EXPMTL is a programme of film and video works made by artists in and around Montréal, Canada 1991-2022.
Presented by CIRCUIT in partnership with The Pyramid Club and VISIONS (Can), the 62 minute programme features 10 works showcasing a wide range of aesthetic and political touchpoints including Samuel Beckett, indigenous futurisum and abstraction. Throughout the programme there is a dynamic thematic thread of sound, moving from contemporary classical to abstract collage and motor vehicle burnout.
Curator / Presenter Benjamin R. Taylor is an artist, creative director of VISIONS and co-director of la lumière collective in Montréal. Both organisations support experimental cinema through screenings, residencies and production resources.
Made possible with the financial support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec.
LIST OF WORKS
1) Louise Bourque, Just Words (1991, 10mins, 16mm to digital)
Using as its text Samuel Beckett's NOT I, this shocking gift incorporates optically printed home movie footage and an eerily slick close-up of actress Patricia MacGeachy as she rants at lightning speed Beckett's words about home, family and the confines and alienation associated with being a woman – Madcat Film Festival.
2) Pierre Hébert, but one bird sang not (2018, 6mins, 35mm to digital)
Scratched directly on 35mm film stock, completed on HD digital video. This film, part of the Scratch project, is a visual interpretation of a Malcolm Goldstein piece for solo violin based on a Bosnian popular song from Bosnia-Herzegovina. The composer describes it as a gesture of hope for peace in that land ravaged by war during the 1990’s – Pierre Hébert.
3) Antoine Larocque, Show de bleu (2022, 5mins, Digital)
Show de bleu (2022) was shot in the town of Tingwick, located in the Centre-du-Québec region. The title comes from a local expression referring to doing a burnout. The video highlights a form of filial ritual as well as the encounter between the followers of car culture and the act of leaving one's mark. The sequence of images in the film is drawn from sources found and filmed by Larocque, while the film's soundtrack is produced by composer Charles Barabé – Antoine Larocque.
4) Alexandre Fatta, un bête accident (2013, 3mins, Digital)
“A Silly Accident” - a contemporary portrait of our market civilization’s dehumanization, agony and present and future catastrophe unfolding in a generalized indifference guided by a pure and brute nihilism – Vidéographe.
5) Sabrina Ratté, Aliquid (2019, 5mins, Digital)
A single channel video where the electronic signal is manipulated digitally to materialize into synthetic flesh. Slowly landing onto a glass architecture, this undefined substance is torn apart by sharp edges and eventually disintegrates into particules that spread into the atmosphere – Sabrina Ratté.
6) Skawennati, TimeTraveller™ Episode 01 (2007, 6mins, Digital)
The year is 2121. Brilliant billboards, seamless and seemingly endless, light up the flyway. A young man, sporting a black jetsuit and a dreadhawk, zooms through the air, propelled by a fusion-powered jet pack. The first episode introduces us to Hunter in his environment. Tired of his life as a hired gun, Hunter wants to do something different. He realizes that he can use his edutainment system –his TimeTraveller™-- to find guidance to his own path. Thus begins his journey – Skawennati.
7) Caroline Monnet, Mobilize (2018, 4mins, Digital)
Guided expertly by those who live on the land and driven by the pulse of the natural world, Mobilize takes us on an exhilarating journey from the far north to the urban south. Over every landscape, in all conditions, everyday life flows with strength, skill and extreme competence. The fearless polar punk rhythms of Tanya Tagaq’s Uja underscore the perpetual negotiation between the modern and traditional by a people always moving forward – Caroline Monnet.
8) Benjamin R. Taylor, We Thought It Was Tanderrum (2018, 6mins, Digital)
They’re tearing up the street outside my house as my feet touch the sand. Moving about as I please. The blueprint of the South overlays on the North. Ghosts sing across voids and you look just like me. [Tanderrum: a ceremony allowing safe passage and temporary access and use of land and resources by foreign people] – Benjamin R. Taylor
9) Miryam Charles, Drei Atlas (2018, 7mins, 16mm to digital)
A maid is suspected of murdering her former employer. Questioned by the police, she will reveal the existence of a supernatural power – La distributrice.
10) Alexandre Larose, brouillard #14 (2013, 10mins, 35mm to digital, Silent)
brouillard #14 is the result of in-camera temporal layers shot on the path that extends from the filmmaker's family cottage to a lake. In his ongoing brouillard - passages series, Alexandre Larose creates long-take sequences by superimposing first-person, Hamish Fulton-esque walking trajectories shot along a man-made path leading to a lake. Using a lens wide enough to condense the human eye's field of vision into the frame's 1.33 aspect ratio, Larose creates spectral superimpositions infused with a meteorological mix and the intense lusciousness of the Quebec landscape – Andréa Picard.
