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Program 7: Craig Baldwin Series: Views from the Avant-Garde [46th NYFF Oct. 3-5, 2008] Director: Various, Runtime: 122 1 2 3 The Diptherians Episode Two: The Rhythm That Forgets Itself Lewis Klahr, USA, 2008; 12.5m (digital, color/sound. Music: Tom Recchion. Cast: Kate Valk, Michael Stumm, Kevin O’Brien, Daniel Zippi, Henry Stram, Johann Carlo and Willem Dafoe. Funded by the City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs ) “Before I left New York a decade ago, the above actors and I improvised our way through a series of photo shoots trying to determine exactly what a ‘Diptherian’ is. Here’s the first definition—an elliptical narrative of what could become an ongoing serial of feature-length duration. But I’m not making any promises (all the pictures still aren’t cut out yet).”—L.K. “The video-based Episode Two: The Rhythm that Forgets Itself is an elliptical narrative that presents a group of sartorially gifted demigods or supervillains (played by Wooster Group all-stars Kate Valk and Willem Dafoe, among others) as they go through their extra-temporal paces. The arcane mythology that surrounds them indicates that they exist outside of the laws of physics and man but, despite that, are trapped in their own patterns of asymmetrically cyclical behavior, somnambulistic decadence, and cosmically petty intrigues. And, similarly, the fumetti-like use of photographs gives a verisimilitude to the characters that almost grants them a sense of individual agency, but the flatness of the cut-outs squelches any sense of free will. That even the flattest of objects casts a shadow is one of the many paradoxes and mysteries that is hidden within The Diptherians.” —Chris Stults 1 2 Tattoo Step Michael Maryniuk, Canada, 2008; 1m (35mm sound) Temporary Tattoos applied to 35mm for eternity. An energetic conjuring of Manitoban spirits. Starring: Haunted HyperActive Hypnotists and Breakneck Butterfly Barfbags. 1 2 3 4 Mock up on Mu Craig Baldwin, US, 2008; 109m (16mm to digiBetaSP, color/sound) A radical hybrid of spy, sci-fi, Western, and even horror genres, Mock Up On Mu cobbles together a feature-length “collage-narrative” based on (mostly) true stories of California's postwar subcultures of rocket pioneers, alternative religions, and Beat lifestyles. Pulp-serial snippets, industrial-film imagery, and B- (and Z-) fiction clips are intercut with newly shot live-action material, powering a playful, allegorical trajectory through the now-mythic occult matrix of Jack Parsons (Crowleyite founder of the Jet Propulsion Lab), L. Ron Hubbard (sci-fi author turned cult-leader), and Marjorie Cameron (bohemian artist and “mother of the New Age movement”). Their intertwined tales spin out into a speculative farce on the militarization of space, mind-control, subterranean intrigue, and the corporate take-over of spiritual fulfillment and leisure-time aerospace speculation …and in pulp-serial form to boot!”—C.B.

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