Ariel (1983) by Nathaniel Dorsky
Saturday, September 24, 1983, 8:00 pm
Hand-Processed Films
762 Valencia Street San Francisco, CA, 94110
Ariel, Nathaniel Dorsky, 1983, 18 min.; Skins, Barbara Lattanzi, 1976, 7 min.; L’Amico Fried’s Glamorous Friends, Roger Jacoby, 1976, 12 min.; Waterfall, Chick Strand, 1967, 3 min.; Fire Island Boat Totem, Rob Yeo, 1979, 35 min.; Fragments from a Deliquescence, Jon Rubin, 1978, 12 min.; Fireside, Konrad Steiner, 1983, 11 min.
A survey of work by film artists who have challenged Kodak’s stranglehold on the standard for acceptable color by developing their films by hand. Their unorthodox chemical distortions were created in apparati ranging from bathtubs to sophisticated processing machines. These methods of producing and modifying imagery demystify the developing process and bring it under the control of the artist rather than the industry. The resulting films possess extraordinary surface textures and patterns as well as pictorial narration. — J.C. Lipzin