As part of “Imageless” Series — Q&A follows the performance
In-person event only
Microscope is very pleased to present an evening with Andrew Lampert including “Other Means” (2014) and “Swan Silvertones for Two Roberts: Haller & Fenz,” (2022) as part of our series of imageless film performances taking place in connection and collaboration with the “Imageless Films” series at Anthology Film Archives.
First presented at the Gene Siskel Film Center in Chicago, IL in 2014, “Other Means” is an audio piece consisting of filmmakers and fellow travelers of Lampert’s talking about the “relevance of cinematic viewing versus the convenience of an iPad and other technologies.” This subject feels particularly timely after the recent closures of cinema theaters and our experience of being forcibly deprived of the theatrical projection.
The brand new piece “Swan Silvertones for Two Roberts: Haller & Fenz” is a “memorial reprisal” of the artist’s Projector Euthanasia series in which he “cares for” broken and barely working projectors. Lampert feeds them food and liquids, performs minor surgery and subjects them to other restorative/destructive actions in in order to provide a swift and painless passing.
“When invited somewhere I ask my host to gather as many half-working projectors as they can find and then I ceremonially sentence them to death.” — AL
The first performance took place in 2013 at the Bastard Film Encounter in Raleigh, North Carolina. The series, which includes many iterations with different titles, has also appeared at Issue Project Room (2015) and the International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) in 2017, among others.
Robert Haller (1942-2021) was a film programmer, writer and photographer, who worked at Anthology Film Archives in various capacities including as Executive Director and Head of the Library for a period of 35 years. Robert Fenz (1969-2020) was an experimental filmmaker, programmer and projectionist (including at Anthology Film Archives).
A Q&A with Lampert follows the performance.
Program:
Other Means
Sound, 2014, 23 minutes
Where do you watch movies? What happens in the dark? Voices of numerous film friends and fellow travelers. Less an explanation than a description. Popcorn is encouraged.
Swan Silvertones for Two Roberts: Haller & Fenz
Performance with broken film projectors, 2022, 30 minutes approx.
A memorial reprisal of my Projector Euthanasia series in tribute to two comrades who shuffled off to Buffalo during the dangling pandemic. Half-working, mostly broken film projectors receive palliative care in a final ditch effort to provide solace to fading light. Thrills, chills and yes, definitely, spills.
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Andrew Lampert is an artist, archivist and writer whose eclectic moving image and performance work has been exhibited at the Whitney Museum of American Art, Centre Pompidou, J. Paul Getty Museum, Guggenheim Museum, Art Gallery of Ontario, New York Film Festival, and Toronto Film Festival among many other venues. He recently edited the book WILLIAM WEGMAN: WRITING BY ARTIST (Primary Information) and curated a career-spanning exhibit of Wegman's work for Sperone Westwater that is currently on display. He has edited a number of other books including TONY CONRAD: WRITINGS and two volumes on the collections of Harry Smith. Lampert co-writes HARD TRUTHS a monthly advice column for Art in America with Howie Chen, and is co-curating the summer exhibition ATTENTION LINE for Artist Space. Formerly the Curator of Collections at Anthology Film Archives, Lampert has restored hundreds of seminal artist films and videos, and his own videos are distributed by EAI. His album LUSH VALLEY was released in 2021, and two more albums will come out in the near future.