INDIE FILMMAKER SERIES

IFCO's Indie Filmmaker Series celebrates the works of some of Ottawa's and Canada's most compelling and innovative independent filmmakers. This series will feature two components; an artist talk, which will be held in IFCO's Members' Lounge and a seperate screening of selected works by the filmmaker at various local screening venues.

2007-2009, ~50 mins, performance:

When: Friday, February 26th, 2010
Where: Mercury Lounge (56 ByWard Market - Upstairs)
Time: 8:00pm - 10:00pm
Cost: $7.00

the wooden lightbox: a secret art of seeing is Alex MacKenzie’s exploration and reconfiguration of cinematic apparatus and emulsion. Part of an extended cycle of films that use the early development of cinema as a marker for cultural, technological and economic change, these film cycles draw from turn of the century cinematic prototypes and long forgotten ideas surrounding the moving image and its early promise. At the core of this approach is the use of a homebuilt hand-cranked projector in an expanded cinema format to present a striking array of handmade and processed emulsion.

The vast potential of the film frame is drawn out through imagery both archaic and contemporary in shape and form. Hypnosis, panorama, motion studies, expectation, magic, the dreamworld and sleight of eye conspire in this intimate and immersive framework. TWL had its world premiere at Victoria’s Anti-Matter Underground Film Festival, and has screened at the Rotterdam International Film Festival, Lightcone (Scratch Projections) Paris, le 102 Grenoble, (k-raa-k)3 festival Brussels, Grand-Guignol Lyon, WNDX festival of film and video art Winnipeg, Struts Gallery Sackville, Halifax Independent Filmmakers Festival,

and will be performed in Toronto and across the British Isles in late 2009.

The Wooden Lightbox is about remembering, about throwing ourselves back to a time when audience expectation was open, with the projection of films equally non-rigid. The degraded quality of the images, often created through the alternative emulsions and hand processing of the film, helps to reinforce the notion of lost memories and decaying history...we are reminded that not all paths in the past were fully explored, not all creative ventures are completed. We do not always need to look to the future for fresh and worthwhile ideas, the past is strewn with buried treasure, and experience is the true buried pleasure. - Gerald Saul

Artist's Bio:
Alex MacKenzie’s practice focuses on various models of expanded cinema and light projection involving the handmade image. He was the founder and curator of the Edison Electric Gallery of Moving Images, the Blinding Light! Cinema, and the Vancouver Underground Film Festival.

His live works have been presented at festivals and underground screening spaces throughout Europe and North America, most recently on a month long tour of England, Ireland and Scotland, including performances at the Cork International Film Festival, Leeds International Film Festival, Aurora Festival In Norwich, Brief Encounters Festival in Bristol, and many others. Alex has presented workshops and lectures at the Concordia University Graduate Studies Program, Simon Fraser University, York University, Mount Allison University, Humboldt State University (California), Atelier MTK in France, and elsewhere.

He has completed residencies in Grenoble, France and at Struts Gallery/Faucet Media in New Brunswick. Alex is the co-editor of Damp: Contemporary Vancouver Media Art (Anvil Press 2008), interviewed David Rimmer for Loop, Print, Fade + Flicker: David Rimmer’s Moving Images (Anvil Press 2009), and is currently designing handmade film emulsions and altered projection devices for gallery installation and live performance. www.alexmackenzie.ca.