March 2, 2018
7:30pm
True/False Film Festival
Rhynsburger Theater
505 Hitt Street
Columbia, MO
I'm excited to be showing my video 'Dessert-Disaster' at True/False Film Festival this year. Program info below:
https://truefalse.org/program/schedule?day=2018-03-02
Still from "Death and TV", triple-channel video installation, by Alison Nguyen
I will be an artist-in-residence at Signal Culture (Owego, NY) from February 16-23rd, 2018. I'll be focusing on a long-term archival video installation project temporarily titled, “Death and TV.” The piece centers on both banal and fatal televised media from the mid-90’s to present day; I use this material to explore the cultural surrounding, mediated death, and childhood memories. Footage sources include: QVC, news coverage of the Heaven’s Gate cult suicide, soap operas such as Days of Our Lives, news coverage of natural disasters, cartoons, televised Church masses, and UFO sightings.
“Death and TV” involves my interest in the blur between the mediated self and the actual self. In this project I question how the coming of age of certain televised phenomenons such as home shopping networks and sensationalized violence affected my own coming of age as a child in the 90’s.
I'm honored to have been awarded the 2018 Media Art Fellowship. I will be using BRIC's facilities and resources to create an installation version of my video 'Dessert-Disaster' and create a new piece temporarily titled 'Death and Television'.
Other grantees include: Chloë Bass, Mildred Beltre, Sarah E. Brook, Esperanza Cortes, Caroline Falby, Michelle Gevint, David Cutler Kenndy, Jemila MacEwan, Julie Petrusak, Kamran Shahraray, and Pacifico Silano.
More about us here.
Still from 'Jennifer, Where are you?" (1981) by Leslie Thornton
January 30th, 2018
9pm
Zumzeig Cine
Calle Béjar, 53, Barcelona
Curated by Alison Nguyen
Co-presented by Lab Reversible
http://zumzeigcine.coop/es/portfolio/blitz-8-alison-nguyen-ii/
A screening series of film and video artists whose work subverts the codes of mass media, often appropriating found images. These pieces question the technology that forms our perception of gender, authority, space and history.
Works include: Jennifer, Where Are You? by Leslie Thornton, The Truth by LJ Frezza, Domestic Landscape: Eclipse by Sabrina Ratté, Funhouse by Scott Kiernan, The Time That Remains by Soda_Jerk, Danse by Brian Murphy, Beirut Outtakes by Peggy Ahwesh, Dessert-Disaster by Alison Nguyen, Eden 2.0 (Episode 1) by Ololade Adeniyi, No Sell Out ... or i wnt 2b th ultimate commodity / machine (Malcolm X Pt. 2) by X-PRZ, bilateral by Lily Jue Sheng and Trans Trans (Transformers Transformed) by Bradley Eros and Tim Geraghty.
http://zumzeigcine.coop/es/portfolio/blitz-8-alison-nguyen-i-2/
http://crater-lab.org/burn-alison-nguyen-en-zumzeig-cinema-2/
"Burn" is a screening series of filmmakers and video artists who use forms of appropriation, dematerialization and manipulation of electronic signals in their works. These pieces subvert the visual codes of mass media , repositioning materials such as commercials, pornography and Hollywood movies. By burning contemporary archives, these artists create new texts that challenge our way of seeing the dominant social constructions.
We can see burn (or the second law of Thermodynamics) by Bradley Eros, Escales by Sabrina Ratté, The Neutral Zone by LJ Frezza, Eden 2.0 (Intro, Ep. 1) by Ololade Adeniyi, you can't plan a perfect day sometimes it just happens by Alison Nguyen, Point, Line, Plane by Lily Jue Sheng & Antonia Kuo, Beirut Outtakesby Peggy Ahwesh, Enduring Ornament by Josh Lewis and MM Serra, Palaces by Sarah Halpern, Syntax Workers (Cues) by Scott Kiernan and Astro Black: Armageddon in Effect by Soda_Jerk.
