A Map of the New Lands

This transporting program leads you off to mysterious destinations with a diverse collection of short experimental films that discover new landscapes (whether geographical, emotional, domestic, or indefinable).

The program also charts the paths that several notable filmmakers whose work we've shown in the past have been taking since their last Columbus appearances. Remarkable new works by acclaimed filmmakers and past guests Janie Geiser, Jennifer Reeves, and an otherworldly film by Chris Marker that has never screened at the Wexner Center before, join adventurous short films and videos from some of the most important established (including Ken Jacobs and Peggy Ahwesh) and emerging (such as Ben Rivers) filmmakers working today. Visit wexarts.org for full program listings. (app. 100 mins., 16mm and video)

Click below for full descriptions of each film.
Program
(Not in screening order.)

The Third Body (Peggy Ahwesh, 2007)
An appropriated film, portraying the arrival of Adam and Eve to an exotic Eden, is intercut with appropriated videos of virtual reality demonstrations. (9 mins., video)

dwarfs the sea (Stephanie Barber, 2007) "small biographies and musing generalizations—men's relations to each other and their lives. there is hope and loneliness, companionship and isolation and the simplest of filmic elements to contrast the complexity of human emotions. the delicacy of the formalist writing moves the listener from intimacy to universalism and back again, swaying gently to and fro like the rocking of a ship."—Stephanie Barber (5 mins., video)

Interior, New York Subway, 14th St. to 42nd St. (G. W. Bitzer, 1905) The camera platform was on the front of a New York subway train following another train on the same track. Lighting is provided by a specially constructed work car on a parallel track. At the time of filming, the subway was only seven months old, having opened on October 27, 1904. (5 mins., 16mm)

Ghost Algebra (Janie Geiser, 2009) "Under erratic skies, a solitary figure navigates a landscape of constructed nature and broken bones. She peers through a decaying aperture, waiting and watching. The fragility of the body is exposed for what it is: ephemeral, liquid, a battlefield of nervous dreams. Using found and natural objects, rephotographed video, medical illustrations, and other collage elements, Ghost Algebra suggests one of the original meanings of the word 'algebra': the science of restoring what is missing, the reunion of broken parts."—Janie Geiser (8 mins., video)

There There Square (Jacqueline Goss, 2002) The desire to own and name land and the pleasures of seeing from a distance color this personal survey of the history of mapmaking in the New World. There There Square takes a close look at the gestures of travelers, mapmakers, and saboteurs that determine how we read—and live within—the lines that define the United States. (14 mins., video)

Walkway (Ken Jacobs, 2009) A serpentine path through the woods turns on itself threateningly. Two perspectives operate here, enmeshed with each other, making for a vibrant film straddling two and three dimensions. (8 mins., video)

Junkopia (Chris Marker, 1981) One day, at the stroke of evening, on Emeryville beach in San Francisco, where unidentified artists leave, without anyone knowing, sculptures manufactured with items that have washed ashore from the sea. (6 mins., 35mm)

horizon line (Katherin McInnis, 2009) The film excavates the relationship between social and natural geographies at Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia, one of the first prisons in the United States. The walls were painted to reflect the horizon line outside the walls; the prison’s decay has turned this two-dimensional land and sky into intricate textures and layers: a physical incarnation of the passage of time. (1 min., video)

Trains Are For Dreaming (Jennifer Reeves, 1999–2009) Eight super-8 film years condensed into seven eye-popping minutes. A dreamer moves through landscapes to far seas—over tracks, winding roads, skies and waters—a journey of flight and fancy. (7 mins, 16mm)

Ah! Liberty (Ben Rivers, 2008) A family’s place in the wilderness, outside of time; free-range animals and children, junk and nature, all within the most sublime landscape. (19 mins., 16mm)

The Coming Race (Ben Rivers, 2006) A vague, mysterious and unsettling pilgrimage fraught with unknown intentions. (5 mins., 16mm)

^v^v^vVv^^v^^v^v^v^v^vV^^ (Stacie Sells, 2008) The path of social norms, gender in society, and how we are led by our culture to abide by these norms are all questioned in this experimental short work by a Columbus artist. (2 mins., video)

Hotel Cartograph (Scott Stark, 1983) A camera mounted on a movable cart, pointing down at the floor, passes over a seemingly endless succession of gaudy carpets and surfaces in a single shot through a major hotel. (11 mins., 16mm)