Wednesday, September 26, 2012

PXL THIS 22




PXL THIS is the annual toy camera film festival featuring Pixelvision films made with the Fisher-Price PXL-2000 camcorder. The second oldest film festival in LA, PXL THIS celebrates visionary moving image artists from 4-years-olds to professionals.



for immediate release

contact: Gerry Fialka 310-306-7330 pfsuzy@aol.com http://www.laughtears.com/



PXL THIS 22, the 22nd annual toy camera film festival, screens Mon, Dec 10 at 7 & 9pm (two different shows, with 6pm preshow) at Unurban, 3301 Pico Blvd, Santa Monica CA 90401, 310-315-0056, free admission



Featuring new entries from seminal Pixelvision filmmakers: Lisa Marr, Paolo Davanzo, Paul Bacca, Doug Ing,

Will Erokan, Clifford Novey, Denny Moynahan, Will Erokan and many more.



PXL THIS sites: http://pxl2000.blogspot.com/ and http://sites.google.com/site/pxlthis/ and http://www.youtube.com/user/pxlthis



PXL THIS celebrates its 22nd year of creative filmmaking by everyone from kids to professionals. One of the most unique film festivals ever, PXL THIS has been attended by Oliver Stone, Daryl Hannah, Kim Fowley among many more. Pixelvision has even made it onto the big screen via Richard Linklater (Slacker), Michael Almereyda (Nadja, produced by David Lynch) and Craig Baldwin (Sonic Outlaws). The irresistible irony of the PXL 2000 is that the camera's ease-of-use and affordability, which entirely democratizes movie-making, has inspired the creation of some of the most visionary, avant and luminous film of our time.



"If movies offer an escape from everyday life, Pixelvision is the Houdini of the film world." - SF Weekly



PXL THIS, featuring films made with the Fisher-Price PXL 2000 toy camcorder, is one of the longest running film festivals in the entertainment capital of the world. Celebrating "cinema povera" moving image art, it evokes Marcel Duchamp's axiom "Poor tools require better skills." Pixelators from across the globe hoick up inventive approaches to the unassuming throw-away of consumer culture. These low-tech hi-jinx films come through loud and clear by reframing a new cinema language. Past PXL THIS participants have included Lee Ranaldo (Sonic Youth), Chris Metzler (Fishbone & Salton Sea documentaries), James & Sadie Benning, Joe Gibbons, Cecilia Dougherty, Peggy Ahwesh, Jesse Drew, Margie Strosser and Michael Almereyda.



"Gerry Fialka’s annual PXL THIS is a reliably surprising and seductive round-up of recent work achieved with the PXL 2000 camera. This humble outdated “toy” continues to bring out the visionary child in filmmakers and viewers alike, and no one has kept the PXL flame burning longer or brighter than Gerry." - Michael Almereyda, director



"Gerry Fialka's PXL THIS festival snaps, crackles and pops off the screen with the funky, user-friendly energy of real first-person cinema. Goofy, gorgeous, and altogether groovy, his provocative program of pieces produced with the Fisher-Price PXL 2000 toy video camera is not only downright entertaining, but more, its blipping and buzzing black 'n' white picture-bits coalesce into a veritable inspiration to all those who cherish the playful, spontaneous gestures and low-cost of electronic folk art." - Craig Baldwin, director & curator.



"All the PXL THIS videos reflect festival organizer Gerry Fialka's commitment to the freedom produced by making art without financial constraints. PXL THIS is a welcome highlight in the Los Angeles media scene celebrating the rich lexicon available in a tool which might initially seem rather limiting." - Holly Willis, LA Weekly.



"Pixelvision may be firmly ensconced in the pantheon of once-popular dead media, but for many of the faithful it captures the heart of the American experience as it should be seen: in basic black and white." - David Cotner. LA Weekly



"PXL is the ultimate people's video." - J. Hoberman, Premiere Magazine.



Seminal film critic Pauline Kael evoked Pixelvision in her book Hooked: "I am still a child before a moving image."



Hollywood Reporter called Pixelvision a "precursor of today's DV filmmaking."



"When the aliens are here and deciding whether to vaporize all mankind for our inhumanity, cruelty and greed, showing the aliens PXL THIS will save the world. PXL THIS shows our best nature as humanist creators and subversives against those who deserve it. Save the world. Support PXL THIS." - George Manupelli, founder of the Ann Arbor Film Festival, filmmaker, poet, collagist and political/environmental activist



"I didn't really like the work I thought was my best work. I liked the stuff I didn't like a lot more." Hollis Frampton evoking Pixelvision in 1978,



PXL THIS Director Fialka - hires 300 dpi still with PXL Cam - http://www.laughtears.com/images/Gerry-360dpi.jpg and Bio - http://www.laughtears.com/bio.html & http://gerryfialka.blogspot.com/



PXL THIS 22 screens May 23 at http://www.echoparkfilmcenter.org/



PXL THIS 23 - Entry deadline Oct 22, 2013 - simply send a dvd to Gerry Fialka 2427 1/2 Glyndon Ave, Venice, CA 90291, 310-306-7330, pfsuzy@aol.com NO entry fee.





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Program Notes for San Francisco Cinematheque's AN INVENTION WITHOUT A FUTURE -

PIXELVISION: ELECTRONIC FOLK ART. (comprehensive history of PXL THIS and Pixelvision)

http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:VT1Pm-oc9goJ:www.sfcinematheque.org/ee/images/uploads/PN2_10PXL.PDF+%22san+francisco+cinematheque%22+pxl&hl=en&gl=us&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESii8N3c8YRRSdwGAdMDLt-VKxQRzG6MQ09Mj0i2zVNcte74oKqNp8XdA54dGE5LuWvVYUo96Z5hbhzIb_qYhhkkroluQYFeIiCSzSl6-Wp4wcbyC7fDzlR3Wr60Hi_x_HME_Zit&sig=AHIEtbTh3oEPNjWhZHgpiIsAm0RS4PQrMQ



Andrea Nina McCarthy's 2005 MIT thesis "Toying With Obsolescence: Pixelvision Filmmakers & The Fisher Price PXL 2000 Camera" is essential reading.http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:pwHJLt5QPRkJ:cms.mit.edu/research/theses/AndreaMcCarty2005.pdf+pxl+2000+mit&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us



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Toy Stories by David Cotner LA Weekly 5-12-11 - 1987 was a fairly dull year for culture. Hardcore's fire dwindled and modern art faded into the background amidst the rise of EuroDisney, Pat Robertson for President and the founding of Aum Shinrikyo. Occasionally there were high points: the KLF, Final Fantasy and the issue of the Fisher-Price PXL2000. Meant to be a child's first video camera, it used cassettes as its recording medium, producing grainy, security-cam-quality images. The PXL THIS Film Festival enters its 20th year of life, with festival founder Gerry Fialka and PXL2000 filmmakers appearing tonight to screen their films. Featured in the fest: Wickstead's Wonder, a film about PXL2000 inventor James Wickstead; Arroyo Seco River Song, a tribute to the L.A. River tributary; 4-year-old Anwyn Lees' remake of The Wizard of Oz on her front porch with her dad and mom; Baltimore dada/experimentalist tENTATIVELY a cONVENIENCE's film Philosopher's Union Member's Mouthpiece; and Fialka's own Parallel Worlder, a cross between the dance of Martha Graham and the satire of W.C. Fields. Pixelvision may be firmly ensconced in the pantheon of once-popular dead media, but for many of the faithful it captures the heart of the American experience as it should be seen: in basic black and white.

