(September 2020) Most recent things are two films for tracks by Sarah Davachi from her upcoming album Cantus, Descant (see one below), and a short film made with Julia Holter and Tashi Wada for Bomb Magazine. I also have a pair of short stories I wrote in the first issue of Presence, edited by Liz Harris, limited edition print run.
Midlands (2020)
music by Sarah Davachi, film by Dicky Bahto
from Sarah’s album Cantus, Descant, out soon
Ephemeris (2020)
film by Dicky Bahto
sound by Julia Holter & Tashi Wada
excerpt of Steam (Part 1) from Attica Blues (1972) by Archie Shepp
Read an interview with Lil’ Jürg Frey.
Friday, February 8, 2019 Another Void: In memory of Paul Clipson
at the University of Chicago (website)
Paul Clipson, who died last year at the age of 52, was one of contemporary cinema’s most underappreciated artists. His films, composed largely in-camera on Super-8 and 16mm, were explorations of perception with a formal rigor and inimitable virtuosity, built by re-exposing the film strip again and again until the images became dense with syncopated visual rhythms. Born out of collaboration with musicians, they were originally screened as part of live, ensemble performances. This program attempts to honor his practice by screening five of his stand-alone works (Light Year, Another Void, Chorus, Union, and Sphinx on the Seine) in the company of films by those he befriended, taught, and nurtured, including Konrad Steiner, Zach Iannazi, Dicky Bahto, John Davis, and Nathaniel Dorsky.
program:
Paul Clipson Sphinx on the Seine (2008)
Paul Clipson Chorus (2009)
Paul Clipson Union (2010)
Paul Clipson Another Void (2012)
Paul Clipson Light Year (2013)
John Davis Demolished Every Second (2014)
Dicky Bahto Once, maybe twice: or, The clockwork of summer (2013/2017)
Konrad Steiner Remains (1990)
Zach Iannazzi Old Hat (2016)
Nathaniel Dorsky Intimations (2015)
(1990-2017, 98 min., 16mm)
Curated by Sean Batton (CMS) with Dicky Bahto as part of the Graduate Student Curatorial Program.
Dicky Bahto is a filmmaker and educator whose work in still and motion picture photography, sound, and performance has been exhibited at a variety of venues across the Northern Hemisphere. He has himself taught at the Echo Park Film Center, Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles, Otis College of Art and Design, and the University of California, Riverside.
Borrowing its title from Christina C. Nguyen’s film, this program follows two recurring themes in experimental film from the 1960s to the present: the nature of the medium, and its relationship to time. The program looks at the legacies of two canonical works of experimental film: Paul Sharits’ T,O,U,C,H,I,N,G and Kurt Kren’s 31/75 Asyl. Proposing an imagined genealogy of these films into the present, the program includes works that share overlapping and divergent interests: on the one hand the use of flicker, repetition, solid color, and other formal and technical attributes of the medium; and on the other hand the relationships between lived/experiential time, clock time, and the metronomic time of the film strip. The program includes a world premiere by Mike Stoltz.
Program (all works shown on 16mm)
Paul Sharits T, O, U, C, H, I, N, G (1968)
Kurt Kren 31/75 Asyl (1975)
Rose Lowder Bouquets 11-20 (2005-9)
Christina C. Nguyen Parallel Inquiries (2016)
Jodie Mack Point de Gaze (2012)
Mike Stoltz Pull (2019)
Naomi Uman Kalendar (2008)
Tomonari Nishikawa Shibuya-Tokyo (2010)
Madison Brookshire Fountain (2016)
Q&A with curator Dicky Bahto and artist Madison Brookshire, Christina C. Nguyen, and Mike Stoltz.
Julia Holter I Shall Love 2
from the album Aviary
official video, released September 6, 2018
directed, shot, and edited by Dicky Bahto
color by Fotokem and Spectra Film and Video
colorist Willie Lawton
equipment Echo Park Film Center
photographed on Kodak Tri-x & 500T 16mm and Agfa 200D & Kodak Tri-x Super 8mm
Los Angeles based artist Dicky Bahto presents a program in two parts. The first part features his own works in small gauge film and video, centered around his newest project, Concert Diary (what’s a life?). This project takes the form of an archive mixing material made with musicians and personal diary recordings. Featuring portraits and performances of Carmina Escobar, Julia Holter, Sepand Shahab, Laura Steenberge, Tashi Wada, and his cat Katouche, the work is edited anew for each presentation. For this screening the work will take the form of a multiple projector performance for two Super 8 projectors, video projection, and cassette tape playback. The project is currently on view as a three-screen, eight-channel audio installation at the Sweeney Art Gallery in Riverside, California as part of the UC Riverside MFA thesis exhibition. His other works on the program include projects for Super 8 and 16mm that are related to this project, including a silent unslit 8mm portrait of the composer Ashley Bellouin (The Bellouin Sequence [2008]), a Super 8 “music video” for Julia Holter’s Finale (2013), the multiple projector work Twelve Bagatelles (for Janis Crystal Lipzin) (2015), and the sonata for ink and shadows Suicide Notes (2016). The second half of the program will feature brand new Super 8 and 16mm films from Los Angeles artists, including Ny Sol Andas In (New Sun Breathing In) by Chloe Reyes, Hour of Pearl, by Andrew Kim, Tomorrow’s Freeways Today by Will O’Loughlen, Avanti Popolo (People Move Forward) by Paolo Davanzo, Worlds Below, Or; Los Angeles Breaks Its Mother’s Back by Emett Casey, and brand new Super 8 films by Penelope Uribe-Abee and Walter Vargas! Bahto will introduce the program and have a conversation with the audience after.
Held @ Massachusetts College of ArtFilm Department in screening room 1. 621 Huntington Ave. Boston MA 02115. On the T take the green lineE train to Longwood stop.
Tuesday, January 17, 2017
Human Resources
410 Cottage Home St., Los Angeles
8:30 pm sharp
Human Resources hosts a new performance by artists Corey Fogel, Dicky Bahto, and Tashi Wada. The hour-long structured improvisation will feature generative imagery on multiple slide projectors, pitched metal percussion, and … .
Dicky Bahto 