Container and the IMA present Simmer, a program of experimental shorts bound by their distinctive use of patterning around control and release.

Part One (36 minutes)

James Edmonds Seasons/Patterns (2020), 10 minutes.

This film collates one reel for each meteorological season, with exposures captured between 2016 and 2017. Leitmotifs of flora provide some unity within each season, as a reflection on the atmosphere and the fleshy passing of time.

Tomonari Nishikawa Light, Night, Smoke, and Light, Noise, Smoke (2023), 6 minutes.

These fireworks were filmed at a summer festival in Japan using a Super 16 camera, with the footage deliberately composed to occupy the optical soundtrack area of the filmstrip. In a standard 16mm projector, the photocell that reads the optical soundtrack is positioned 26 frames ahead of the projector gate. Exploiting this offset, footage from two rolls of 16mm film was cut into 26-frame shots and alternated between rolls, further displacing sound from image while creating a steady rhythm across the film.

Elizabeth Price The Woolworths Choir of 1979 (2012), 20 minutes.

Concerned with processes of assembly, Choir brings together disparate bodies of material and archival technologies into a dissonant concert. It is a work of several parts. Part one constructs an auditorium in which an action will be staged. Part two assembles a chorus to narrate the action. Part three supplies the action.

Part 2 (30 minutes)

Richard Serra with Joan Jonas Paul Revere (1971), 7 minutes.

Using a historical lantern-communication system based on light and sound signals, this film addresses fundamental problems and questions of nonverbal information exchange. Working with Joan Jonas, Serra discusses the phrase ‘One, if by land, and two, if by sea’. This secret signal was used by the freedom fighter Paul Revere, and other patriots during the American Civil War to let people know whether British troops were approaching by land or by sea. Paul Revere is an adaptation from two sources — Kinesics and Context (1970) by Ray L Birdwhistell and Choreomania (1971), a performance by Joan Jonas.

Emily Chao Light Signal (2022), 11 minutes.

Emily Chao describes her work: “A keeper’s log, a score for light, a script for sound. A reconstruction, a slow reclamation. To begin where there is light.”

Pablo Mazzolo Green Ash (2019), 12 minutes.

The Hênia-Kâmîare Indigenous people have inhabited the current territory of the Sierras de Córdoba (Argentina) for at least 1600 years. In 1575, the resistance led by cacique Onga was cornered and defeated by the conquering Spanish troops. After resisting the Spanish in the Charalqueta mountain (named after the God of Joy), hundreds of Hênia-Kâmîare women, children and elders jumped off the top of the Colchoquí mountain in order to avoid being enslaved. The Charalqueta mountain was renamed as Colchiqui (after the God of Fate and Sadness). This was the biggest collective suicide in the territory currently known as Argentina.

With thanks to James Edmonds, Emily Chao, Pablo Mazzolo, Light Cone, LUX, Electronic Arts Intermix, and the Richard Serra Studio.

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