December 20th, 2017
6pm-10pm
Outpost Artists Resources
1665 Norman St
Ridgewood
Distributed Presence is a screening, performance, and panel event inviting artists, curators, and critics to explore the politics of media art within the context of representation of artists of color, and in consideration of all their intersecting identities.
Screenings and performances are curated by video and performing artist Samantha CC, organizer of ongoing series The Great BE, and will feature Jerome AB, Alima Lee, Miko Revereza, Ololade Adeniyi, and Alison Nguyen. In addition to a discussion of the work presented during the event, panelists will address a range of topics, including the clash between an "obligation" to political content versus abstraction or other various subject matter, and how to ensure long term inclusivity rather than a temporary wave of tokenism.
Still from 'Dessert-Disaster' (2017) by Alison Nguyen
Monday November 13, 7:30pm
YES: Alison Nguyen / Monica Savirón
Artists in person
Microscope presents the first 2017-18 edition of our emerging artist series YES with a screening of film and video works by Alison Nguyen and Monica Savirón. Both Brooklyn-based artists’ bodies of works include 16mm films and videos that are situated within the tradition of “found footage” or “appropriation”, terms that fall short of conveying the painstaking processes of “seeking” each of them undertakes in selecting their imagery from sources including vast archives of daily newspapers, 16mm film vaults, and the web.
Nguyen, in her most recent video “Dessert-Disaster”, draws attention to visual trends and similarities between imagery used in the advertising of dessert products and that used in the documentation of natural and artificial disasters. Through the juxtaposition of the two in split screen, she reveals the TV and cinematic inspirations for dizzying movements of chocolate and other visually striking manipulations of otherwise inert candy bars. Similarly, in “you can’t plan a perfect day sometimes it just happens”, Nguyen culls brief sequences of camera lens flare from American commercials to reflect upon their function of “visual shorthands for authenticity and spirituality used in white-dominated mass media”. Earlier works by the artist in the program – shot on Super 8mm and 16mm film – are abstractions and more formal investigations of light and color.
Savirón’s works in the program – with the exception of her first piece “To Begin With” (2012) – mostly draw from existing still photograph that is repurposed and given new life within the filmstrip. For instance, in “Broken Tongue”, which “pays homage to the diaspora of the different waves of migration” to the US, the artist rephotographed images printed in the New Year’s Days issues of The New York Times, from its first publication in 1851 until 2013. Her latest work “Answer Print” – a term used to describe a print struck to preview the image and sound of a movie before final printing – is a perpetually decaying 16mm film consisting of deteriorated copies of 9 separate movies as well as anonymous film rushes and camera tests. With its fading red hues and accumulation of other imperfections, the work despite its title is unable to “answer” the question of how it will look or sound at any of its future projections.
Nguyen and Savirón will be in attendance and available for Q&A following the screening.
More info here.
Poster by Bradley Eros
I'm teaching a Found Footage Workshop with artist Bradley Eros at Negtivland Motion Picture Lab in Ridgewood. This workshop focuses on the theory & practice of found footage filmmaking, emphasizing analog and digital methods and techniques as well as a philosophy of collage composition. Strategies will include elements of critique, homage, voyeurism, parody, deconstruction and fragmentation, as they relate to analog film artists such as Joseph Cornell & Bruce Conner; digital artists like Hito Steyerl and Soda Jerk; and hybrid artists like Peggy Ahwesh, Leslie Thornton, and Camille Henrot.
The Found Footage Workshop will be divided equally between screenings, discussion, and practical explorations. Each participant will be given a thumb drive of heterogeneous found footage as starting point, and they will produce their own investigations through a variety of manipulations and interventions using editing, re-filming, and projection processes.