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Blur + Sharpen If it Works, It's Obsolete by Holly Willis 12-11-10

http://www.kcet.org/socal/voices/blur-sharpen/if-it-works-its-obsolete.html

Gerry Fialka is LA's tireless advocate for alternative media and DIY culture generally, and the creative potential of the PXL 2000, a cheap, plastic toy video camera made by Fisher-Price in the 1980s, in particular. The camera produces a glitchy, chunky black-and-white image that's, well, often quite beautiful. For 20 years, the Venice-based media proponent has been showcasing videos made with the PXL 2000 camera in the PXL This video festival, which returns with a celebratory 20th annual showcase this Monday night, December 13, with two shows (7:00 p.m. and 9:00 p.m.) at the Unurban Coffeehouse at 3301 Pico Blvd, Santa Monica. I took the anniversary as an opportunity to ask Gerry a few questions, starting with what makes the PXL 2000 camera interesting in a world where we now have so many video camera options.



"McLuhan said, 'If it works, it's obsolete,'" says Gerry. "The PXL is remarkable because it does not work." Gerry is referring here to the fact that the camera does not even attempt to mimic reality; it's not interested in clarity, resolution or fidelity. Instead, the camera produces a glimpse of the world, one that underscores visual manipulation and dismisses attempts at perfection. "Giving the viewer less information might mean more involvement by the viewer," Gerry suggests. "It enables the possibility of 'breakdown as breakthrough.'" Considering the array of camera options, Gerry adds, "There's lots of video cams on the market that have some similar features, but none with the unique gothic dreamy look - there are lots of cool words that have described its services and disservices!"

Shooting with the PXL 2000 is also fun. It's nicely shaped, lightweight, and now, nearly 30 years after its birth, boasts a sleek retro look that the little Flip video camera will never have. Oddly enough, the camera records onto sound cassettes, and the image itself is framed with a black matte, giving the resulting footage an elegant look in contrast with the chaos of the imagery itself. When you use a PXL Vision camera, you really have to negotiate with the camera; the process is about discovery rather than capture. "We are really about McLuhan's adage, 'We shape our tools, then they shape us,'" adds Gerry. "That's the meta-cognition here." He goes on to suggest that often artists try to rekindle the visionary delight of children, and using a toy contributes to that sense of creativity and rule-breaking.

Gerry notes that technically he does not "curate" the festival. "I show every entry," he explains. "We welcome kids and homeless people and rich art kids and so on. We celebrate a tool, and we leave it to the audience and press to make aesthetic judgments." He adds that audience reactions definitely shift each year. "'Anything that's popular is a rear-view image,'" Gerry adds, again quoting Marshall McLuhan. "We are not a popular festival." That said, the show is an annual highlight for those seeking offbeat imagery and storytelling, and creativity that emerges in dialogue with imperfect and magical toy tools. More info: 310-306-7330. [Images taken from a PXL 2000 user's manual, available here.]

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Introducing Gerry Fialka's PXL THIS 20 Film Festival by Joseph Mael 11-30-10

http://www.examiner.com/santa-monica-city-buzz-in-los-angeles/introducing-gerry-fialka-s-pxl-this-20

"Curator Gerry Fialka puts together events of films both experimental and socially conscious." - LA City Beat

Maybe certain happenings are meant to be kept discreet but then again there is always that “A-HA!” moment when circumstances lend to the belief that a certain happening is going to blow up. For the PXL THIS Film Festival, it hasn't happened yet. Or maybe it has. Creator of L.A.'s 2nd longest running film festival, Gerry Fialka, brings PXL THIS 20 to life to continue the underground legacy of the revolutionary PXL 2000 video camcorder on December 13th, 2010 at Unurban Cafe in Santa Monica. Produced by Fisher Price (there were 400,000 units released for sale from 1987 to 1989), this “toy” renders a unique video image and now has a legendary history that has firmly left a fingerprint on the history of film-making. The camera produces an image from 2,000 “dots” that is in contrast with modern film technology, particularly when held up to the 150,000+ dots on today's televison, the PXL 2000 elicits a unique image directors enjoy incorporating with heavy duty film machinery.

I had the opportunity to ask Gerry about this year's PXL THIS this week and here's how he answered a couple questions I found relevant:

Q: Can I get a quick reflection by you on PXL THIS 20? What does it mean to you?

A: What the PXL THIS Film Festival means to me is deconstructing moving image art-making and the whole idea of a film festival. We gather the community to share in the creative process, bare bones style. Both in making and in watching, PXL THIS encourages participation, the same way that the PXL image offers little and requires the viewers to heighten their awareness and fill in the blanks. The gap is where the action is - the resonating interval. In Marcel Duchampian spirit, how do you make a film festival that is not a film festival? T S Eliot said that poetry is outing your inner dialogue. What form is your inner dialogue in? Maybe its that dreamy illusive Pixelvision image for some. An extension of consciousness? The next medium ? The Non-physical? The possibility of a world without words? Low definition can mean high participation. PXL THIS means to me connectedness not consumerism, hoicking up an ecstatic new state of tribal immediacy and involvement, simultaneity, all-at-onceness. The Balinese have no word for art, they do everything as well as they can. I salute all Pixelators and PXL THIS audience members who for two decades have mustered up multi-dimensions and multi-sensuousness.

Q: Is PXL THIS the largest publicly accessible pixelvision collection in the world?

A: YES, our archives are stored at The Academy, which is truly a major hoot. The cheeziest genuine fake film festival in the world is treated by the most important Film Archives in the world with respect. They feel that its worth storing and preserving. It reflects what humans can do. As McLuhan said, we shape our tools then they shape us



Pixelvision History



Fialka, self-described as a para-media ecologist based in Venice, CA, is the visionary behind the PXL 2000 fetish. To say he has a way with words is an understatement. He describes the festival by stating, “PXL THIS features films made with the Fisher-Price PXL 2000 toy camcorder, is one of the longest running film festivals in the entertainment capital of the world. Celebrating "cinema povera" moving image art, it evokes Marcel Duchamp's axiom "Poor tools require better skills." Pixelators from across the globe hoick up inventive approaches to the unassuming throw-away of consumer culture. These low-tech hi-jinx films come through loud and clear by re-framing a new cinema language. Past PXL THIS participants have included Lee Ranaldo (Sonic Youth), Chris Metzler (Fishbone & Salton Sea documentaries), James & Sadie Benning, Joe Gibbons, Cecilia Dougherty, Peggy Ahwesh, Jesse Drew, Margie Strosser and Michael Almereyda.” When he describes how the outside world has described PXL THIS he proudly states, "We really love that the “New York Times” called PXL THIS “small” and that lots of our best entries come from Venice California’s Boardwalk performers (as in “houseless” — not homeless because the earth is everyone’s home)."



Pixelvision's history as a tool of choice by experimental filmmakers took off after a grant by the Rockefeller Foundation was awarded to Sadie Benning for her work with the PXL 2000 in 1993. PXL 2000 footage was used in the films Slacker (1991) and Hamlet (2000). Over time, from its brief period on the shelves as a toy for for children to current day, the PXL 2000 format has resurfaced from a failed technology to a prized cult object that even became a thesis topic for some students (McCarty, 2005).

“There is something about the quality of the image that is really dreamlike and it has a feeling of being in the past already even though you just shot it. It is not quite reality or not quite representational of what's really happening at that moment, so it already has this distancing effect of feeling like it's already in the past somehow. “ – Sadie Benning, Award-winning Pixelvision artist



Most of the videos included in the PXL THIS 20 film festival are between 3 and 6 minutes in length though some of the gems in past PXL THIS festivals extended over ten minutes in duration. The festival's following is quite dedicated but it somehow keeps a low profile. If you missed the October submission deadline, don't fret, this film festival has a cult-like following and Fialka receives a growing number of entries each passing year. If you have old PXL 2000 films laying around, your entry into the next PXL THIS is always welcome. Fialka says, "Pixelators return to innocence by using, and even misusing, moving image art to view worlds that usually go unnoticed, evoking children's spirited desire to explore."



Low brow, or high brow? You decide, but as J. Hoberman of Premier Magazine said, “PXL is the ultimate people's video.”



