“Taking the moving image from the cinema to the gallery—and beyond.” That’ll be the tagline of the Future Projections section of this year’s Toronto International Film Festival (September 6 through 16). The lineup’s below, with descriptions from the Festival (previously: Galas and Special Presentations and Contemporary World Cinema).
Ming Wong: Making Chinatown, 2012 New Site-Specific Installation. Video artist Ming Wong recreates selected scenes from Roman Polanski’s Chinatown with himself cast in each role, and then projects the resulting films onto photographically-altered sets reminiscent of studio lots. This funny and occasionally shocking installation addresses race, gender and sexuality while deconstructing cinema conventions and their ability to shape identity. Presented in collaboration with the Gladstone Hotel, 1214 Queen Street West. September 6 to 16.
Kelly Richardson: Mariner 9, 2012 North American Premiere. Kelly Richardson’s Mariner 9 transforms the Royal Ontario Museum’s Thorsell Spirit House into an immersive environment, transporting the viewer into the centre of a Martian dust storm several centuries in the future. The Martian landscape becomes a battlefield of real and imagined spacecraft in this panoramic video installation that is at once dystopian and alarmingly beautiful. Presented in collaboration with the Institute of Contemporary Culture, Royal Ontario Museum. Thorsell Spirit House, 100 Queen’s Park. September 6 to 16.
Jeroen Eisinga: Springtime, 2011/2012 International Premiere. Withstanding a swarm of over 250,000 bees, Daredevil Dutch artist Jeroen Eisinga transforms himself into a living shroud of buzzing insects in this spellbinding, monumental film performance. The unstable, flickering image draws to mind a host of rich and varied art-historical references, from medieval portraiture and 19th-century freak show catalogues to Andy Warhol and Richard Avedon. Springtime will be shown alongside a suite of rare, never-before exhibited photographs. Presented in collaboration with MOCCA, 952 Queen Street West. August 24 to September 16.
Callum Cooper: The Constant and the Flux, 2012 Special TIFF Commission. Random Torontonians, projected and spinning, occupy TIFF Bell Lightbox’s giant atrium wall—along with the unique apparatus that multi-talented Australian artist Callum Cooper used to capture them on film—each evening of the Festival. Both formally rigorous and dizzyingly fun, Cooper applies his practice to this specially-commissioned new work for the Festival, referencing everything from turn-of-the-century bioscopes to YouTube. Presented in the TIFF Bell Lightbox atrium (after 6 pm), Reitman Square, 350 King Street West. September 6 to 16.
Luther Price: Number 9 and Number 9 II, 2012 International Premiere. One of the major discoveries of this year’s Whitney Biennale, American artist-filmmaker Luther Price’s glass slides are born from his radical filmmaking, but exist as stunning works of their own. In his most recent slide series, individual collages of transformed found footage, ants, and other detritus including dust and hair are held within the slides; materiality gives way to abstraction and textured compositions as light passes through them. Presented in collaboration with CONTACT Gallery, 80 Spadina Avenue, Suite 310. September 6 to October 6.
Liang Yue: The Quiet Room, 2012 International Premiere. This serene installation by leading Chinese photographer and filmmaker Liang Yue recalls the most dramatic and ethereal of landscape-based art, profiling Canada in winter through both image and sound. The work focuses on the textures of snow and the mechanics of condensation, coupled with a surprisingly dramatic soundtrack of carefully recorded and amplified winter sounds. Presented in collaboration with the Gladstone Hotel, 1214 Queen Street West. September 6 to 16.
Sook-Yin Lee: We Are Light Rays, 2012 International Premiere. Canadian musician, filmmaker and visual artist Sook-Yin Lee explores the power of montage and the thrall of narrative in her new installation. She underlines the fragility of narrative resolution by contrasting a series of “micro-movies”—paired still photographs housed within light boxes that create a wealth of mysterious connections—with a rough video sketch for an abandoned film. Presented in collaboration with Keep Six Exhibits, Oz Studio, 134 Ossington Ave. September 6 to 16.
Peaches, in collaboration with Vice Cooler: Peaches Does the Drake, 2012 International Premiere. Singer/songwriter and performance artist Peaches—Canada’s favorite gender-bending, electro-punk icon—collaborates with TIFF and the Drake Hotel to present new projection-based work for the duration of the Festival, and a group of collaborative performances for one night only. This one-time event follows the world premiere of her first feature film, Peaches Does Herself, which screens as part of the Festival’s Vanguard lineup. Performances include a special laser harp show by Peaches and her band Sweet Machine. Presented in collaboration with the Drake Hotel, 1150 Queen Street West. Video installation runs from dusk to dawn, September 6 to 16. Peaches Does the Drake, site-specific performances by Peaches and friends, takes place on September 14.
For news and tips throughout the day every day, follow @KeyframeDaily on Twitter and/or the RSS feed. Get Keyframe Daily in your inbox by signing in at fandor.com/daily.
