TRANS I Optic
Meridian Gallery 535 Powell Street, San Francisco
Thursday, December 10th 7:30-9pm $5-10 sliding scale
http://www.meridiangallery.org/en/other_events/trans_optic.htm

An exploration of abstraction in experimental film spanning the 1920’s to the present that features German and Bay Area filmmakers. The program will include as follows:

Two early 16mm films by German filmmaker, Oskar Fischinger: Wax Experiments, 1921-23 the wax-sliced imagery having a rare beauty and complexity, and Spirals, 1926 composed basically of concentric circular, spiral, and radiating patterns moving in such ways that they produce optical illusions of great depth;

three video mandalas, 2007-2009 by local artist/filmmaker Dean Smith whose ever shifting filmic symmetries, originally shot in Super 8mm film and then transferred to DVD, reveal the patterns of the mind;

German filmmaker, Thorston Fleisch’s, 16mm film Kosmos, 2004 in which Fleisch grew crystals directly on film allowing their mystical qualities to shine straight to the screen in rich visual textures;

and a recent Super 8mm film by local filmmaker/artist Paul Clipson. Clipson will screen his film with live musical accompaniment performed by Oakland-based sound artist and violinist Marielle Jakobsons. Paul Clipson’s Super 8mm films are shot and largely edited “in-camera”, in an improvised manner that brings to light subconscious preoccupations in the hope of allowing for un-thought, unexpected visual elements to reveal themselves. The sound work of Jakobsons focuses on experiences which are at once “natural” and technologically-altered.