Gerry Fialka believe's PXL THIS is best described by his hero, George Manupelli, founder of the Ann Arbor Film Festival, who said, “When the aliens are here and deciding whether to vaporize all mankind for our inhumanity, cruelty and greed, showing the aliens PXL THIS will save the world. PXL THIS shows our best nature as humanist creators and subversives against those who deserve it. Save the world. Support PXL THIS.” Yep, that's a tough thought to top.



"Gerry Fialka’s annual PXL THIS is a reliably surprising and seductive round-up of recent work achieved with the PXL 2000 camera. This humble outdated “toy” continues to bring out the visionary child in filmmakers and viewers alike, and no one has kept the PXL flame burning longer or brighter than Gerry." - Michael Almereyda, director



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Pixelvision enables filmmakers to tap into that child-like innocence all artists seek in the creative process. What could be easier than starting with a kids toy. John Lane's 2001 book Timeless Simplicity articulates wabi-sabi, "the perfect antidote to the pervasively slick style of homogenized efficency." Pixelvisionaries evoke the spirit of Wabi-sabi: "This elusive philosphy is about sufficiency and restraint. It is about simplicity, the minor and hidden, the modest and humble, the imperfect and the evanescent. It is about treading lightly on the planet. An added dimension is its implicit message urging us to forget the seductions of success - wealth, status, power and luxury."



"As for the PXL 2000 camera, because it’s a child’s toy there’s a certain naiveté which is inherent in the productions. Yet due to its technology, the PXL 2000 camera produces these edgy, gritty, “rough as a night in jail” images. I find the juxtaposition of these two attributes very interesting and useful in many of the politically oriented pieces I’ve produced. From a technical perspective, I would say my primary contribution to the field is that I created a filmmaking style using the PXL 2000 which I call Machinima Vérité. Machinima Vérité combines Machinima (creating movies from 3D PC game engines) with Cinéma Vérité techniques to create a sense of realism. So basically I produce and render the movie from a game engine on a PC, display the video on a high resolution LCD, and recapture the video on the LCD using a PXL 2000 camera. My videos “CATACLYSM” and “bursting in air” are a couple of examples of this technique. I really appreciate all of the effort Gerry Fialka puts in with the PXL THIS festival. If it weren’t for Gerry, interest in the PXL 2000 would have died out many years ago." - L. M. Sabo



"Gerry Fialka's monthly film series 7 Dudley Cinema provides and oft nourishes the most avant/eclectic/experimental/kook/philosophical and damn downright entertaining filmmaking this side of Andre Breton and the Exquisite Corpse Crew. His programming is the only reason I will go west of Western Avenue, unless I'm neck deep in the Pacific Ocean. - Filmmaker/Actor Emmy (The Volcano) Collins



"Gerry Fialka is Los Angeles' preeminent underground film curator." - Robin Menken, cinemawithoutborders.com



PXL THIS Director Gerry Fialka is available for Pixelvision & Media Ecology workshops. http://www.laughtears.com/workshops.html



"Fialka's workshops are in depth communication of something extremely elusive - the history of the unimaginable - and his lively interpretation renders it useful." - William Farley, Award-winning filmmaker



Cinesource PXL article by Gerry Fialka - http://cinesourcemagazine.com/index.php?/site/comments/pxl_triple_fake/



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Check out this amazing site by Will Erokan, who posted the past 20 PXL THIS festivals online

http://willerokan.com/pxlthis.html



and here's the individual links...

http://www.archive.org/details/PXLTHIS_01

http://www.archive.org/details/PXLTHIS_02

http://www.archive.org/details/PXLTHIS_03

http://www.archive.org/details/PXLTHIS_04

http://www.archive.org/details/PXLTHIS_05

http://www.archive.org/details/PXLTHIS_06

http://www.archive.org/details/PXLTHIS_07

http://www.archive.org/details/PXLTHIS_08

http://www.archive.org/details/PXLTHIS_09

http://www.archive.org/details/PXLTHIS_10

http://www.archive.org/details/PXLTHIS_11

http://www.archive.org/details/PXLTHIS_12

http://www.archive.org/details/PXLTHIS_13

http://www.archive.org/details/PXLTHIS_14

http://www.archive.org/details/PXLTHIS_15

http://www.archive.org/details/PXLTHIS_16

http://www.archive.org/details/PXLTHIS_17

http://www.archive.org/details/PXLTHIS_18

http://www.archive.org/details/PXLTHIS_19

http://www.archive.org/details/PXLTHIS_20



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michaelkoshkin@gmail.com is making a documentary about Pixelvision.
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Tuesday, September 18, 2012

Interview invite


Hello

I would like to interview you (either in public http://www.laughtears.com/mess.html or not in public - for Otherzine http://www.othercinema.com/otherzine/?issueid=28&article_id=165 ).

Please, lets talk.

Here's more info.

Thank you,

Gerry Fialka 310-306-7330 PFSuzy@aol.com

bio http://www.laughtears.com/bio.html

http://www.laughtears.com/ and www.venice wake.org





"Great interviewing requires a stimulating interviewer and Gerry Fialka is certainly that. Best part is that he makes the rare act of deep thinking in public before an audience flow as creatively and easily as a Basquiat painting." - Jay Levin, LA Weekly founder and former editor-in-chief



"Fialka's cool questions are right at the heart of all my work. By far the best interview I have ever been treated to." - Ondi Timoner, only two time Sundance Film Festival Grand Jury winner



"My experience in Gerry Fialka's MESS series was a scintillating discussion of history, culture, philosophy, sociology and the creative process. His questions and ideas transcend the accepted, traditional limitations of 'the interview.' " - Brad Schreiber, author, producer, screenwriter, journalist



"Fialka's interview with me was an invigorating, pleasurable, philosophical, specific, awakening journey." - Harry Northup, actor and poet



"Gerry Fialka comes up with some dynamite questions that never occurred to me, and he has an astonishing memory for quotations. I appreciate his great work. " - Author Kristine McKenna



“I had such a great time at Gerry Fialka’s MESS Interview Series! Such provocative and unexpected questions; it was a delightful exercise for my mind. I thank him for his generosity of spirit and positive affirmations during the interview process; he made it really easy! “ Poet/Author Terry Wolverton



"I had so much fun. I don't think I've ever heard such wonderful questions." - Author Janet Fitch



"Fialka's interviews are more gratifying than one could imagine, exploring ideas that don't normally get discussed. With his MESS (Media Ecology Soul Salon) series, a cumulative effect emerges as each progressive interview builds upon and enhances the previous ones. His diligent efforts examine the impulses that motivate people. The secret to good conversation lies in the questions, and Fialka's questions are an art form." - William McNally, Activist/Author



"My interview with Fialka was both a rolicking journey into the heart of deep thought and some sort of hard core, cosmic tennis match. He uses quotes to spur new thought more than old thought. It was truly 'far out.' I am grateful." - Fred Dewey, writer, teacher, editor/publisher, former director of Beyond Baroque



GERRY FIALKA, film curator, writer, lecturer, probe artist and paramedia-ecologist has conducted interactive workshops at Cal Arts, UCLA, MIT, USC, San Francisco's Yerba Buena Art Center, the Ann Arbor Film Festival, Culver City High School, Massey University (New Zealand), and more. His public interview series MESS has included the likes of Mike Kelley, Alexis Smith, Abraham Polonsky, Mary Woronov, Paul Krassner, Ann Magnuson, Heather Woodbury, Norman Klein, Chris Kraus, P. Adams Sitney, Hunter Drohojowska-Philp, Kristine McKenna, John Sinclair, Van Dyke Parks, Orson Bean, George Herms, Doug Harvey, Janet Fitch, Jon Rappoport, Brad Schreiber, Simon Forti, Rudy Perez, Barry Smolin, SA Griffin, Bruce Bickford, Stan Warnow, Rip Cronk, Marina Goldovskaya, Harry Northup, John French, Jon Alloway, Bill Daniel, Phil Proctor, Ed Holmes (aka Bishop Joey), Marcy Winograd, Greg Burk, Kirk Silsbee among many others. Fialka's interviews have been published in books by Mike Kelley and Sylvere Lotringer. His William Pope.L interview is published in the magazine ARTILLERY Jan'08 issue. Fialka's MESS retrieves the original 1970 MESS (McLuhan Emergency Strategy Seminar) with McLuhan, Buckminster Fuller, and Ted Carpenter (They Become What They Behold) all of whom stressed that breakdowns can be breakthroughs.



