(Kristen Reeves, 2011-2025, 51min, United States)

This program is a single-channel theatrical adaptation of a feature-length event with two 9X16mm grid-films bookending short films and video and interstitial loops with live narration developed over twelve years. By following through on the logic that media is body/person/material, found footage becomes a media cadaver to exhume, examine, and reanimate; lasers and bleach emphasize loss when applied to 16mm film; film processed through video synthesizers model the physiology of brain signal overload. What is this feeling?  I am interested in finding material processes to reflect a contemporary understanding of trauma and the historical cross of media for medical and artistic uses.
–Kristin Reeves

Kristin Reeves is an interdisciplinary artist who stages live expanded cinema performances, exhibits electronic and lens-based artworks, and collaborates in professional theater productions. Her creative research interests include the historical use of media crossing clinical and art spaces. She uses editing and material processes to reflect a contemporary understanding of trauma for her live feature-length show Bodies for Strength and Power to express visual narratives of injury and resilience. Her work has been exhibited in venues such as the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, The Centro Cultural de España CDMX, Mexico City, Mexico, European Media Arts Festival, Osnabrück, Germany, Impakt Festival, Utrecht, Netherlands, CROSSROADS, San Francisco, CA, The Boiler, Brooklyn, NY and Steppenwolf Theater, Chicago, IL. She has recently been published in Analog Cookbook and Found Footage Magazine. She is an Assistant Professor of Visual Studies at Grand Valley State University in the Department of Visual and Media Arts. 

FILMS IN THIS PROGRAM: 

What Is Nothing (After What Is Nothing) Studio Version (2021, 10:08, 9X16mm optically printed to HD Video and animated)

Using educational films, direct laser animation, and nine projectors, I attempt to realize the materiality of nothingness through the eyes of those who may be most vulnerable to the void. A recorded performance was referenced in constructing the “Studio Version” of the project, which began (and continues) as expanded cinema.

Part 1 [When moving the body forward, the term for the movement depends on the body part being moved.] (2024, 1min., 16mm to HD Video using analog vector synthesis, animated.)

Interstitial videos mix content from the program’s discrete films and (adapted) performances to create a feature-length experience. During performances, video loops are combined with live narration from Kristin Reeves to provide context and a first-person point of view of the screened films.

CSP Closings & Delays (2017, 06:39, 16mm to HD Video using analog vector synthesis, animated)

The Chicago Board of Education made history in 2013 by approving the closure of 50 schools, the largest public school closing to date in the United States. I documented all 50 schools on a 100’ roll of 16mm film while my DSLR caught vignettes of their communities.

Part 2 [When moving the body forward, the term for the movement depends on the body part being moved.] (2024, 1min., 16mm film to HD video using analog video synthesizers, animated)

&Human (2011, 03:38, HD video)

Pharmaceutical companies were granted a six-month patent extension in 1997 for any drug tested on children. I went to a park to stage a body politic art/protest pop-up critical of the US Department of Health and Human Services’ support of for-profit pediatric research. The kids at the park take over!

Part 3 [When moving the body forward, the term for the movement depends on the body part being moved.] (2024, 1min., 16mm film to HD video using analog video synthesizers, animated.)

Threadbare (2011/2014, 05:10, 16mm to HD video)

Behind the clinical curtain, pediatric research subjects are built to support for-profit research. How do they reappear unchanged? An experimental educational film for children used as biomaterial.

Part 4 [When moving the body forward, the term for the movement depends on the body part being moved.] (2024, 1min., 16mm film to HD video using analog video synthesizers, animated)

Body Contours (2015, 06:00, 16mm film to HD video using analog video synthesizers)

Make movies in your mind, feel the soundtrack, and drift away from your body for the win. Trauma overloads the brain’s signal. Meaning becomes a sensation outside of the reach of language and logic. Brain signals jam and loop. Produced through Signal Culture using educational films.

Part 5 [When moving the body forward, the term for the movement depends on the body part being moved.] (2024, 1min., 16mm film to HD video using analog video synthesizers, animated)

The White Coat Phenomenon (2012, 02:49, VHS to HD Video)

Bodies hold secrets confessed in examination rooms through expert interrogation. Truth-telling clinical media has the authority to answer what is found.

Part 6 [When moving the body forward, the term for the movement depends on the body part being moved.] (2025, 1min., 16mm to HD Video using analog vector synthesis)

Je Ne Sais Plus [What Is This Feeling] Studio Version (2012 – 2024, 10:30, 9X16mm optically printed to HD Video and animated, HD Video)

This is a digital re-staging of expanded cinema built on 27 10-second 16mm film loops constructed from optically printed found footage and direct laser-animation techniques. An obstacle course leads to [DESTINY]. Kristin Reeves meditates on the body’s materiality and the struggle to achieve personal sovereignty within its bounds.