EAR(TH): ELEMENTAL INCANTATIONS

Earth intones ||/ sending shivers along incommensurate, infinite, infinitesimal, unknown worlds /||| crisscrossing the geological layers of deep time | piercing and folding time-space. Attuned to the body of the earth || the earth/body sculptures in this program keep a sensitive ear to the ground: on the lookout for murmurs | oscillations | poisonous whispers | wounds of extractivism. Composing wind, conversing with the shore’s beyond, seeing with water glyphs, tasting fire, breathing metals, eating mountain souls |\|| the small-file films succumb to elemental incantations where vision is interstitial and sonorous signals abound.—RP

Mar Alzamora, Interstitial
Panama, 2021, 1:25, 2.1 MB, processing time 1:25

Dispatches from an earth surface surveying ritual, ethereal and disquieting like the hypnotised cast of Herzog’s Heart of Glass. In the interstices of the earth, lichensong rises like a glass palace and rocks radiate with gushes of disturbing sound. – RP

Radek Przedpełski, Mountain Soul-assemblages [Agnes Pelton, Babcia [grandma], Papusza, Zbój [bandit], Ana Mendieta]
Poland/Éire, 2020, 24.8 MB, 4’57” Processing Time: 4:57

Filming in the Carpathian wilderness, Przedpelski adjusts his time and ours to boulder time. The smooth rock faces infinitesimally change their skin as our mortal lives speed by; the stones reward our patience with slow magic and a jewel-filled cave. Can an incantation—perhaps “WUWEK”—hold us here? An adept of compression aesthetics, Przedpelski retains crystalline image quality, the algorithmic intervention visible only in a few dithering pixels, undecided whether to be light or water.—LM

Fereshteh Toosi, Toxic Acceleration Spell
USA, 2021, 1:13, 2.9 MB, processing time 0:35

Recursive scans lead to user-assisted algorithmic de-evolution as seedpods become infinite. Enhance!—JM

Eirini Tampasouli, The Shore
Greece, 2020, 3:18, 5.3 MB

[sexual content] Tampasouli establishes the bond between humanity and its planet to be archaic in nature and, once understood, the true source of purpose, fulfillment, and satisfaction.—SB

Somayeh Khakshoor, glints: a temple; a white wall; a ravine; a strong wind
Iran/Canada, series length 6:40, series size 13.8 MB, processing time 18:45

Elemental glints in harmonious veneration. Khakhsoor’s vision travels to the most precious of places, communing with the Yazd eternal flame, a sun flare, an earthy ravine of vacuoles, an ethereal vault—all without losing a sense of robust, grounding presence. Animated by the artist’s velvety murmur, these movies have a devotional quality while keeping their senses grounded. Khakshoor stirs the world with her camera the way J.D. Salinger’s Seymour Glass stirred a dirty ashtray, as though expecting Christ himself to peer up from it.—RP, LM

Tamara Bilankov, MAGICAL CAR TRACK 120,000km
Croatia, 2021, 1:00, 4.67 MB, processing time <1 minute