will make a brief comment on one of the films shown, however, because it demonstrated a very nice shift from the one-stop intensity of her older work which is more akin to pop songs than extended compositions. "Spiders in Love: An Arachnogasmic Musical," while containing stylistic affinities with older work, also presented more extended and inter-relational riffs, as well as a more nuanced pacing. For me, this helped her work become much deeper and more multi-layerd. I have no idea if this is an avenue she will continue to explore and develop but, if she does, I can see that evolving into much longer works with extended structures and more deeply developed themes. That kind of change might blow my mind right out of my brain pan though, so I guess I better be careful what I wish for!
My favorites from the program:
Skelehellavision
Groscher Lansangriff: Big Bug Attack
Cats Amore
Spiders In Love: An Arachnogasmic Musical
There's A Pervert In Our Pool!
I Can’t Keep Up
Evil Of Dracula
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I was really happy to hear that Martha Colburn was going to be a "Featured Artist" of this years PDX FEST and I am happy to say that her showcase did not dissapoint *
I'll never forget the first time I saw her film "Spiders in Love: An Arachnogasmic Musical," it was about six years ago at an earlier Peripheral Produce Screening (I think this was before they held an Invitational). While watching the film I felt as if my consciousness was being assailed with burning spears, something in my mind wanted to run from the images I was looking at (so horribly wonderful!) while the other half of me wanted it to keep on going, and even though I was a bit "shocked" by what I was seeing I found myself laughing quite gleefully. I had never seen anything quite like her work before and it left a very strong impression on me, around this time I also "Skelehellavision" also an exceptiona film, so getting to view both of these works again as well as many more was a treat. The only other film I believe I had seen before this evenings program was "The Secrets of Mexuality" at SF's Other Cinema back at the end of 2003, oh and of course the Deerhoof video she recently finished http://www.killrockstars.com/bands/deerhoof/video/Deerhoof1.mov
To describe her technique, Colburn's films generally adhere to a hyperkinetic hand manipulated dichotomy of collaged imagery which is generally set to a music soundtrack. I find her work to be challenging on both an aesthetic as well as a strangely visceral intellectual/emotional level. Sex, social mores, notions about "self image" and taboos are stripped to their core are gleefully displayed on screen and often played out through near kitzch type frankensteinish animated puppets floating over a dystopic and nightmarish backdrop. In trying to compare the effects of her work underground artist/comic legend Robert Williams immediately comes to mind, Williams is a master of simaltaneously entrancing/repelling the viewer as we peer beyond the "surface" of the objects he presents.
If I were to try and describe a Colburn film to someone that has never seen any of her work I would say that if you can imagine Hieronymous Bosch and Terry Gilliam getting together to make an animated film while high on amphetamines and LSD you would begin to get the picture: the work is simaltaneously strange, beautiful, horrific and entrancing. Glowing skeletons are hand etched atop 70's found porn footage exposing the framework of the human libido, dancing cats in lingerie cavort about, spider women suck the lifeforce from their prey and in general chaos runs rampant.
Judging by some of the newer work she presented it's obvious that her work is definitely evolving, her latest film "Cosmetic Emergency" in which we hear newsbites about how U.S. Military family members can get free "plastic surgery" while we see soldiers faces get smeared with make-up ala Tammy Fae Baker. The film also incorporates a straight up on the street type interview with the minister of cosmetic surgery that comes across as absurd but obviously all too real . In this piece Colburn refines/advances her "defacement" animation techniques by painting on glass slides on top of the film image: the effect was quite striking, at times it was like I was looking at a hyper real stop animation "Picture of Dorian Gray" flesh appeared to literally melt, eyes became distended, lips mutated as if they were melting into the celluloid .
I thought this film really hit the mark, and that it worked as a social commentary on the (temporary) nature of "beauty" (as Zappa said "Beauty is a lie") while using the absurdness of the war and the military as it's backdrop.
As as whole all the films she presented in her program all retain a certain consistent level of refined grittiness peppered with a serious dose of gleeful abandon. Stop motion animator Bruck Bickford also comes to mind as an apt creative comparison as far as Colburn allowing her "films run away in her mind" she confides that she works in a stream of consciousness mode and you can see it in the work - it's an imagination run amok without any guard rails to contain it.
Getting to hear her speak about the creation of her work was also alot of fun, it's always a gamble as to whether an artist will be up to providing an interesting discussion on their work, luckily she had as much humor as a speaker as well as a filmmaker. As DB pointed out it will be very interesting to see where her works goes from here, I could definitely see her taking on some long form projects or working on a feature length film of some sort. And we should definitely be careful what we wish for!
As a sidenote I missed her workshop "COLLAGE AS ACTIVE CONSCIOUSNESS" on Sunday April 30th, hopefully someone can post their thoughts on it, I imagine that it was alot of fun!