Fialka has also interviewed Grace Lee Boggs, Ondi Timoner, Timothy A. Carey, George Clinton, Colonel Bruce Hampton, Ben Watson, Tom Gunning, Mac Rebennack (aka Dr John), Martha Colburn, tENTATIVELY a cONVENIENCE, Bill Brand, Pip Chodoov, Craig Baldwin, DJ Spooky, ruth weiss, MA Littler, Jesse Malmed, Nina Fonoroff, Gregorio Rocha, BILL MORRISON,and many more.

- - - - - -



MESS (Media Ecology Soul Salon), produced by Gerry Fialka since 1997, is based on Marshall McLuhan's insight: "If you don't study the effects of technology, you become its slave." And by "technology" McLuhan was referring to anything humans invent, from language to computers, from philosophy to books, from toothpicks to bulldozers. In dialogues with modern thinkers, MESS provides a forum for probing both the form and the content of media, and for comprehensively surveying-its services and disservices, avoiding bias or point of view. MESS is percept-plunder for the recent future.



In his book "I, Fellini," Federico Fellini wrote, "I don't mind speaking autobiographically because I reveal less of myself talking about my real life than I do if I talk about the layer underneath, the one of my fantasies, dreams and imagination." MESS peers into the portals of discovering this layer. MESS seeks what lies beyond this layer.



Participants -- including writers, artists, filmmakers, musicians and activists -- are the early radar systems and rear-view mirrors detecting how major transformations in technology affect us. As we live in a MESS-age, this interactive series shakes people out of their regular agendas and reality tunnels. MESS promotes mapmakers who search for new lands and new data. MESS seeks meticulous understanding of every thing we see, hear , feel, taste, and smell, passionately needling the somnambulists and proving that learning can and must be fun. As McLuhan asked, "How are you to argue with people who insist on sticking their heads in the in visible teeth of technology, calling the whole thing freedom?" "Technologies are not mere exterior ads," said Walter Ong, "but also interior transformations of consciousness." And, in his book Immediatism, Hakim Bey observed, "Simply to meet face-to-face is already an action against the forces that oppress us by isolation, by loneliness, by the trance of media."

"If it works, it's obsolete." -- McLuhan. "Another fine MESS." - Random Lengths News.



- - - - - - -



"Gerry Fialka's MESS series is a unique opportunity to meet special artists in a unique, intimate and revealing setting. His intelligence and dedication to research leads to a stimulating and highly interactive interview that is both entertaining and amazingly enlightening." - Phil Proctor of the "Firesign Theatre"



"Gerry Fialka is very special, well prepared and ready to take risks - I learned about my self! My kind of interviewer. " -Martin Perlich, author THE ART OF THE INTERVIEW



"Gerry Fialka is willing to enter in new discussions even if they go against his current views. Fialka's multilayered delivery of ideas encourages the search for new questions and new paradigms that extend beyond. He is well-informed, off-beat and articulate - one of the most fascinating people I've met." - Keith Jeffries, Ascalon Films



"What a great interview Fialka conducted with me. He made it so easy. There used to be people on TV who conducted interviews in depth, though few as good as Fialka. Tom Snyder was the last." - Orson Bean



"Fialka is a Zen master of media shuffling your mind with McLuhanisms, and stacking the deck with fresh insights into our culture." - David Selsky, Independent Film Programmer & author of 'Worlds of Silence'



"Like an eye-exam of flashing dots, my answers to Gerry Fialka's insightful questions worked like an i-exam catapulting me into my many faceted stories." - ruth weiss



"Gerry Fialka is a wonderful host, able to create a joyful relaxing and concentrated atmosphere. During the Q&A he showed himself as a very eloquent critic asking deep and serious questions- always with humor, knowledge and full of energy." - Ine Poppe, Professor at the Willem de Kooning Art Academy, Amsterdam



"I am very impressed by Gerry Fialka's energy in bringing together groups of people to think about ideas. That is very much in the McLuhan spirit, to create and foster interdisciplinary, living, educational projects in which people can talk about ideas. [Fialka] creates forums that bring together a plurality of critical perspectives into one multivalent conversation. " - Janine Marchessault, author of MARSHALL McLUHAN:COSMIC MEDIA.



"When I participated in Fialka's MESS, he created a unique through-space kind of meditation. This collective free high fires up the ability/consciousness of not judging. It makes a gap between saying and meaning leaving a lot of room for interpretation. Really amazing event." - Marc Herbst, editor-Journal of Aesthetics and Protest.



"Fialka's MESS interview series is a fascinating evening with stimulating questions and approaches. I surely enjoyed the depth of the arena and a chance to pontificate on questions of the spirit in a relaxed scenario and free speech surrounding." - Lady Lord Buckley



"Gerry’s interview with me was like hypnotherapy without the snapping of the fingers to bring you back. I really felt good after that." - Lucky Otis, grandson of Johnny Otis and son of Shuggie Otis & the GTO’s Miss Mercy



“Gerry Fialka has built up an important body of work in his decades of interviews. My challenge to him is: get a book deal, already.” - Tibby Rothman, Feature Writer LA Weekly, Founder/Editor VenicePaper



"Gerry Fialka's interview with me at Experiments In Cinema 2011 Film Festival was a highlight. He is my new favorite person. He is writing a book on Avant Garde Film & The Ann Arbor Film Festival. He is such a trip! Totally brilliant and passionate about everything about human existence it seems, but in particular media theory, media art, media activism. He asked me all sorts of great questions." - Julie Perini, filmmaker, writer and teacher



"Gerry interviewed me. I've given talks all over the world and none of them touched what happened in that interview. For 2 hours and 45 minutes, the spontaneous river rolled on. At the end of every outpouring, Gerry turned the page with a new question, and the new page was just as exciting as the last one. I guess I've been waiting for an interview like that all my life. Gerry Fialka is the world champion of interviewers, it's not even close" - Jon Rappoport, author & journalist.



"Fialka is a damn good interviewer. His questions are sometimes so precise that it tickles and sometimes so grand and thought provoking that one feels on the edge of a new spiritual awareness." - Lynne Sachs, award-winning filmmaker



"Being interviewed by Gerry Fialka was a real high point in my film career. His questions are wacky, discursive, cosmic, probing, thought provoking and, yes, experimental and avant garde. I left brimming with a renewed passion for the wide world of film and ideas. Gerry's enthusiasm and restless intellect are contagious." - Mark Street, award-winning filmmaker



“Fialka’s questions are challenging and thought provoking. These questions rattled me for days.” -Mary Jordan, filmmaker of Jack Smith documentary



"I am inspired and excited that Gerry Fialka, who holds an affinity for the Ann Arbor Film Festival, is writing a history of it. Having attended two of his 2008 AAFF workshops, I can testify he is intimate with experimental cinema and media philosophy, and is deeply dedicated to the exploration of new knowledge. " - Leslie Raymond, Professor of Art & New Media, University of Texas.



"Gerry Fialka is the Studs Terkel of Venice, California - nurturing active participation for common ground." - Michele Raven, Writer/Producer



"Gerry Fialka is one of the most giving impresarios that ever landed in Venice, California. He continues to fulfill Venice founder Abbott Kinney's dream of Chautauqua's influence on people. Fialka is the glue of the Venicessance. " - Jeffrey Solomon, Historian, Venicebeachwalkingtours.com

- - - - - -

"The confusion is not my invention...It is all around us and our only chance is to let it in. The only chance of renovation is to open our eyes and see the mess." -Samuel Beckett.



