Screening: Phil Solomon, IN MEMORIAM

“Do you think the end of the world will come at night time?” “Uh-uh. At dawn.” (Plato to Jim, Rebel Without a Cause)

After the death of his lifelong friend Mark LaPore, American filmmaker Phil Solomon created a trilogy of films titled[_ In Memoriam_] (2007-8). Leaving behind his previous abstract expressionist celluloid works, he created three films entirely within the virtual world of the video game Grand Theft Auto. Phil Solomon’s triptych In Memoriam will be screened together with Crossroads, a collaboration with Mark LaPore filmed just before to his death, for the first time in Scandinavia.

The films are part of a phenomenon that became know in the early 2000s as “Machinima”, a misspelled merge of machine cinema. This form of moviemaking is using the graphics of videogames to create real-time animated films. The roots of Machinima are the demoscene, an international computer art subculture from the 1980s, but with new game technologies that became widely available in the late 1990s, with freely roaming characters, this form of animation exploded. A group of people including Katherine Anna Kang and Hugh Hancock started to popularize the genre, collected works on a website, internetarchive.org, and gave them a context as virtual reality filmmaking was evolving. Machinima reached its peak around 2007 and has now almost disappeared, as it is possible today even for amateur animators to create high-end computer productions.

The screening is part of the exhibition program Mad Horizon by John Skoog and Emanuel Röhss.

Phil Solomon: Crossroad, in collaboration with Mark LaPore, digital video, 2005, 5 min.
Phil Solomon: Rehearsals for Retirement, digital video, 2007, 11 min.
Phil Solomon: Last Days in a Lonely Place, digital video, 2007, 20 min.
Phil Solomon: Still Raining, Still Dreaming, digital video, 2008, 12 min.

The program starts at 19:30.

Phil Solomon was born in 1954 in New York. He has been making films since 1975 and is currently Professor of Film Studies at the University of Colorado at Boulder. He was awarded a USA Artists Fellowship (2012), a Guggenheim Fellowship (1994), and his films were shown in almost every major venue for experimental film throughout the US and Europe, including two Whitney Biennials and three monographic shows at the Museum of Modern Art New York. His 3-channel installation American Falls (2000-2012) was recently exhibited at the Museum of the Moving Image in New York.

About the films:

Crossroad, Mark LaPore and Phil Solomon, digital video, 2005, 5 min.

I went to the crossroad, fell down on my knees
I went to the crossroad, fell down on my knees
Asked the lord above “Have mercy, save poor Bob, if you please”

Mmmmm, standin’ at the crossroad, I tried to flag a ride
Standin’ at the crossroad, I tried to flag a ride
Didn’t nobody seem to know me, everybody pass me by

Mmmm, the sun goin’ down, boy, dark gon’ catch me here
Oooo, eeee, boy, dark gon’ catch me here
I haven’t got no lovin’ sweet woman that love and feel my care

You can run, you can run, tell my friend-boy Willie Brown
You can run, tell my friend-boy Willie Brown
Lord I’m standin’ at the crossroad, babe, I believe I’m sinkin’ down
(Robert Johnson)

In Memoriam (Mark LaPore, 1952-2005)

All images for In Memoriam were captured from the videogame series Grand Theft Auto,

where Mark and I,
boys of summer,
were allowed to roam and wander
without mission
without murder
“cheating” our way through the streets of polygonal horrors,
finding (to our continuing astonishment)
amusement,
poetry,
and
darkness,
just over there
at the edge of town…
(P.S.)

Rehearsals for Retirement, Phil Solomon, digital video, 2007, 11 min.

The days grow longer for smaller prizes
I feel a stranger to all surprises
You can have them I don’t want them
I wear a different kind of garment
In my rehearsals for retirement

The lights are cold again they dance below me
I turn to old friends they do not know me
All but the beggar he remembers
I put a penny down for payment
In my rehearsals for retirement

Had I known the end would end in laughter
I tell my daughter it doesn’t matter
(Phil Ochs, Rehearsals for Retirement)

Last Days in a Lonely Place, Phil Solomon, digital video, 2007, 20 min.

Farewell my friends
Farewell my dear ones
If I was rude
Forgive my weakness
Goodbye my friends
Goodbye to evening parties
Remember me
In the spring
To work for your bread
Soon you must leave
Remember your families
And work for your children

I don’t need much
and the older I become
I realize
My friendships
Will carry me over
any course of distance
any cause of sorrow
My friends that last
Will dance one more time
with me.
I don’t need words
This, I need.
(Polly Jean Harvey, Before Departure)

Still Raining, Still Dreaming, Phil Solomon, digital video, 2008, 12 min.

Like Rain it sounded till it curved
And then I knew ’twas Wind—
It walked as wet as any Wave
But swept as dry as sand—
When it had pushed itself away
To some remotest Plain
A coming as of Hosts was heard
That was indeed the Rain—
It filled the Wells, it pleased the Pools
It warbled in the Road—
It pulled the spigot from the Hills
And let the Floods abroad—
It loosened acres, lifted seas
The sites of Centres stirred
Then like Elijah rode away
Upon a Wheel of Cloud.
(Emily Dickinson, Like Rain it Sounded Till it Curved)

Rainy day, rain all day
Ain’t no use in gettin uptight
Just let it groove its own way
Let it drain your worries away yeah

Lay back and groove on a rainy day hey
Lay back and dream on a rainy day
Lay back and groove on a rainy day
Lay back
Oh yeah !
(Jimi Hendrix, Still Raining, Still Dreaming)