Image copyright of the artist, courtesy of Video Data Bank, www.vdb.org, School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
dir. Miranda July
year. 1996—2001
country. United States
run-time. 58 mins
rating. N/A
£6.00 (£4.50 conc.)
Doors - 4:30pm
Film - 7:30pm
Four short videos by filmmaker, author, and artist Miranda July:
“A 12-year-old Olympic swimmer and her mother (both played by July) speak to the public about going for the gold.” — VDB
Atlanta, dir. Miranda July, 1996, 10 mins
“A captivating video about surveillance, identity, watching, and being watched, The Amateurist slides along the edges of horror and satire to create an unsettling portrait of a woman on the brink of a technologically driven madness.” — VDB
“The Amateurist alternately adores and rejects three familiar tropes: the sick and examined woman, the starlet/stripper, and the genius/talentless woman. As a performer living with a chronic illness who has been both a child actress and a stripper, I choose not to speak with an autobiographical voice, which would, in itself be yet another cliché (the confessional). Instead, I create women who are predictable amalgamations of single types… What I choose to say with these figurines is much less articulatable, though no less familiar. The prescribed lines dismantle themselves with mutual interrogation and this process releases fumes of true loneliness, relentless strength, insatiable desire.” — Miranda July
The Amateurist, dir. Miranda July, 1998, 14 mins
“Nest of Tens is comprised of four alternating stories which reveal mundane yet personal methods of control. These systems are derived from intuitive sources. Children and a retarded adult operate control panels made out of paper, lists, monsters, and their own bodies.” — VDB
Nest of Tens, dir. Miranda July, 1999, 27 mins
"There are two movies I saw on TV about boys who were taken from their families and then returned to them years later. One boy was on a fun spaceship for years and the other boy was kidnapped and molested. These boys were never the same again and they just couldn't re-integrate into the family. I saw these movies when I was little. I've often described them to people, always paired together. They are sort of the comedy and tragedy version of the same story and it is a mundanely spiritual story. Getting Stronger Every Day includes these boys' tales, but they are like mystical objects placed on the living reality of the man storyteller. In other parts of the movie actual mystical objects hover in peoples lives without a myth or story attached. I like to think about how these dimensions interact simply and can be enacted: real life / story / worldly / spirit / video / flat drawing." — Miranda July
Getting Stronger Every Day, dir. Miranda July, 2001, 7 mins
Variously selected for International Film Festival Rotterdam (1999, 2000) and International Short Film Festival Oberhausen (2001), “Getting Stronger Every Day” commissioned for LUX Moving Image’s Biennial Festival “Pandaemonium.”
Doors - 4.30pm
Film - 5.00pm