"It's crazy how you can get yourself in a mess sometimes and not even be able to think about it with any sense and yet not be able to think about anything else. " - Stanley Kubrick



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"Gerry Fialka is Los Angeles' preeminent underground film curator." - CinemaWithoutBorders.com



Fialka's new book project - AVANT GARDE FILM & The ANN ARBOR FILM FESTIVAL HISTORY BOOK http://www.laughtears.com/Ann%20Arbor%20Film%20Festival.html



GERRY FIALKA's Otherzine articles-

Fall 2012 - Mike Kelley And Meme http://www.othercinema.com/otherzine/index.php?issueid=28&article_id=165

Spring 2012 - Occupy Awake:Conscious Mapmakers On World Wide Watch

http://www.othercinema.com/otherzine/?issueid=27&article_id=148

Fall 2011 - McLuhan's City As Classroom Flips Into All-At-Onceness As Classroom

http://www.othercinema.com/otherzine/index.php?issueid=26&article_id=135

Spring 2011 - McLuhan & WikiLeaks: 'Hoedown' and 'Hendiadys'

http://www.othercinema.com/otherzine/?issueid=25&article_id=123

Spring 2010 - Looking Glass - Review of Millennium Film Journal #51 http://www.othercinema.com/otherzine/?issueid=23&article_id=99

Spring 2009 - Dream Awake -HOW JOYCE INVENTED OTHER CINEMA & DISGUISED IT AS A BOOK

http://www.othercinema.com/otherzine/index.php?issueid=21&article_id=85





Thank you,



Gerry Fialka

pfsuzy@aol.com 310-306-7330

http://www.laughtears.com/

Bio - http://www.laughtears.com/bio.html

Lectures - http://www.laughtears.com/workshops4.html
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Sunday, September 16, 2012

