For the final performance event of our exhibition “Scrapbook (or, Why Can’t We Live Together)” Microscope is pleased to present an evening of expanded cinema performances by Simon Liu and Bruce McClure.
Simon Liu’s quadruple 16mm projection work “Highview” (2017 conveys the wonder of seeing through as the viewer is inundated with superimposed streams of colors and figures suddenly surfacing for a moment then disappearing back into the flow. The four partially overlapped projections are barely perceivable, blending into each other to form an elongated, cinemascope-like view. This piece is a visually entrancing journal of Liu’s life — both his everyday experiences and his interior thoughts — perceived through the processed, grainy, almost pointillist textures of the filmic imagery.
“HAT IN THE RING” is a new performance for 16mm film, guitar effects pedals, projection screen, and a 1000 watt halogen flood light by Bruce McClure. McClure — who is known for hypnotizing works featuring multiple projectors and loud mesmerizing drone sound — in recent years has rethought and minimized his performances to consist of mostly a single, at times film-less projection. This work, which involves a potent light source emanating from behind a screen during projection, plays with our eyes’ ability to adjust to bright light, making the screen appear as the darkest surface in the room.
Simon Liu
“Highview”, 2017
Quadruple 16mm projection, sound, 20 minutes
"Upon the North Point a torrential downpour of instants tease their way into sight, but never fully form. Shutter-induced memories reduced to speckles, dissipating into fog. Here, my initial disappointments in a material defect morph into opportunity - satisfying an itch to melt instances together, to see any number of places as one.
I want to go home. These images were meant to show us what goes where - but I can't make out the path. Maybe we should lay them all out on the floor and try to put the pieces back together. In another five days, I'll need to leave." — SL
“Personal moments are lost in film cuttings or disappear into a coloured fog only to suddenly reappear in a new constellation. This is the visual richness of Highview: four, partially overlapping, 16mm images that fully coalesce into a colourful abstract painting but also create a narrative as an exploded montage.” — International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR)
Bruce McClure
“HAT IN THE RING”, 2019
16mm projection, guitar effect pedals, projection screen, 1000 watt halogen flood light, approx. 45 minutes
“Performative likenesses mounted in my scrapbook have been diminishing to blank pages since 2000. There are fewer shows to document and the mugs looking from my scrapbook are cornered by invisible sounds, diminuendo, economics and contradiction. Many of my loved ones are gone. 4 projectors standing on projection table and thrown to the screen are nearly memories leaving but one's gelded image. True to the definition of a scrapbook, many pages of my album are as black as a poodle's nose. A wet nose, the sense of smell sharpened, and a dog is on its leash begging for a walk. The headphone people ask, “What will be the soundtrack?”
By the way, a blinded cyclopes in it's cave still posses brute strength. Together with Odysseus the duo spell "trouble" in Greek; referring to both giving and receiving. I am proposing capturing the cyclops, a disabled projector robbed of electrical current to the main lamp, and tricking it to move the boulder and let the sheep out of the cave. This will be accomplished by placing a 1000 watt light, in the path of cyclops' blindness. The other Cyclops who live on the island will come running to ask who had done this to it. His reply, “No man!” and the other Cyclops will return home laughing.” — BM
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Simon Liu was raised between Hong Kong and Stoke-On-Trent, UK and now lives in Brooklyn, USA. Liu’s films and 16mm multiple projection performances have been presented at film festivals and institutions internationally including the International Film Festival Rotterdam, TIFF: Wavelengths, BFI London Film Festival, Edinburgh IFF, Hong Kong IFF, M+ Museum, Tai Kwun Contemporary, CROSSROADS @ SFMoMA, Festival du Nouvéau Cinéma, Hamburg Kurzfilmtage, Light Industry, Sheffield Doc/Fest, EMAF, EXiS, IMAGE FORUM and “Dreamlands: Expanded” with the Whitney Museum of American Art & Microscope Gallery. Liu is a 2019 Jerome Hill Artist Fellow and a recipient of the NYSCA / Wave Farm Media Arts Assistance Fund in 2018. His work has been featured in publications including the South China Morning Post, MUBI, Nang Magazine, Millennium Film Journal, and DesistFilm. He has given lectures and performed as a visiting artist at institutions such as the China Central Academy of Fine Arts, Yale University and the Beijing Film Academy. Liu is an Adjunct Instructor at the Cooper Union School of Art and a member of Negativland, an artist-run film lab based in Brooklyn.
Bruce McClure graduated from architectural school in 1985. His projector performances have been included in many national and international events including among others the Whitney Biennial, Centre Georges Pompidou Paris, France, International Film Festival Rotterdam, the Netherlands, and Image Forum, Toyko, Japan. Drawing on the experience of Harold Edgerton’s stroboscopic flash and the flicker films of recent decades, McClure applies his formal training as an architect to construct mind-altering, multi-projector works of light and obstruction accompanied by optical sound. In early 2016, McClure’s work was object of an exhibition at Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art in connection with a series of performances taking place at the International Film Festival Rotterdam. McClure lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.