Part Two:  Destruction of a Prima Donna

These are the first two parts in a series of four collaborative animations by Iridium Productions, Empire S.N.A.F.U. Restoration Project, and Setravision.   The newly edited 4 part series is premiering at the 13th Annual Boston Underground Film Festival.  The new version will be posted shortly after the premiere.

Previously, the animations were shown as part of the Empire S.N.A.F.U. Restoration Project installation at the Mobius ArtRages Benefit, and last year’s Reelfest, at The Somerville Theatre.

This is a re-creation of an animation originally created by the homeless visionary known as “S.N.A.F.U”.  Though S.N.A.F.U’s original films are missing, presumed destroyed, the articulated model of the Symbiote and many of the other oddities seen in the film, are the original relics assembled by S.N.A.F.U.  In the years since S.N.A.F.U’s death, The Empire S.N.A.F.U Restoration Project has labored in collaboration with like-minded individuals and organizations to bring S.N.A.F.U.’s legacy to the public.

These Symbiote animations were staged, shot, and edited at the Iridium Productions studio.  Several objects and the projected artworks were employed from Juliet Schneider’s collection.

Setravision was formed in 1999 by  multimedia artist, designer and instructor Garabed Setrakian. In addition to his integral role as animator, technical consultant & post-production wizard, Garabed created the Symbiote title sigil.

Music on Parts 3 & 4 is by Birdorgan.

title sigil by Garabed Setrakian

from Part 3: Interfuge

from Part 4: Pyroflux Pygmalion

Sophia Cacciola on set of “Arrival”

The “Arrival” music video has arrived!  Do Not Forsake Me, Oh My Darling is a Boston duo comprised of Sophia Cacciola (drums/vocals), and Michael J. Epstein (bass).  The band’s creative inspirations are modeled after the 1960′s British television series, “The Prisoner”.  The “Arrival” music video is a shot by shot re-creation of the TV series intro sequence.  Working with Director, Theodore Cormey of Lost Jockey Productions, Sophia and Michael have spent two years bringing this project to completion.  I joined the project about a year ago, eager to take on such a fantastic challenge from a production design perspective, with a limited budget and a mad dash to the finish line.  I couldn’t have done it without the talents of a superb roster of artists who worked tirelessly to create many of the video’s best effects.  More info on “Arrival”, including full credits and behind the scenes video and photos!

2009
IFC Media Lab Showcase: All the Bulbous Accidents, online @ http://www.ifc.com (S) (juried)
Reel Movement Film Fest: Ova, All the Bulbous Accidents, Somerville Theatre, Somerville, MA (S) (inv.)
Shorts r Us: Ova, All the Bulbous Accidents, Coolidge Corner Theatre, Brookline, MA (S) (inv.)
Mayfair Film Program: Ova, Brattle Theatre, Cambridge, MA (S) (inv.)
Ad Frank & The Fast Easy Women: Winterthru music video – production design (C)
Sarah RabDAU & Self Employed Assassins: Autumn Spills music video – production design (C)
Don’t Eat My Face: feature film demo shoot -  makeup, costuming (C)

2008
Northampton Film Festival: Ova,  Academy of Music Theatre, Northampton, MA (S) (inv.)
Woods Hole Film Festival: Ova, Lillie Auditorium, Woods Hole, MA (S) (juried)

2007
Art of the Event:  various events – prop design, set dressing (C)
Don’t Eat My Face: photo shoot – makeup, costuming, props, set design (C)
Don’t Eat My Face: preproduction benefit performance – makeup, costuming, props (C)
Walter Sickert & the Army of Broken Toys: Sacrilege music video – prop design (C)
Annette Farrington: Water & Wood music video – prop design (C)

2006
Pure, sculptural installation, Brighton, MA (catalogue) (E) (inv.)
South End Open Studio Tour, Boston, MA (E)
Joe Turner and the Seven Levels: Coordinate Zero music video – set design (C)
Fluttr Effect:  live performance @ Pan9 – set design (C)
Humanwine:  CD release @ Middle East Restaurant – body paint artist (C)
What Time is it Mr. Fox?:  Jack o’ Lantern music video – set design (C)
The Dresden Dolls:  Sing music video – body paint artist (C)
Art of the Event:  various events – prop design, set dressing (C)
Fastlights:  South Shore Savings Bank commercial – art dept. assistant (C)

2005
Space Kitten, Redtail Studio Collective – sculptural installation – Boston, MA (C)
Pony Trouble: feature film – production design (C)

