I am a Microscope
Director: Karl Nussbaum
Synopsis
This is a 2 channel installation consisting of two separate films made by painting directly onto 35mm film and working with various chemical solvents. The two films are projected side by side and slightly out of sync, creating a type of 'visual stereo' as they make random juxtapositions. The soundtrack being slightly out of sync creates an echo, so as the audience moves around the installation the sound changes, creating an aural sense of the space.
Trailer
About the director
Karl Nussbaum is an award winning Brooklyn based filmmaker / video installation artist, whose work has been exhibited in galleries, museums, universities and (remove: over 80) international film festivals including Sundance, Rotterdam, Oberhausen, Black Maria, the London International Film Festival and at the Smithsonian/ Hirshorn Museum; in NYC at Lincoln Center, the Director's Guild of America, Anthology Film Archives, and P.S. 122. Nussbaum is a founding member of the 1980's East Village NYC film collective, Film Crash. He is currently in residency at the Taoxichuan International Artist Studio in Jingdezhen, China.
His work explores ideas of transformation, memory, family trauma and the experiences of death and grief. With a background in biology, he often includes elements of science and the natural world as spiritual metaphor, transforming scientific ideas into visual and lyrical forms. Recent work is influenced by the French Phantasmagoria and the film magicians that orchestrated them. He often works with silk to create large sculptural projection surfaces that flow and change shape during the performance. Film critic Molly Haskell calls his recent work: "a mind-bending visual and aural experience. Mathematicians always talk about the poetry of their subject but this is the first time I ever felt it. A living work."