Friday, March 9, 2012

3/21 lana z caplan

Lana Z Caplan is an experimental film/videomaker, photographer and installation artist who splits her time between Brooklyn, Boston and the Amalfi Coast of Italy. She works with super8, found footage, video, interactive projections, and alterative processes photography in her pieces that explore relationships, mortality and social issues. Her work has been exhibited and screened from coast to coast of North, South and Central Americas as well as some major cities in Europe, India and Israel. Recent screenings and exhibitions include: National Gallery, (San Juan, PR); MadCat Women’s International Film Festival (San Francisco, CA; "FICCO"(Festival Internacional de Cine Contemporáneo), Museo Tamayo Arte Contemporáneo, (Mexico City); Festival Cap Sembrat 3, (Barcelona, Spain); Danforth Museum of Art, (MA); Gallery NAGA, (Boston, MA); John Stevenson Gallery, (NY, NY). Recent grants and awards include: Wexner Center for the Arts Residency, Puffin Foundation Grant; Massachusetts Cultural Council Grant; Contemporary Artist Center Residency. She earned a B.A. from Boston University and an M.F.A. from Massachusetts College of Art. Caplan is also an Adjunct Professor at the Massachusetts College of Art in Boston, MA. http://www.lanazcaplan.com/


Program Description:

When you cut into the present the future leaks out, (2011), 200 video clips playing in random sequence through computer programming, 35 minutes
Very short video and audio clips played randomly by a computer create a “cut-up” video collage. The visceral experience of chaos and chance is embodied by the random and infinite sequences, in the tradition of Dada and work of William Burroughs and Brion Gysin. Assemblages of sound, and Burroughs himself reading from his work, are fastened against a montage of fast paced clips, shot by Caplan between September 2010 and
February 2011. Footage of religious and secular celebrations, rituals, markers of time, structures and the lack thereof, shot in multiple locations along the east coast, create a sense of displacement within which the space between society, family, and solitude virtually explodes.

Shift, (2011) HD digital video, 45 minutes, color, sound
An alternative to the travelogue, Shift is a 2-channel video of 35 one-minute portraits shot in 3 countries, between July 1 - September 1, 2010, featuring friends, family, encounters, artists and fellow filmmakers. Shift attempts to examine how we change in relation to who we are with, where we are and how we want to be perceived.
For each portrait, Caplan shot approximately one minute of the subject then passed the camera to the subject for a minute, in which time she was recorded responding to their performance portrait.

Portraits included (in order of appearance):
Jennifer Lange, Paul Hill, Jennifer Reeder,
hippie girl at Dead show, Valerie Lehr, Fernanda Fusco, Chris, at the car rental agency, Costas, the waiter, Mikas, the sailor, Watermelon vendor, Cleo Azariadis, Glyn Cassidy, Alison Coates, Gennaro Galano, Sol LeWitt, Giovanni Scala, Fabrizio Lucibello, Stefano Irace, Amanda Murray, Saul Levine, Diana Chaplin, George Kuchar, Paxton James, Bernice B Bredt, Ashley the Mermaid, Cindy Caplan, Jasmine Chen, Kristen Mills, Jonah Rapino, Laurel Kirtz, Meg White, Arthur Dion, Liz Munsell, Anabel Vazquez, Kasia Bytnerowicz