loop, print, fade + flicker

By (author): Mike Hoolboom, Alex MacKenzie

The Pacific Cinematheque Monograph Series was initiated to explore the spectrum of contributions and innovations of Western Canadian filmmakers, videomakers, and fringe media artists. Monograph Number One focuses, fittingly, on David Rimmer, one of Canada’s foremost experimental filmmakers.

There is no better way to start off Pacific Cinémathèque’s Monograph Series, celebrating West Coast filmmakers, than with the work of David Rimmer. Mike Hoolboom’s essay tantalizes us with a romantic myth that contextualizes David, while Alex MacKenzie’s interview lets the artist speak for himself. Both offer a unique insight into the art practice of one of the most influential Canadian filmmakers of the 20th century. – Ann Marie Fleming, independent filmmaker and visual artist

The most exciting non-narrative film I’ve ever seen … images become polarized into grainy outlines, like drawings in white or colored chalk which gradually disintegrate and disappear. The film [Variations on a Cellophane Wrapper] resembles a painting floating through time, its subject disappearing and re-emerging in various degrees of abstraction. – Kristina Nordstrom, The Village Voice

AUTHOR

Mike Hoolboom

Mike Hoolboom (Essay) is a Canadian film/video artist. He is the author of three books: ‘Plague Years’ (1998), ‘Fringe Film in Canada’ (2000), and ‘Practical Dreamers’ (2008). He’s a founding member of the Pleasure Dome screening collective (Toronto) and the experimental film coordinator at Canadian Filmmakers Distribution Centre (Toronto). He’s won over 30 international prizes, two lifetime achievement awards, and has enjoyed nine international retrospectives of his work. Alex MacKenzie (Interview) is a Vancouver media artist working with light projection and expanded cinema. 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 media works are presented at festivals and underground screening spaces throughout Europe and North America. He is the co-editor of ‘DAMP: Contemporary Vancouver Media Art’ (Anvil Press, 2008). Brian Ganter (Editor) is a writer, educatorand filmmaker. He is the former Media Literacy Coordinator of the Pacific Cinematheque’s Education Department (Vancouver). In addition to a variety of short film and video works, Brian also wrote and directed the 2008 feature documentary ‘Metropole’ which has screened internationally in festivals and forums in the U.S., Canada, and Europe. Brian is finishing his Ph.D. in cultural studies in the English Department at the University of Washington and teaches media and literacy studies at CapilanoUniversity in North Vancouver.

AUTHOR