Wesley’s newly required uniform camera for accountability is quite a nuisance. It makes him all self conscious, and that’s not right. Join him in deciding if and when to turn his camera off, I mean, have an equipment malfunction. At what point is he absolutely required to wear pants?
Wesley Wodgers, Camera Cop in When to Shoot, Leslie Rogers
ACRE TV will stage a LIVE event in which the stream will operate as a prop/instrument/soundtrack for the night of IRL performances as part of Direct Object/Direct Action, a livestreamed thematic program also on view at Threewalls, featuring Melina Ausikaitis, Danny Giles, Leslie Rogers, and Neal Vandenbergh.
Programmed by Kera MacKenzie and Andrew Mausert-Mooney
Full Direct Object/Direct Action LIVE program information HERE
“Evening News draws from local, regional, national, and global headlines in order to select a representative program of the evening’s top reports. I transcribe the reports from the major news channels accessible on Chicago television (NBC, CNN, WGN-TV, FOX) watched back-to-back each afternoon (at the local bar, supermarket, gym). Across stations and over the span of several hours, news channels are relatively repetitive in their reportage. Although the pool of TV news coverage is not overwhelmingly large, some stories stick out more—because of the imagery they provoke, the appeal they generate, the disgust they engender. These are the visceral stories: the ones that broadcast the most tragic or gruesome, the most exciting or triumphant reports. These are factual stories that are written to be spoken—they call for some human intervention—the stories told to you by the rote, yet human voice of the anchor that might cause one to turn around and ask “did you hear about… ?” Evening News pulls these headlines precisely because stories are sensitive, exciting or horrifying to a mass audience, inflammatory, pleasurably fluffy. Each report is transcribed to the tee, inputted into the teleprompter feed, and broadcast via ACRE TV.” -TS
PUBLIC HEARING IN PROGRESS
A REPLAY BY JAMES N. KIENITZ WILKINS
Public Hearing in Progress is the exclusive web broadcast of original videotapes documenting the entire on-set production of Public Hearing, a feature film reenactment of a transcript from a real small town public hearing.
The feature film, Public Hearing (110 min), is an experimental documentary directed and produced by James N. Kienitz Wilkins, using as its screenplay a publicly-available transcript downloaded from the website of the town of Allegany, New York. Filmed entirely in close-up on black-and-white 16mm film, an ensemble cast of actors and non-actors read between the lines in an ironic debate over the replacement of an existing Wal-Mart with a super Wal-Mart.
Public Hearing in Progress is a parallel project to the film, presenting a behind-the-scenes glimpse into its production, and suggesting a perpetual remaking of an otherwise completed work, one based on public material yet privatized through the filmmaking process. During the film’s 2009 re-production of a 2006 public hearing, an aging security camera was installed on set, serving as a functional prop documenting the film’s low-budget proceedings in a silent, murky, decayed, black-and-white image—a sort of bastard cousin to the feature’s cinematic 16mm film image, and notably, the only wide-angle or establishing view afforded by the production. The security feed was recorded on VHS operating in eight hour EP (extended play) mode, mirroring the length of the shooting days imposed by the downtown Manhattan office location, and preserving the discontinuous fourteen shooting days in a practically sculptural mass with one tape per day.
The tapes have remained largely unwatched since their original recording, existing now as one-of-a-kind objects due to the extreme hassle of preservation (over 100 hours accounting for schedule variations and equipment malfunctions), and the generational loss of analog formats (a duplicate would be an inferior copy). As a result, the streaming broadcast is at once a pre-recorded, fourteen episode documentary of a word-based documentary without its words, and a “live” event of certain tapes being played in a certain location at a certain time. The image itself is a security feed (considered at the time a pathetic backup should the 16mm film come out ruined), and the illusion of a security feed: that familiar and always potentially real real-time image which saturates our age.
MORE ABOUT PUBLIC HEARING
The feature film, Public Hearing, premiered in competition at the 2012 Copenhagen Documentary Film Festival (CPH:DOX), and has since screened in festivals and venues worldwide, including MoMA PS1 (EXPO 1:NEW YORK), IndieLisboa, Camden International, Punto de Vista, Festival do Rio, and Lima Independiente (Winner: Activism Award) and beyond.
“… A play about itself … shows how much people are willing to endure to pretend that a democratic process exists in opposition to corporate manifest destiny.”
– Brooklyn Rail
“… a case study in neither-fish-nor-fowl filmmaking.”
– ARTFORUM
“Public Hearing is a thought provoking x-ray of community democracy as ritualist incantation.”
– Politeken.dk
“… one of the most remarkable not-quite-documentaries of recent years.”
– Toronto Star
Watch the full film for free (Feb 1 – Mar 21): public.automaticmoving.
*The February 1st program will run from 12-3pm CST
A continually recombinant week-long broadcast by Marianna Milhorat (images), Michael Rae (sounds), Charity Coleman (texts) with Jon Chambers (software) and Jesse Malmed (instigation).
mariannamilhorat.com
jonchambers.net
jessemalmed.net
Watching a 3d printer at work elicits a hypnotic response amongst people. Drawn to the alchemical event in front of them their gaze is transfixed on these objects seemingly appearing from nowhere. For Acre TV I have inverted the point of view to sit upon the shoulder of the extruder as it delineates the perimeter of the object it is building. The result is a fractured glimpse at the process of 3D printing. Lines, forms, patterns, surfaces and volumes move in and out of the aperture creating a stream of images that hopefully is both interesting and confounding. The colors visible in the surface of the plastic is added by hand to the filament prior to the extruder nozzle. The length and frequency of the marks made on the spool are echoed in the striation of lines horizontally bisecting the object. Over the course of my “show” I will print a range of objects. Please note that there will be periods of downtime as the machine is calibrated, cleaned and restarted.
EmoFlux is a system that visualizes the emotional flow as a weather pattern. It allows the audience to see the emotional circulation and distribution across the country and the neighborhoods that they live in. Through this project, I am discovering the relationships between the geographical space and emotions that are shared via Twitter.
A television program that continually ends and re-generates itself as long as it runs. Television shows help reproduce ordinary life through their repetition and banality, but sometimes they also promise aspiration and betterment through everyday labor. Have you thought about installing a new water feature?
Visualizing geographic data as chemical leakage. Comprised of GPS data recorded from 2011 to 2013 and grotesque amounts of Gray-Scott reaction diffusion.