2004
24th Annual December Sale, SMFA, Boston, MA (E)
South End Open Studio Tour, Boston, MA (E)
SoWa ArtWalk, Boston, MA (E)
Trees, The Bates Art Resource Center Gallery, Boston, MA (E)
The Dresden Dolls: Coin Operated Boy music video – body paint artist (C)
Reason8:  Living Statue Performance @ the DNC – body paint artist, photographer (C)
Reason8: photo shoot – body paint artist (C)

2003
South End Open Studio Tour, Boston, MA (E)
Filmmakers Open Studios, Boston, MA  (E)
Kaleidoscope Cabaret: stage show @ The Middle East – Cambridge, MA- co-produced, sets, props (E)

2002
South End Open Studio Tour, Boston, MA (E)
Electronically Yours – video projection – JHCC – Boston, MA (E) (inv.)
Neovoxer – live score film screening/live statue performance – Nuyorican Poets Cafe – NY, NY (S,P)
Shadowbox Collective – Metropolis Performance – Trio – Boston, MA (P)

2001
21st Annual December Exhibition & Sale, SMFA – Boston, MA (E)
South End Open Studio Tour, Boston, MA (E)
15 x 15, MICA Annual Alumni Exhibition, Baltimore, MD (E) (inv.)
Neovoxer – live score film screening/live statue performance @ JHCC – body paint artist (C)
The Shadowbox Collective: Hotel Blanc – stage production @ The Middle East – asst. prop design (C)
The Shadowbox Collective: Hotel Blanc – benefit performance installation @ The Cloud Club (P)

2000
20th Annual December Exhibition & Sale,SMFA – Boston, MA (E)
South End Open Studio Tour, Boston, MA (E)
Second Annual Small Works Juried Exhibition, Attleboro Museum – Attleboro, MA (E), (juried)
Trust – stage production @ Community Church of Boston -  makeup, costumes, props, sets. (C)

1999
South End Open Studio Tour< , Boston, MA (E)
SoWa Festival, Boston, MA (E)
Oscar Night ’99 Benefit, Boston, MA (E) (inv.)

1998
Hats Off A.C.P. Benefit, Boston, MA (E) (inv.)
South End Open Studio Tour, Boston, MA (E)

1997
USEA Benefit, Boston, MA (E)
National Geographic: Ecological Contours, Tufts University Gallery – Medford, MA (E) (inv.)
MFA Thesis Exhibition, Tufts University Gallery – Medford, MA (E)

1994
Group Exhibition, School of the Museum of Fine Arts – Boston, MA (E)
Solo Exhibition, Café Montage – Baltimore, MD (E)
Group Exhibition, Meyers Artist Salon – Baltimore, MD (E) (inv.)

1993
Sowebohemian Arts Festival, Baltimore, MD (E)
Secret Pages, Maryland Art Place – Baltimore, MD (E) (inv.)
Women Image Women, Life of Maryland Gallery – Owings Mills, MD (E) (inv.)

1992
Mirror Mirror, Maryland Art Place – Baltimore, MD (E)
Out of the Imagination, Maryland Art Place – Baltimore, MD (E)
Senior Thesis Exhibition, Maryland Institute, College of Art – Baltimore, MD (E)
Group Exhibition, Maryland Institute, College of Art – Baltimore, MD (E)

1991
Emerging Baltimore Artists, Mitchell Baker Galerie – Baltimore, MD  (E) (inv.)
Group Exhibition, Maryland Institute, College of Art – Baltimore, MD (E)

title graphics

Featuring the track “Unentranscended”, by Turkish Queen.

Based on the poem:

All The Bulbous Accidents, by Sarah Pearlstein, 2004

Ingrid cuts onions like they’re from Saturn.

They turn into miniature rings, the core bitter

Broit mit pitter*, no, she eats onion bits

She likes the tang, like alien blood,

She broods about her yellowed fingers,

She is the flower of a pest of a sun;

It persists in shining into

The basement

revealing sleep,

A dreamer’s nest.

Sleep is not dark, it is nothing like

the wounded moon

Either, it is Technicolor wonders about

Travel and Blue glass natural vases,

Held with green rope, swaying slowly

On the White terra cotta node of an

Obtrusive wall,

So delicate next to it,

African violets growing slowly

Within the cobalt bowl,

Or it is the nutrient sprinkled white

earth in that same bowl making

The flower grow,

And smells like all

It will grow,

Terrifying poor Ingrid

With all its’ useful ways.

She fears being planted,

Due to the bulbous accidents

Which are grown

So many layers down.

*Bread with butter.

These are gently worn.  Petal shedding is a feature.

