Cinema 16

Premiere of Cinema 16′s 2012 Season!

In an era when movies are often viewed alone, reduced to the tiny screens of our laptops and iPods, Cinema 16 refreshes the communal viewing experience. Artist and curator Molly Surno commissions musicians to reinterpret a series of historic short, experimental films for a site specific performance. Taking from the tradition of vaudeville, these mixed media performances are showcased at a variety of spaces that remove film from the conventional big screen theater. Named after the New York-based avant-garde film society started in 1947 and inspired by Maya Deren’s Greenwich Village exhibition of experimental films, Cinema 16 seeks to confirm the relevance of the historic avantgarde by pairing it with contemporary sound.

This presentation of Cinema 16 at IHP explores themes of perversity, flesh, and the female form. Each film is scored with new music by Hiro Kone.

Asparagus
dir. Suzan Pitt, US, 1979, 16mm, 18 mins, color

Kusama’s Self Obliteration
dir. Jud Yalkut, US, 1967, 16mm, 24 mins, color

Lusting Hours (excerpt)
dir. John and Lem Amero, US, 1967, 10 mins, b/w

Molly Surno has commissioned a wide range of musicians to interpret her short film programs from the internationally recognized pop rock band Yeah Yeah Yeah’s to the locally Brooklyn favorite krautrock group FORMA. Cinema 16 has been showcased in locations such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, MoMA/PS1 and the Kitchen. Surno recently matriculated into the class of 2013 Columbia University MFA program and her film and photo-based work is represented at Gasser Grunert Gallery in Chelsea.

Hiro Kone is Nicky Mao, a fellow traveler now splitting the night sky on her own path. Those who’ve heard her work as a member of Effi Briest and Up Died Sound know her solo music takes many shapes. Brightly dark, softly cutting, airy and weighty, Hiro Kone’s music catalyzes opposites into opposites, casting dark emotions into architectural forms bathed in a sourceless light: much like we each do with our own lives in some way or another. Her past credits also include live-scoring Charles Bryant’s 1923 silent film Salomé at Brooklyn’s Spectacle Theater, live collaborations with Arp for Doug Aitken’s film Migration, participation in BOMBlog’s recent Sound + Vision program, and an on-going role in EMA as their guitarist. Kone’s self-titled debut, co-produced by Timothy Dewit, was released in November 2011 on Bitter Root Records.

For more information: http://ihousephilly.org/events/cinema-16/