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Video's got the streets, suckas
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15 Minutes gives a little fame to local visual artists
by GENEVIEVE PAIEMENT
Every year at World Film Festival time, film critics across the city join in a chorus of grumbling about how our fest is not as good as T.O.'s, how it lacks big-star power and exciting innovation. Naysayers may be placated a bit this year as the fest takes a fearless step in a new direction--for at least 15 minutes a day throughout the festival. "The name of the project is a reference to the '15 minutes of fame' thing, it's a chance to take these visual artists out of the clubs, into the streets and into the spotlight," enthuses 15 Minutes art director Martin Harvey, of Bubble Productions.
It was Spotvision, the Montreal company responsible for making those super-duper, high-resolution LED screens, who approached Harvey and his partner Shawna Carley to do an event. "We decided to offer a window for young visual artists to show their stuff through. In clubs they're more in the background. Normally, the DJ comes first, then the lights, and then the visuals person is off in the background in some corner. Here, the visuals person gets to choose the soundtrack; they have the freedom to do what they want." Most artists chose to do an original piece especially for this occasion. Their works will be shown on three screens (one inside, one at the east side of the Complexe Desjardins Ste-Catherine entrance, and one at the corner of Ste-Catherine and Jeanne-Mance), every day of the festival, from 6-6:15 p.m.
Having had only about a month and a half to assemble or commission about a dozen works, the lineup is surprisingly diverse, featuring names that appear often on club and event flyers around town. "If you go out, you've seen these people's work. Each artist has done visuals in a nightclub at some point. Some do it once in a while, some have or have had residencies at Sona or Stereo, or done stuff at big parties like Black and Blue or Cream. We have people from different scenes--from the people who have a visuals residency at Unity to the people who do visuals at Interchill record launches. It's a wide spectrum of artists."
Why the focus on club visuals? "Because it's the most exciting thing in film and video. Club visuals are more free-form than the average student film. Most of these guys are used to doing 12-hour marathons, setting up a visual ambiance. It should be interesting to see how they compress their work into a 15-minute piece."
The only actual film on the program is Ziad Touma's '98 short Line up (screens Aug. 25), which features various recognizable club fixtures freezing their asses off in the lineup for Sona. There's also the special treat of an excerpt from London-based Ninja Tune duo Hexstatic's debut CD-ROM album Rewind (screens Aug. 26).
Other artists include Pho Productions (Aug. 27), Vault de Bauhx (Aug. 28), La Boîte Orange (Aug. 29), Eon & Opium (Aug. 30), Parano Studio (Aug. 31), Phosphène (with an Interchill Records soundtrack, Sept. 1), Louis Veillette (aka Synergie, Sept. 2), Many-2 (Sept. 3) and Sensoria média (Sept. 4).
More World Film Fest stories
15 Minutes runs from Aug. 25-Sept. 4. Visit http://15minutes.reakt.com for more info
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