"All the world is melancholy, every member in it."
–Robert Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy
"Melancholy is a way of thinking, a way of thinking about thinking, and it needs to consume the sufferer and thus needs layers and strata and veneers in perpetuity in which to cloak and conceal itself." –Rick Moody, The Black Veil
In Melancholia, one is immediately transfixed by the lilting, repetitive piano melody of Basinski's "The Saddest Melody Ever Heard". Drawn slowly through the dark veil of a lonely tunnel of trees, eventually the world is revealed, shining deceptively. Immediately one begins a bumpy journey around a dull and hollow shell, before being drawn back, away through the encroaching black veil that cloaks and colors all perception. Shot in Super-8 at the World's Fairgrounds in Flushing Meadows, Queens, NY, Elaine & Basinski's Melancholia is a concise, darkly romantic psalm, an elegy, a love letter to a broken world
James Elaine is an artist and filmmaker living in Los Angeles. His films have been shown in festivals, museums and galleries around the world. His video, Variations, will be released in late 2004 in a DVD edition by IDEA RECORDS.
William Basinski is a composer who has been working in experimental media for over 20 years. His epic 4-disc masterwork, The Disintegration Loops has received international critical acclaim and is available through 2062. It is distributed in the United States by Forced Exposure. Art Forum selected The River, his transcendental 2-disc release on RasterNoton, as one of the top ten albums of 2003.
Installations and films made in collaboration with artist-filmmaker, James Elaine have been presented internationally. Their film, Variations, premiered at the Rotterdam International Film Festival and will be released in a DVD edition by IDEA Records in late 2004. His new 2-CD album, Variations: A Movement in Chrome Primitive, is scheduled for release in fall 2004 by Durtro/Die Stadt, Germany. His monthly radio program, The Slipstream, can be heard on PS1/MOMA's new web-radio station, WPS1.org.
James Elaine & William Basinski
FILM AND VIDEO:
2004 Melancholia, LA Freewaves, 9th Biennial Festival of Experimental Media Arts, How Can You Resist?" Los Angeles
Variations, Immersion; experimental music series, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, Recombinant Media Labs, San Francisco, The Horse Hospital, London, Fringes Recordings, Milan, Italy, Raum, Bologna, Italy, Villa Croce Contemporary Art Museum, Genoa, Italy
2003 Melancholia, Kill Your Timid Notion Experimental Music and Film Festival, Dundee, Scotland
On A Frontier of Wires, CinemaTexas International Short Film Festival, Austin, Texas
2002 Variations, Fruit Farm Film Festival, McMinnville, OR
Rotterdam International Film Festival, Rotterdam, the Netherlands
2001 Trailer for 1000 Films, Image Forum Festival 2001: Experimental Film & Video Festival, Tokyo, Kyoto, Yokohama, Fukuoka, Japan
Marginalia, Millenium Film Workshop Inc., New York, NY
Rotterdam International Film Festival, Rotterdam, the Netherlands
Fountain, L.A. Freewaves Festival of Experimental Media Arts, MOCA at the Geffen Contemporary, Los Angeles
Fountain, video installation, Sideshow Gallery, Williamsburg, Brooklyn, NY
Life on Mars, Galerie fur Zietgenossische Kunst, Leipzig, Germany,
"New Forms: Contemporary Electronic Music in the Context of Art"
Berlin Beta Version 2.0, Maria am Ostsbahnhof, Berlin, Germany
Limelight, NYC, ěSimplicity,î Noton Archive, and Maydayprod.
1998 Trailer for a 1000 Films, Exit Art, NYC, " New York Stories," The Kitchen, NYC, Hybrid No. 15.
1997 Life on Mars The Kitchen, NYC, "Hybrid No. 12"
1988 On a Frontier of Wires, Exit Art, New York, NY, International Forum of Super 8.
jamie2062@yahoo.com
billy2062@yahoo.com
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