*
With the exception of the work Martha showed on DVD (Cosmetic Emergency and the Deerhoof vid "Wrong Time Capsule") the films looked fairly dark and a bit washed out and even a tad yellowish. I noticed the same issue with Danielle Lombardi's "Laying down tracks" as well as a few other films.
I believe this has everything to do with the NW Film Center needing to either replace or repair their projection equipment, (new bulbs? new projector?) several artists confided to me that they know their films should not look the way that they did.
Karl Lind.
I was really happy to hear that Martha Colburn was going to be a "Featured Artist" of this years PDX FEST and I am happy to say that her showcase did not dissapoint *
I'll never forget the first time I saw her film "Spiders in Love: An Arachnogasmic Musical," it was about six years ago at an earlier Peripheral Produce Screening (I think this was before they held an Invitational). While watching the film I felt as if my consciousness was being assailed with burning spears, something in my mind wanted to run from the images I was looking at (so horribly wonderful!) while the other half of me wanted it to keep on going, and even though I was a bit "shocked" by what I was seeing I found myself laughing quite gleefully. I had never seen anything quite like her work before and it left a very strong impression on me, around this time I also "Skelehellavision" also an exceptiona film, so getting to view both of these works again as well as many more was a treat. The only other film I believe I had seen before this evenings program was "The Secrets of Mexuality" at SF's Other Cinema back at the end of 2003, oh and of course the Deerhoof video she recently finished http://www.killrockstars.com/bands/deerhoof/video/Deerhoof1.mov
To describe her technique, Colburn's films generally adhere to a hyperkinetic hand manipulated dichotomy of collaged imagery which is generally set to a music soundtrack. I find her work to be challenging on both an aesthetic as well as a strangely visceral intellectual/emotional level. Sex, social mores, notions about "self image" and taboos are stripped to their core are gleefully displayed on screen and often played out through near kitzch type frankensteinish animated puppets floating over a dystopic and nightmarish backdrop. In trying to compare the effects of her work underground artist/comic legend Robert Williams immediately comes to mind, Williams is a master of simaltaneously entrancing/repelling the viewer as we peer beyond the "surface" of the objects he presents.
If I were to try and describe a Colburn film to someone that has never seen any of her work I would say that if you can imagine Hieronymous Bosch and Terry Gilliam getting together to make an animated film while high on amphetamines and LSD you would begin to get the picture: the work is simaltaneously strange, beautiful, horrific and entrancing. Glowing skeletons are hand etched atop 70's found porn footage exposing the framework of the human libido, dancing cats in lingerie cavort about, spider women suck the lifeforce from their prey and in general chaos runs rampant.
Judging by some of the newer work she presented it's obvious that her work is definitely evolving, her latest film "Cosmetic Emergency" in which we hear newsbites about how U.S. Military family members can get free "plastic surgery" while we see soldiers faces get smeared with make-up ala Tammy Fae Baker. The film also incorporates a straight up on the street type interview with the minister of cosmetic surgery that comes across as absurd but obviously all too real . In this piece Colburn refines/advances her "defacement" animation techniques by painting on glass slides on top of the film image: the effect was quite striking, at times it was like I was looking at a hyper real stop animation "Picture of Dorian Gray" flesh appeared to literally melt, eyes became distended, lips mutated as if they were melting into the celluloid .
I thought this film really hit the mark, and that it worked as a social commentary on the (temporary) nature of "beauty" (as Zappa said "Beauty is a lie") while using the absurdness of the war and the military as it's backdrop.
As as whole all the films she presented in her program all retain a certain consistent level of refined grittiness peppered with a serious dose of gleeful abandon. Stop motion animator Bruck Bickford also comes to mind as an apt creative comparison as far as Colburn allowing her "films run away in her mind" she confides that she works in a stream of consciousness mode and you can see it in the work - it's an imagination run amok without any guard rails to contain it.
Getting to hear her speak about the creation of her work was also alot of fun, it's always a gamble as to whether an artist will be up to providing an interesting discussion on their work, luckily she had as much humor as a speaker as well as a filmmaker. As DB pointed out it will be very interesting to see where her works goes from here, I could definitely see her taking on some long form projects or working on a feature length film of some sort. And we should definitely be careful what we wish for!
As a sidenote I missed her workshop "COLLAGE AS ACTIVE CONSCIOUSNESS" on Sunday April 30th, hopefully someone can post their thoughts on it, I imagine that it was alot of fun!
*
With the exception of the work Martha showed on DVD (Cosmetic Emergency and the Deerhoof vid "Wrong Time Capsule") the films looked fairly dark and a bit washed out and even a tad yellowish. I noticed the same issue with Danielle Lombardi's "Laying down tracks" as well as a few other films.
I believe this has everything to do with the NW Film Center needing to either replace or repair their projection equipment, (new bulbs? new projector?) several artists confided to me that they know their films should not look the way that they did.
Karl
Wow I feel like an idiot for posting this 2x, looks like on the front page though that there is 0 comments on this blog segment. Oh well..