More info: http://negativlandlab.com/foundfootage
Still from 'Dessert-Disaster' (2017) by Alison Nguyen
I'm thrilled to be screening two new video works 'you can't plan a perfect day sometimes it just happens' and 'Dessert-Disaster' at Transient Visions Festival of the Moving Image at Spool Contemporary in Johnson City, NY.
http://www.transientvisions.org/2017tv.html
Saturday 10/21/2017
Spool Contemporary Art Space, Johnson City, NY
6:00pm
Program: The Olympics Are Coming to Johnson City
Curated by Carl Schrecongost
7FF On¢idia (Ж, 8.5 min, 2016, Brazil/Bolivia/Cape Verde/México/Germany)
MIRROR - MRR (Micah H. Weber, 17 min, 2017, USA)
you can't plan a perfect day sometimes it just happens (Alison Nguyen, 8.5 min, 2017, USA)
Your Cage Is Ready (Kit Young, 4.5 min, 2017, USA)
Gibraltar Point (transformed) (Penny McCann, 6.5 min, 2017, Canada)
Nu Dem (Jennifer Saparzadeh, 9.5 min, 2017, Austria/Greece/USA)
The Truth (LJ Frezza, 5 min, 2017, USA)
TRT: 59.5 min
8:00pm
Program: Signals in Passing
Curated by Brian Murphy
Undiscovered Country (Neil Zusman, 11 min, 2017, USA)
Interior Repetitions: I (Jamie Hahn, 7.5 min, 2016, USA)
Pulse Generator Pastry (Charles Woodman, 4.5 min, 2016, USA)
Mammaries (Monica Panzarino, 4 min, 2016, USA)
from this side of space to the other side of the signal (Benjamin Rosenthal, 10 min, 2017, USA)
As if the color was looking at you (Sara Bonaventura, 10 min, 2017, Italy/USA)
Music of Desire (Kristin Reeves, 8 min, 2016, USA)
Ritual of the Rhizome (Eric Souther, 12.5 min, 2016, USA)
Emergence (Jason Bernagozzi, 3 min, 2017, USA)
Dessert-Disaster (Alison Nguyen, 1 min, 2017, USA)
TRT: 71.5 min
10:00pm
Audio & visual performance by Jonas Bers & Nathan Cearley
Saturday, September 23rd, 2017
Parrish Art Museum
7pm
http://www.parrishart.org/programs/2244
In this expanded cinema event featuring 21 artists and organized in collaboration with Microscope Gallery, the New York based Optipus collective and orchestra will perform a new live multi-projection and sound performance composed by Bradley Eros. Celebrating the natural world with a focus on water throughout history, Optipus will combine original and found imagery, including hand-painted slides, Super 8mm and 16mm films, overhead projections and digital video with original music and sound relating to and referencing nature.
As in their most recent performance, The Owl Flies at Twilight, presented in January as part of the Whitney Museum’s"Dreamlands: Expanded," the work consists of three distinct movements, examining specific relationships between vision and sound, the latter divided into distinct sections featuring strings, percussion, and electronics. The group features21 artists, with 13 contributing to the visual score extended over large projection screens (Lary 7, Bradley Eros, Alison Nguyen, Lily Jue Sheng, Antonia Kuo, Simon Liu, Joel Schlemowitz, Kenneth Zoran Curwood, Katherine Bauer, Rachael Guma, Genevieve H-K, Gill Arno, Tim Geraghty), and 8 to the musical (Mia Theodoratus, Laura Ortman, Zach Layton, Gabriel Guma, Richard Sylvarnes, Masami Tomihisa, Kevin Shea, Victoria Keddie), using a variety of film/video formats and instruments that are made or altered by the artists.
I'm honored to be the recipient of a NYSCA 2017 Electronic Media & Film Finishing Funds Grant for my video 'you can't plan a perfect day sometimes it just happens.' Supporting a wide variety of media artists from around the state, these grants assist selected artists in the completion of their film, video, sound, new media, web-based, and installation work.
Still from 'you can't plan a perfect day sometimes it just happens' by Alison nguyen
In July I will be an artist-in-residence at The Vermont Studio Center in Johnson, VE. I'll be working on a new double-channel video piece 'Dessert-Disaster' and experimenting with video/light sculptures.
Still from 'Dessert-Disaster' by Alison Nguyen
I'm excited to be an Artist/Researcher in residence at Signal Culture in Owego, NY from May 11th-22nd. I plan on creating a hybrid essay to accompany my film 'you can't plan a perfect day sometimes it just happens.' as well as expanding signal-based audio/visual experiments with my ongoing project 'Death & Television.'