This skirt partially inspired the song, Twelve Gross, by Ajda Snyder,  of  Black Fortress of Opium.

Walden
performance video, 2010
Walden Pond State Reservation, Concord, MA

Director: Juliet Schneider
Choreographer/Dancer: Dorian Rose
Music:  Brian King
Assistant Editor:  Erin Gallagher

You can also watch Walden on IMDb.

Walden was first conceived in 2002 and costumed in 2003.  It was shot at Walden Pond mostly during the summers of 2004 and 2005.  It is a transcendentalist illustration of the spirit and ecology of Walden Pond.

Here are a few of the original storyboards:

Here’s a photo of Dorian wearing the newly made costume in 2003:

Winterthru
music video, 2010
Artist:  Ad Frank & The Fast Easy Women
Director: Theodore Cormey
Production Design:  Juliet Schneider

My MFA thesis installation was an exploration of knowledge and growth in three forms – physical, spiritual, and intellectual.  For me, it represented a measurement of my position at the time as a female artist, in relation to these themes.  In the following paragraphs, I will provide a description of the installation and each of the five dioramas it contained.

The proportions of the room, 12’w x 18’l x 10’h, created an intimate interior space, physically separated from the surrounding gallery. The sense of physical separation  was increased by the 3’w x 3’d x 10’h portal into the installation –  designed to give the illusion of crossing into another world, or state of mind.The portal was framed by trees, moss, and flowers.  This provided visual relief from the stark whiteness of the outer walls, while allowing a glimpse of the room’s dimly lit interior.  The interior walls and ceiling of the room were painted/covered entirely in black with a 3” thick layer of coarse sand covering the floor.  Embedded in the sand, were five, two foot diameter, dome-covered dioramas.

The air within the installation was thick with dust and humidity.  There was a constant repetition of sound and light.  The former – a chorus of female scientists singing “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” in Latin- (Mica Mica Parva Stella), and the murmur of water in one of the domed environments.  The latter – projected video of myself costumed as the goddess Flora, and the ever-changing colors of fiber optic light in the central domed environment.

The choice of five domed environments and their placement within the room is loosely based on the Chinese cosmological theory of a central world tree or axis mundi, with four trees at the corners, holding aloft the canopy of heaven.  As far as the use of color is concerned within the installation – I took great liberties with the compass/color relationships of the Chinese system-  and did not follow them at all.  I merely used them as a reference point – allowing me to designate a predominant color for each of the environments, without adhering to the traditional placement of the colors in relation to the points on a compass.

The black diorama is centrally located in the room, and represents the axis mundi.  It is a self-maintaining machine containing all known elements, dispensed into four planetary incubation chambers – each of these small domes corresponds to the larger dome opposite it in the room.  This central dome is in itself, a reduced scale version of the entire installation – alluding to the overall theme of physical, spiritual, and intellectual growth.

The pink diorama represents physical growth.  It is a desert world composed of pink sand, iridescent pink rocks, pink flowers, and moss.  Two scientists sit in the sand, playing a card game with the elements – thus generating compounds.  The compounds held in the scientists’ hands are: Ca3(PO4)2 – calcium phosphate, NaCl – salt, and CO2 – carbon dioxide.  The remaining element cards are scattered among the rocks and sand.

The green diorama represents the creation of the compound H2O and its necessity for life and physical growth.  The goddesses’ feet are submerged in a circular pool of water, and they hold the element cards necessary to synthesize the compound – thus implying a cyclical nature to the process.  They are surrounded by green grass and moss, and their heads are covered with flowers.

The blue diorama represents intellectual growth.  It is composed of shimmering blue stalagmites with flower covered goddess heads growing in pots.  The heads are symbolic of knowledge, and their placement in pots indicates that they can only grow so far before it becomes necessary to break out of bounds.

The silver diorama represents spiritual or cosmological growth.  It depicts several scientists interacting with planetesimals (partially formed planets).  The video projected on the floor of this diorama depicts the goddess Flora being impregnated with the seeds and flowers of the elements and follows the gestation and delivery of a planetesimal through the three states of matter (gas, liquid, and solid).

Passing through the garden-like portal into the installation created the effect of being transported to another world or state of mind.  The proportion of human scale to the scale within the domed environments gave adults the sense of being giant, aloof observers – and children the sense of being more intimate participants in each of the fantasy worlds.  The level of detail experienced by each person depended on his/her willingness to get close to the domes and peer inside.  An important part of creating this installation was being able to observe people interacting with it.  Not everyone was willing to crouch in the sand, preferring instead to gaze down at the environments from a standing position.