Gerry Fialka SF events Oct 11-14, 2012

Gerry Fialka SF events Oct11-14, 2012
Here's info on events hosted by Gerry Fialka, who has been called "a cultural revolutionary" by the LA Weekly and "the Renaissance multi-media man" by the LA Times.
Thank you,
Gerry Fialka
Oct 11, Thursday - Pixelvision Percept Plunder & THOMAS INCE (double feature) at 8pm (730 pm pot-luck), free admission at New Nothing, 16 Sherman St (off Folsom between 6th & 7th), San Fran CA 94103, phone 310-306-7330, film history and the future of live cinema with music improv by V Vale, Rock Ross.
Oct 12, Friday - MARK PAULINE INTERVIEW- 8:30pm at Oddball Films & Video http://www.oddballfilm.com/ 275 Capp St, San Fran CA 94110, 415-558-8112, $12 rsvp info@oddballfilm.com 30 minutes of rare film clips followed by Pauline interview by Gerry Fialka.
OCT 13, Saturday- PXL THIS 21- annual toy camera film festival, screens at 8:30pm at Other Cinema, 992 Valencia St (& 21st), SF 94110, 415-648-0654, http://othercinema.com/ $6. Plus new PXL documentary. New Mike Kelley article- http://www.othercinema.com/otherzine/?issueid=28&article_id=165
OCT 14, Sunday- MESSIN' With MEZZ MEZZROW 4:30pm, free admission at Bird & Beckett Books & Records 653 Chenery Street, SF- Glen Park, CA 94131, 415-586-3733 http://www.birdbeckett.com/ Gerry Fialka, George Russell & jazzbos reinvent the seminal music book Really The Blues by Mezzrow (Louis Armstrong's herbalist) and Bernard Wolfe (cybernetics pioneer) with LIVE music & readings.
OCT 14, Sunday - Pixelvision Cut-up Phantasmagoria at 8pm at Krowswork, 480 23rd Street (between Telegraph & Broadway, use side entrance), Oakland, CA, 94612, 510-229-7035 http://www.krowswork.com/ Free admission. Multi-media participatory social media.
MORE DETAILS follow - FULL VERSIONS OF PRESS RELEASES :
Thursday, Oct 11 - DOUBLE FEATURE - Thomas Ince and Pixelvision Improv (45 minutes each program) at 8pm (730 pm pot-luck), free admission at New Nothing, 16 Sherman St (off Folsom between 6th & 7th), San Fran CA 94103, phone 310-306-7330.
at 8pm - THOMAS INCE & SF- Historian ERIC DUGDALE probes the motion picture studio pioneer Thomas Harper Ince and his SAN FRANCISCO connections. Ince was involved with famous & powerful people including Thomas Edison, William Randolph Hearst, Marion Davies and Charlie Chaplin. Ince invented many of the systems of modern movie making, working with D.W. Griffith & Mack Sennett. He built studios where Sunset Blvd. now meets Pacific Coast Highway and later in Culver City. Ince used real cowboys & Indians from a wildwest show in Venice Beach. He filmed in natural settings, pioneering production-line techniques, and produced hundreds of films. Hearst's newspapers reported Ince's death in 1924 from indigestion at his home, but there is evidence Ince was shot at his birthday party on Hearst's yacht.
at 8;45pm - PIXELVISION PERCEPT PLUNDER - Media archaeologists Gerry Fialka and Will Erokan host this interactive multi-media event interconnecting the images of Pixelvision (Fisher Price Toy Camera videos) and social media subversions. Live musical accompaniment by V. Vale & Rock Ross. This vibrant interactive screening/workshop is a kind of social engineer's report on the terrain hazards and mandatory processes of the new electric environment. "Fialka's workshops are in depth communication of something extremely elusive - the history of the unimaginable - and his lively interpretation renders it useful." - William Farley, Award-winning filmmaker. http://www.laughtears.com/workshops3.html
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Oct 12, Friday - MARK PAULINE INTERVIEW- 8:30pm at Oddball Films & Video http://www.oddballfilm.com/ 275 Capp St, San Fran CA 94110, 415-558-8112, Admission: $12 rsvp info@oddballfilm.com , 30 minutes of rare film clips followed by Mark Pauline interview by Gerry Fialka. www.oddballfilms.blogspot.com
PAUILNE is
an
American performance artist and inventor, best known as founder and director of Survival Research Labs. He is a 1977 graduate of Eckerd College in St. Petersburg, Florida. Pauline founded SRL in 1978 and it is considered the premier practitioner of "industrial performing arts", and the forerunner of large scale machine performance. SRL is known for producing the most dangerous shows on earth. Although acknowledged as a major influence on popular competitions pitting remote-controlled robots and machines against each other, such as BattleBots and Robot Wars, Pauline shies away from rules-bound competition preferring a more anarchic approach. Machines are liberated and re-configured away from the functions they were originally meant to perform. Pauline has written of SRL, "Since its inception SRL has operated as an organization of creative technicians dedicated to re-directing the techniques, tools, and tenets of industry, science, and the military away from their typical manifestations in practicality, product or warfare." Since its beginning through the end of 2006, SRL has conducted about 48 shows. In the summer of 1982, Pauline blew his hand off while experimenting with solid rocket fuel. In August 1990, ArtPark, a state-sponsored arts festival in Lewiston, New York, canceled a Pauline performance when it turned out he intended "to cover a sputtering Rube Goldberg spaceship with numerous Bibles" that would "serve as thermal protective shields" and be burned to ashes in the course of the performance. According to Pauline "I like to make machines that can just do their own shows... machines that can do all that machines in the science fiction novels can do. I want to be there to make those dreams real."[3] Obtainium - The word obtainium likely originated from but was most certainly popularized by SRL crew finding or liberating discarded or obsolete items and re-directing them from industry, science, and the military and re-purposing them for anarchic machine performances. This event is a MESS (Media Ecology Soul Salon) - The public is invited to these engaging interviews by Gerry Fialka with the following modern thinkers who'll address the metaphysics of their callings and the nitty-gritty of their crafts. http://www.laughtears.com/mess.html & http://www.laughtears.com/
"Great interviewing requires a stimulating interviewer and Gerry Fialka is certainly that. Best part is that he makes the rare act of deep thinking in public before an audience flow as creatively and easily as a Basquiat painting." - Jay Levin, LA Weekly founder and former editor-in-chief. "Fialka's cool questions are right at the heart of all my work. By far the best interview I have ever been treated to." - Ondi Timoner, only two time Sundance Film Festival Grand Jury winner. "My experience in Gerry Fialka's MESS series was a scintillating discussion of history, culture, philosophy, sociology and the creative process. His questions and ideas transcend the accepted, traditional limitations of 'the interview.' " - Brad Schreiber, author, producer, screenwriter, journalist. "Fialka's interview with me was an invigorating, pleasurable, philosophical, specific, awakening journey." - Harry Northup, actor and poet
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OCT 13. Saturday- PXL THIS 21
21st annual toy camera film festival, screens at 8:30pm at Other Cinema, 992 Valencia St (& 21st), San Fran CA 94110, 415-648-0654, admission $6 Plus sneek preview of new PXL documentary.
PXL THIS sites: http://pxl2000.blogspot.com/ and http://sites.google.com/site/pxlthis/ and http://www.youtube.com/user/pxlthis ALSO includes sneak preview of new documentary - Pixel Visions: High Art, Low Resolution http://www.naomifilms.com/
PXL THIS celebrates its 21st year of creative filmmaking by everyone from kids to professionals. One of the most unique international film festivals ever, PXL THIS has been attended by Oliver Stone, Daryl Hannah, Kim Fowley among many more. Pixelvision has even made it onto the big screen via Richard Linklater (Slacker), Michael Almereyda (Nadja, produced by David Lynch) and Craig Baldwin (Sonic Outlaws). Past PXL THIS participants have included Lee Ranaldo (Sonic Youth), Chris Metzler (Fishbone & Salton Sea documentaries), James & Sadie Benning, Joe Gibbons, Cecilia Dougherty, Peggy Ahwesh, Jesse Drew, Margie Strosser and Michael Almereyda. The irresistible irony of the PXL 2000 is that the camera's ease-of-use and affordability, which entirely democratizes movie-making, has inspired the creation of some of the most visionary, avant and luminous film of our time. "If movies offer an escape from everyday life, Pixelvision is the Houdini of the film world." - SF Weekly
PXL THIS 21 highlights: L.M. Sabo's TEA PARTY TAMMY examines the Tea Party movement through a pull string doll. Press ready stills: http://members.cox.net/l.m.sabo/Tea-Party-Tammy-1.jpg &
http://members.cox.net/l.m.sabo/Tea-Party-Tammy-2.jpg &
http://members.cox.net/l.m.sabo/Tea-Party-Tammy-3.jpg &
http://members.cox.net/l.m.sabo/Tea-Party-Tammy-4.jpg
Philip Marion's SPOON & PACKET PRESENT: THE BEST OF HEL CENTRAAL TV brings
the Underworld Awards show to your living room. Press-ready stills:
http://www.spoonandpacket.com/PXL2011.jpg
Clint Enns' THE VALUE OF NOTHING - Demonstration/explanation of Camus’ Absurd using found super 8 footage of circus bears transferred to PXL2000. Press ready stills:
http://i46.photobucket.com/albums/f104/dogmatodisco/thevalueofnothing.jpg
Marc Bascougnano's (l'Enregistreur) PERIPHERIQUE - the city's blood pressure in a cruising cardio-vascular trip. Stills: http://runningtimeblog.blogspot.com/2011/11/periphstills.html & http://www.vimeo.com/user2865876 & http://cakeauboudin.blogspot.com/ & baskee1@hotmail.com
Nine-year-old Wednesday Webber's A POEM FOR DADDY... celebrates her theatrical inspirations and aspirations. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLtf_gt9u4A&list=UUa5QDqRdPvsE8BNHrEWep1Q&index=1&feature=plcp
Pixelvision avatars Lisa Marr and Paolo Davanzo's PLEASE STAND BY - A test film about a test pattern. Venice's own greatest cameraman Christopher Gallo's VENICE BEAT POET PAUL BROOKS: BARBARA documents old school poet paying tribute to his wife reading from his apartment in the Ellison, where he shared conversations with fellow poets John Thomas and Philomene Long. Gerry Fialka's WATCHDOG OF THE MIND probes poetry's influence on Marshall McLuhan via perceptive abstractions and cloned ESP.
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OCT 14, Sunday- 4: 30pm to ^;30pm, free admission at Bird and Beckett 653 Chenery Street San Francisco, CA 94131, 415-586-3733
MESSIN' With MEZZ MEZZROW - Gerry Fialka, George Russell & jazzbos reinvent the seminal music book Really The Blues by Mezz Mezzrow (Louis Armstrong's herbalist) and Bernard Wolfe (cybernetics pioneer) with LIVE music, readings and rare film clips. Mezz influenced everybody from Henry Miller to the Beats to Tom Waits to gangster rappers.
Wolfe's word's best describe what's on tap in "Really the Blues" - "Not very many people have gotten a good look at their country from that bottom-of-the-pit angle before, seen the slimy underside of the rock. It's a chunk of Americana, as they say, and should get written. It's a real American success story, upside down: Horatio Alger standing on his head. In a real sense, Mezz, your story is the plight of the creative artist in the USA. -- to borrow a phrase from Henry Miller...It's the odyssey of an individualist, through a land where the population is manufactured by the system of interchangeable parts. It's the saga of a guy who wanted to make friends, in a jungle where everybody was too busy making money an dodging his own shadow."
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Krowswork Gallery is proud to host Pixelvision Cut-up Phantasmagoria on Sunday, October 14 at 8pm at Krowswork, 480 23rd Street (between Telegraph & Broadway, use side entrance), Oakland, CA, 94612, 510-229-7035 http://www.krowswork.com/ Free admission, donations appreciated and encouraged. contact: Jasmine Moorhead krowswork@gmail.com
Cultural revolutionary Gerry Fialka and Video artist Will Erokan multi-mix short films from the PXL THIS Film Festival and subversive social media, archival films and audio to access an elusive psychospiritual energy never before seen or heard. Experience the death of the Ego as the ecstatic relationships between spatial and emotional conditions is revealed. Join these merry pranksters on a FUN trip.
PXL THIS features films made with the Fisher Price toy video camera. The irresistible irony of the PXL 2000 is that the camera's ease-of-use and affordability, which entirely democratizes movie-making, has inspired the creation of some of the most visionary, avant and luminous film of our time.
"If movies offer an escape from everyday life, Pixelvision is the Houdini of the film world." - SF Weekly

PXL THIS is one of the longest running film festivals in the entertainment capital of the world. Celebrating "cinema povera" moving image art, it evokes Marcel Duchamp's axiom "Poor tools require better skills." Pixelators from across the globe hoick up inventive approaches to the unassuming throw-away of consumer culture. These low-tech hi-jinx films come through loud and clear by reframing a new cinema language.
"Gerry Fialka's PXL THIS festival snaps, crackles and pops off the screen with the funky, user-friendly energy of real first-person cinema. Goofy, gorgeous, and altogether groovy, his provocative program of pieces produced with the Fisher-Price PXL 2000 toy video camera is not only downright entertaining, but more, its blipping and buzzing black 'n' white picture-bits coalesce into a veritable inspiration to all those who cherish the playful, spontaneous gestures and low-cost of electronic folk art." - Craig Baldwin, director & curator.
"When the aliens are here and deciding whether to vaporize all mankind for our inhumanity, cruelty and greed, showing the aliens PXL THIS will save the world. PXL THIS shows our best nature as humanist creators and subversives against those who deserve it. Save the world. Support PXL THIS." - George Manupelli, founder of the Ann Arbor Film Festival, filmmaker, poet, collagist and political/environmental activist
PXL THIS Director Fialka - hires 300 dpi still with PXL Cam - http://www.laughtears.com/images/Gerry-360dpi.jpg and Bio - http://www.laughtears.com/bio.html
Krowswork is named for crows, genus corvus, which are ubiquitous, democratic, ornery, smart, serious, funny, community-oriented, watchful, and fearless. All these words apply to this very special multi-media event at this very special gallery.
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Sunday, September 9, 2012

i welcome your input
 
Mucho Gracias, Gerry
 and here's my '95 George Clinton interview
 
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MIKE KELLEY AND MEME by Gerry Fialka

Artist Mike Kelley continues to inspire and perplex me. His Menippean meme of archeology and anthropology as art nurtures and empowers us. His acclaimed influence will flourish, and the shock of his suicide will not let up. Sanctifying stoic simultaneity?

