Bruce McClure at Kill Your Timid Notion Festival - 2nd Set

An anthology of one-minute films created by 51 international filmmakers on the theme of the death of cinema. Intended as an ode to 35mm, the film was screened one time only on a purpose-built 20x12 meter public cinema screen in the Port of Tallinn, Estonia, on 22 December 2011. A special projector was constructed for the event which allowed the actual filmstrip to be burnt at the same time as the film was shown.

Personalised instruments are used to transform loops of pure black and white frames into an immersive riot of perceptual phenomenon in colour, motion and sound. Bruce will employ four adapted 16mm projectors, the motors modified, brass grids retro-fitted between lens and gate. A stroboscopic and intense sensory overload of flashing abstract forms, cut to ribbons by modified projectors. You’re met with a white strobing circle pulsing on screen and slowly transformed as additional, overlapping projectors create strange halo’s and spheres, odd 3D expansions and contractions. As more projectors are added the image is shredded under a beating grid, color and form thrumming in front of your eyes until, as the last projector dims and you’re left in the dark, crazy blue tendrils follow your gaze, after-images burned on the retina like a delicate coda to Bruce’s performances. -Kill Your Timid Notion festival

This event was part of Arika’s Kill Your Timid Notion Tour in 2008, preserved as part of their archive.

One day, I bought a small lot of old Super 8 home movies for 15 bucks off eBay. Projected on my wall, I was struck by how many of the reels consisted of a random family's summer vacation footage. It felt slightly perverse to bear witness to the depth of a stranger's memories, and as I began wondering why they ended up for sale online, I felt a creeping obligation to destroy these images. Drown is what resulted from that endeavor.

"A Mixtape for Stom" is an intimate documentary portrait of Japanese experimental filmmaker Stom Sogo (1975–2012), whose frenetic Super-8mm works became emblematic of New York’s underground cinema at the turn of the millennium. A close friend, filmmaker Adrian Goycoolea reflects on Sogo’s life and legacy, framing the film as a reply to the final email he received from him. Drawing from personal archives, interviews, and memory, the film assembles a collage of Sogo’s art and presence: radiant, restless, and unresolved. Contributors include Jonas Mekas, Bruce McClure, Raha Raissnia, Julius Ziz, Ed Halter, Andy Lampert, and members of Sogo’s family, offering perspectives on his talent, struggles, and influence. Scored by Joe Watson of Stereolab, "A Mixtape for Stom" is at once an elegy and an act of remembrance; a meditation on friendship and grief, and a testament to an underground legacy that continues to reverberate.

The artist used airbrush to spread ink on clear 16 mm film in his Brooklyn studio.