Saturday, March 31 - 5:10p

Embedded within the emulsion of photochemical film, silver halides are crystals composed of silver and one of the halogens (Br, Cl or I), often given the notation AgX.

Formed in 2015, AgX (pronounced A Gee Ex) is a Boston-area collective of artists who share resources, equipment, camaraderie and knowledge with a focus on the creation and appreciation of the moving image arts. Part of an international circle of artist-run film labs, AgX is open to collaboration and experimentation while it cultivates and supports a diverse community of filmmakers, photographers and interdisciplinary artists. Sensitive to the particular alchemy of silver reacting with light, the fluid composition freely bonds with both still images and moving, the many media that modulate light and sound, and the infinite spectrum of interactions possible.

The selection of films for Sleeping Giant reveals a healthily diverse range of aesthetics, techniques and content within a group that naturally bends toward the experimental. Though focused on film, AgX artists do not shy away from the occasional digital indulgence. In this instance, most originated on film, a few were even hand-processed in the AgX darkroom, and many will be projected on that fine format: sixteen-millimeter. 

For more information on AgX, visit agxfilm.org

Wenhua Shi - SENSES OF TIME - 2018 - 16mm-to-digital - color - 5 min
Senses of Time depicts the lyrical and poetic passage of time. The work reflects on time and focuses on defining subjective and perceptual time with close attention to stillness, decay, disappearance, and ruins. - WS

Sarah Bliss – TRANSIT(IVE) - 2017 - digital - color - 6.5 min
A document of death, loss and relation that encompasses the ontology of objects. The physical manipulation of the lens of a 16mm film projector connects the fleshly body to the body of light through the body of film. My fingers, no longer able to caress his face, caress the lens. Dying breath ... dust ... light ... - SB

Susan DeLeo - YOUR DARKNESS - 2018 – super 8-to-digital - b/w - 5 min
A lyrical journey conceived from dark wanderings and trance-like states in and out of the western landscape. – SD

Natalie Minik - PALMETTO - 2017 - digital - color - 7.5 min
Landscape -driven, Palmetto considers the tourist community of Myrtle Beach, SC. A Southerner myself, I am interested in how the region still visually nods to a painful and shameful past, often by commodifying and celebrating it. Using Myrtle Beach as my subject, the work considers how we cover up and glorify our scars at once, tracing the distortion of the region’s landscape and history to a place where painful recognition of reality and uncanny alienation from reality coexist in the same space. – NM

Allison Cekala - SALAR - 2014 – 16mm & Super 8-to-digital - b/w - 4 min
Salar explores landscapes made of salt, both in the Atacama Desert of northern Chile and in Boston, Massachusetts. – AC

Janeann Dill – THOUGHT AND TIMING - 2017 – 16mm-to-digital - color - silent - 2.5 min
Paintings on clear leader that were part of an installation at AgX’s immersive experience Temporal Currents II at the Waterworks Museum in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts last fall.

... – moondoggydance or: i miss you/my souls been buggin lately/that’s my report for now - 2018 - digital - color - silent - 4 min

Youjin Moon - LIGHT RHYTHM #1-3 – 2011 - 16mm - color - silent - 5 min
An experimental film that uses light as a means to explore the relationship between painting and the cinematic experience. – YM

Douglas Urbank - PORTRAIT - 2017 - 16mm - b/w - silent -  5 min
Stream-of-consciousness handmade portrait. – DU

Peaches Goodrich - SOMETHING FROM NOTHING – 2016 - 16mm - 2.5 min
An experimental animation where both image and sound are created by scratching into 16mm film with a boxcutter. The original film content is laid waste, playing heavily and playfully with negative visual and auditory space. – PG

Kimberly Forero-Arnías - HAY ALGO Y SE VA - 16mm - color - 2.5 min
Family footage is gathered and sifted to create a perpetual sea of bodies, gestures and gazes that collide to create a familiar yet estranging reunion. – KFA

Stefan Grabowski – LE TRÉSOR - 16mm - silent - 1 min
Walking through Saint-Aquilin-de-Corbion, July 2016. A light rain fell steadily, slowly saturating my clothes and leaving me with a lingering chill, followed by a violent fever and a sleepless night. The treasure I found there was dingy and tarnished, but precious still. - SG

Luis Arnías - THIS MUST BE THE PLACE - 2011 - 16mm - color - 6 min
“Live each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influences of each.” – Henry David Thoreau

Robert Todd - PLAYING IN TRAFFIC - 16mm - color - 6 min
Three parts of The City – overlapping in Play. Providing a space to come together as we stand (and walk) apart, a reflection of our fragmented worlds that seem to overlap, a shared illusion of community, here rendered harmoniously. – RT

Paul Turano - MY EARTH'S EYE - 16mm - color - 10 min
A portrait of a pond near my childhood home, a personal inventory of a place where I explored nature and the nature of being on the earth and of the earth. It was here that my parents taught me how to look and listen. Shot with a mix of analog film mediums and devices, through scientific and poetic lenses. This work is part of an ongoing series of autobiographical films about quotidian moments and the lyrical transformation of personal and domestic space. – PT

Mike Piso - SPIDERS' TOMBS - 16mm - b/w - silent - 5 min

Brittany Gravely - STORY OF THE DREAMING WATER, CHAPTER 2 - 16mm - b/w - 3 min
Maybe there was an opening, and they wandered through. . .

TRT = 81 min