We had similar backgrounds, raised Catholic in the early 50's in southeast Michigan. We were both pictured in hometown newspapers for winning high school poster design contests. We studied art and psychology at the University of Michigan in the '70s, and spent the last 3 decades in Los Angeles. We both got into sewing. We ventured into dumpster diving - one man's trash is another man's art medium. We both mined the relationships of '60s subcultures to social-political concerns. We got our jobs and lives as mixed up as possible. We were both scraggly ass white dudes, knee deep in reverently satirizing what we dearly love.

We non-conformists are all alike, digging Captain Beefheart, Art Ensemble of Chicago, Iggy & The Stooges, Sun Ra, John Cage, John Lee Hooker, MC5, and Funkadelic. Our art consumption crossed into Dada, Fluxus, Jack Smith, Robert Crumb, and Joseph Beuys who wrote his own new chapter to James Joyce's Finnegans Wake ("where the hand of man never set foot"). Beuys said "Make the secrets productive." In his 1981 artwork Meditations on a Can of Vernors, Mike asked about the gnome mascot of this product - Vernor's ginger ale pop can: "does he have a secret?" He added, "I'm attracted to these overtones of secrecy."

I was duly astonished in Diane Kirkpatrick's History of Art class at U of M in Ann Arbor when Mike, dressed in a Catholic girl's Holy Communion dress yelped psycho-babble poetry through three reel-to-reel tape players presaging digital delay soundscapes. We shared an appreciation for Frank Zappa, who pioneered this idea of studio as instrument. Mike said: "Performances were about belief systems. I thought of them as propaganda-gone-wrong." Frank asked the question: "Who are the brain police?"

Unlike many, Mike achieved renown but did not desert his street roots. I was truly grateful for his not only responding to my interview requests, but actually following through. His generous contributions to LA's literary art center, Beyond Baroque have been befittingly appreciated. The upstairs gallery is now dedicated to Mike. He did not require any rental fee when we screened his feature film Day Is Done at our 7 Dudley Cinema series, knowing that we are all-volunteer, always-free-admission and welcome the homeless.

As Ken Johnson wrote in the New York Times August 17, 2012: "Mike Kelley, the celebrated Los Angeles artist who took his own life at 57 this year, was a hero to many. But partly because he so determinedly defied traditional laws of stylistic consistency and coherence, the number of people who fully grasped what he was about is probably small." Small? Hell, I'd put that closer to zero. And that's probably what Mike wanted. I feel Mike's art was constantly mocking his own existential despair. Could anyone really ever get Mike? And more important, were we supposed to?
McLuhan nailed it - "Understanding is NOT having a point of view" - even as he teased folks to believe his percepts were theories. Similarly, Mike said: "I tend to use writers and theories for my own ends." Kelley merged language and image to transform art and noise into a transcenDANCE.

Robert Pincus, reviewing Kelley's Monkey Island show at Beyond Baroque in Art In America, September 1983, noted, "He attempts to understand rather than judge, to analyze human drives and desires, to dissect our foibles."

In Artforum, May 2012, Ann Goldstein reinforces that duality: "Mike used binary structures as a means to communicate as an artist, setting up correspondence between order and chaos, the analytical and the associative, the practical and the speculative, belief systems and propaganda, the every day and the uncanny."

In that same issue, Tony Oursler explained "...signature Mike: First, we are struck by an anarchic and often biting humor, which unfolds to reveal a deeply mysterious yet considered logic, which then evaporates back into our world, leaving us to ponder our predicament." Percept pondering as plunder?

The exuberant embrace of contradiction is key to experiencing Mike Kelley. As Duchamp said "The artist in the future would be a person who points his finger" and, "I want to contradict myself in order to avoid conforming to my own taste." Pointing at that meme, are you looking at the finger or the meme?

The word "meme" (the double me) relates to cultural transmission and memory. It was the center of my two Kelley interviews. The Pacifica Radio one was 18 years ago, and the Bergamot Station one (before a live audience) was 8 years ago. I was hoping to do a third one in 2014, thus making each ten years apart.

A few Kelley responses:
G- What artist would you like to do your portrait?
M- One of the cave artists.
G- If you were in a vat of vomit, and somebody threw a bag of shit at your head, what would you do?
M- Cry.
G- Tell me something good you never had and never want.
M- Kids.

At Bergamot, we discussed a New York Times article about kid’s art and Dali. He recalled a Popeye cartoon that affected him deeply as a child and he started to cry. After realizing he had gotten to us all emotionally, he turned to me and said, "Boo hoo, I'm crying." Pratfall pathos?

He really perked our commonality with his enthusiasm for James Brown. We discussed the sign he saw at a Brown concert that read "Future Shock TV." Toffler meets soul music - how "fun key" can you get? Mike's confidence with suspended judgment was an epiphany for me. Kelley conjured Brown's certainties: "I've got a move that tells me what to do" and "I feel good, I knew that I would." Mike's howling laugh echoed James Brown's ear-piercing shriek, "Serious as cancer."

Mike was profoundly moved by William Burroughs, who said "Language is a virus." Malcolm Gladwell wrote, "A meme is an idea that behaves like a virus - that moves through a population, taking hold in each person it infects." Self-referential slapstick? Situationist psychoanalysis?

Another commonality we shared was a Bunuelian point of view, and Mike could mimic the master. Before the Bergamot interview, I asked Mike if we could discuss his having said that art is making your sickness everybody else's. He agreed, then craftily, before the audience, denied he had ever said it: "Art is some sort of interesting area where dysfunction is allowed." And Mike's idea of a cure was to paint with Mercurochrome.

Kelley was thrilled when the New York Times called The Poetics Project "the most irritating show in New York City." Mike reconfigured planned failure. He claimed, "I became an artist to fail. I wanted to do something that rules out success and makes sure I'm not a useful member of society." Paradoxical tricksterism? Frank Zappa said "I am a failure, but not a miserable failure." Fellow Michigander filmmaker Paul Schrader quipped "The role of the artist is to attempt to sell out, but fail." Kelley reinvented this whole push-pull creative-memory-syndrome failure trope into a resonating cycle.

How and why does one turn a breakdown into a breakthrough? Perhaps I fail at writing this article, merely aggrandizing myself in comparisons with Mike. Maybe I am in denial, but does suicide connote failure? Was he more heart than head? Are we all trying to be that way? Writer Emily Colette called that "Becketty I-can't-go-on-I'll-go-on kind of way." Samuel Beckett himself urged, "Try again, Fail again. Fail better." Deep down inside did Mike want acknowledgement at being a failure? Simulacrum sanctuary?

"He who washes his hands of life utters all he has in his heart." - Saadi

Kelley jockeyed his Janus-like doubleness in more ways than two ... in Joycean "laughtears" liquidity. He enlightened, entertained and enraged simultaneously. The poet W.H. Auden pondered whether art pacifies or activates. Gurdjieff said "Laughter is the reconciliation of yes and no." As the Sufis say, "Life is a dream and death is waking up." Nicole Rudick's "In God's Oasis" essay about Mike's home in Ann Arbor, surveys how that household would "break through into unsuspected worlds” that "generate a tension between attraction and repulsion."

