Heap Us 'Round Our Ruins (9.29.09)

New films by Brent Stewart, Michael Carter, Shane Doling, Josh Weissbach and Ben Balcom

Heap Us 'Round Our Ruins opens with new shorts from Nashville natives Shane Doling, Brent Stewart (The Dirty Ones) and Michael Carter.

The conceptual premise of Weissbach's film work, all shot on Super 8 and 16mm film, is based on the notion that as all humans inhabit space, space simultaneously inhabits humans, and within this, he raises the question, “how does the relationship between intimacy, trauma, and space function in the life of every human being?”

Balcom's films teeter on the line between reality and dream, characterized by the appearance and disappearance of narrative. The form of these films oscillates between pure experimentation to character-based allegory.  Balcom attempts to discover the relationship between human nature and the representation of this space through a reconfiguration of experience in an artificial medium.  -Turner Falls River Culture

Excerpt from 114 Wildwood Ave.: http://vimeo.com/5578579

Excerpt from Interiors Of The Liquid Gap: http://vimeo.com/5578148

Excerpt from Every Heart Is A Miniature Inferno: http://vimeo.com/5580258

Balcom on Heap Us 'Round Our Ruins:  “Neil Young pointed out that watching our films made him feel as if he was rubbing a paste all over his face (a gracious use of metaphor), a paste of color, a paste of images/sounds/textures, which lead to a particularly stimulating question: by pointing out that many of the techniques that we use are relics of a certain avant-garde tradition, specifically this hyper-kinetic paste-rubbing camera-movement-heavy wandering, he posed the question, “how do you escape the influence of what has become the residue of innovations made in the 60's and 70's?”.  For Josh, the answer comes in the fusion of the experimental and the documentary, through a collection of spaces and a careful application of topoanalysis. For Ben it comes in the investigation of language, the transfiguration of persona, and the forging of a signal through narrative. With a little articulation we arrived at the conclusion that what it comes down to is that if we believe in our poetics, our language, everything else will follow.”

Doors open at 8pm, screening begins at 8:30pm sharp.
$5 admission, $10 admission with open bar or BYOB.