What meta-memes influenced his death? He was one of the founding members of the proto-punk noise group Destroy All Monsters, who wrote about "the beauty of death" and how "death was endlessly interesting." One major literary influence on Mike was Comte de Lautremont, who also committed suicide. One of Mike's last works had Superman reciting Sylvia Plath. Kelley's first aspiration was to be a writer. So, why did he choose this exit?
What was cluster-fuckin' in that sensitive emotional core? Does one become what one beholds? Alan Watts pointed out: "Camus said there is only one serious philosophical question which is whether or not to commit suicide."

Duchamping at the bit, I wait for the resurrection of Mike Kelley on the astral plane. In Foul Perfection, Kelley’s 2003 MIT collection of essays and criticism, my 1994 interview is referenced: “art has a ‘syntax … (that’s) like a written piece of language.’ ” Language creates an addicting matrix of pattern recognition, and taxes our ability to uncover and cope with its hidden effects. Words can evoke more than their meaning. Whose sin? Whose tax?

Can anyone ever really get Mike? And if anyone had, would he still be living? His exit plan neither mystifies nor clarifies. Did anyone really get him while he was alive? Does his suicide make this all the more unclear? Duchamp made one door for two doorways in the corner of a room as a piece of art in 1927. Which doorway did Mike chose for his exit?

"A poet is an unhappy being whose heart is torn by secret sufferings, but whose lips are so strangely formed that when the sighs and the cries escape them, they sound like beautiful music... and then people crowd about the poet and say to him: 'Sing for us soon again,' that is as much as to say. 'May new sufferings torment your soul.'" - Kierkegaard

In the end, does the end justify the memes?

--- Gerry Fialka, a put-on artist who puts on events http://www.laughtears.com/ - PXL THIS Film Festival, 7 Dudley Cinema, Documental, http://venicewake.org/, lectures world-wide on experimental film, avant-garde art, and subversive social media. His new workshop/lecture is entitled How To Correctly Misread Mike Kelley As Menippean Meme.

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GERRY FIALKA's Otherzine articles-
 
Fall 2012 - Mike Kelley And Meme (scroll down for SPECIAL FEATURES and OUTTAKES)
- due online Sept 12
 
Spring 2012 - Occupy Awake:Conscious Mapmakers On World Wide Watch
 
Fall 2011 - McLuhan's City As Classroom Flips Into All-At-Onceness As Classroom
 
Spring 2011 - McLuhan & WikiLeaks: 'Hoedown' and 'Hendiadys'
 
Spring 2010 - Looking Glass - Review of Millennium Film Journal #51     http://www.othercinema.com/otherzine/?issueid=23&article_id=99
 
Spring 2009 - Dream Awake -HOW JOYCE INVENTED OTHER CINEMA & DISGUISED IT AS A BOOK
 
Gerry Fialka Lecture-Workshop:
The Hows & Whys of Correctly Misreading Mike Kelley As Menippean Meme -
Art Historian-performance artist Fialka delves deep into the many layers of Kelly's art, which involved found objects, textile banners, drawings, assemblage, collage, noise music, performance, film and video. Writing in The New York Times, in 2012, Holland Cotter described Kelley as, "one of the most influential American artists of the past quarter century and a pungent commentator on American class, popular culture and youthful rebellion." Fialka probes the interconnections of Kelley with Marcel Duchamp, Donkey basketball, James Joyce, McLuhan, Menippean Satire, Sun Ra, James Brown and more. Just as there is really no ending to Joyce’s Finnegans Wake, there is no ending to exploring and rediscovering Kelley's meme anew. Examine misreading Kelley as  "the artist as nihilistic Bad Boy, unrestrained Monster from the Id, intent on nothing but disturbing the peace" - Steven Stern catalogue essay for Kelley's Hermaphrodite Drawings, Gagosian Gallery, 2007.
 
Fall 2012 - Mike Kelley And Meme - SPECIAL FEATURES:
 
Special thanks to Suzy Williams, Jules Minton, Roberto Palazzo, Mark Hardin, Mike Mosher, Hank Rosenfeld, Geoff Seelinger, Christine Metropolis, Craig Baldwin, Rocco of Angel City Books & Records, Herve DeJordy, Billy Stern, Fred Dewey and Steve DeGroodt.
 
"What if Ajax's suicide was simply motivated by an aversion to speech, rather than by shame? As a response to shame, suicide is at least respectable, but using suicide as an easy way to attain silence is definitely  a sign of weakness. You don't cut off your nose to spite your face - that's too easy - instead, you should succumb to ugliness rather than win false mastery over it. Silence must be attained by sheer force of will, not cheap mechanics. A blowfish inflates to frighten enemies that it cannot defeat in one-on-one combat. A body swells death, as if proud." - Mike Kelley, Minor Histories MIT 2004
 
Rothko's image as a tortured artist is well illustrated by Lee Seldes's description of his suicide: "The enormous patch of congealed blood was the ultimate work of art, the final dramatic gesture, the true, most poignant action painting." Lee Seldes, The Legacy of Mark Rothko (New York: Penguin Books, 1979) - FOOTNOTE #5 PAGE 101, from Mike Kelley, Minor Histories MIT 2004
 
"One of the enduring myths of the avant-garde is that of the artist maudit - driven to insanity or death, offering up his genius and life for the sins of the philistine bourgeoisie." - Sheldon Nodelman, Art In America, Oct 2006
 
When I asked Sun Ra how his show differed from James Brown performance, Sun Ra replied, "James Brown gives the people what they want; I give them what they need." - from Mike Kelley, Minor Histories MIT 2004

"People are really visually illiterate. They learn to read in school, but they don’t learn to decode images. They’re not taught to look at films and recognize them as things that are put together. They see film as a kind of nature, like trees. They don’t say, “Oh yeah, somebody made that; somebody cut that.” They don’t think about visual things that way. So, visual culture just surrounds them, but people are oblivious to it." - Kelley http://www.art21.org/texts/mike-kelley/interview-mike-kelley-day-is-done
 
From the catalogue essay by Steven Stern for Kelley's Hermaphrodite Drawings, Gagosian Gallery, 2007-
"misreading...the artist as nihilistic Bad Boy, unrestrained Monster from the Id, intent on nothing but disturbing the peace"  .... "shuttling uneasily between revulsion and a strange sort of giddy pleasure" .... 
"I make art in order to give other people my problems." - Mike Kelley
 
"It’s all about inversions of power…which is very typical of folk forms that perform carnivalesque functions—where you get to break the mold of how you’re supposed to act or look. In that sense, it’s analogous to the traditional social role of art in the avant-garde, but it’s a very restrained one. And I’m just trying to show that relationship between the traditional avant-garde and the carnivalesque social function of these folk rituals, as I guess you’d call them." - Mike Kelley

Please vote on the title of my workshop/lecture. Should it be:

1- Mike Kelley As Menippean Meme

2- How to Correctly Misread Mike Kelley As Menippean Meme

3- How to Incorrectly Misread Mike Kelley As Menippean Meme

4 - The Hows & Whys of Correctly Misreading Mike Kelley As Menippean Meme
 
5- ???
 
Outtakes from my article-
 
(one man's trash is another man's art medium, "me die uhm").
 
and all the radical experimenters that John Sinclair and J.C. Crawford hoicked up. Still do.
 
"How could you make content ambiguous?”... "That's what I think art can do - make things visible."... "Critical joys."  He barked endless paradoxical insights
 
Duchamping at the bit, I wait for the resurrection of Mike Kelley on the astral plane, leaking all over the curb in de twat, mesh again. He will always be the wise sage shamanistically enlightening myriad memes of Menippean mysteries, miasmic morphologies and memory mamafeastas.
 
“A burning would has come to dance inane.” - james joyce Finnegans Wake,
 
"An artist is one who kids him self most gracefully." - captain beefheart
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