Being Seen In The Age Of Documentation

In its first collaboration, on Friday, November 8, at 6 p.m., Sag Harbor Cinema and the Parrish Art Museum co-present “SAW,” a screening of six short films that investigate the relationship between seeing and being seen in this age of constant documentation.

The screening will take place at the museum in Water Mill. A conversation with Corinne Erni, senior curator of ArtsReach and special projects at the Parrish, guest curator Micaela Durand, and filmmaker Jordan Lord follows the program of films by Daniel Chew, Micaela Durand, Simon Liu, Jordan Lord, Laurel Nakadate, Paul Pfeiffer and Rachel Rose

“I’m thrilled to collaborate with Sag Harbor Cinema to present such an intriguing program by contemporary artists who are also filmmakers,” said Erni. “Their cinematic exploration represents another dimension that allows new insights into their art practice for our audiences.”

“The fascinating, ever growing relation between cinema and the visual arts was the subject of one of our very first programs. It is something that we will keep exploring which makes this collaboration with the Parrish very exciting. Connecting our audience with the wealth of artists of the East End is part of the Cinema’s mission,” said Giulia D’Agnolo Vallan, Sag Harbor Cinema’s artistic director. “‘SAW’ also gives us a chance to introduce to our community an extremely talented local filmmaker, Micaela Durand, in her capacity both as a director and curator.”

"There is something active in all these films that directs us, asks us to be present, engage in some way,” said Durand. “Just like every profile needs an audience in order to be seen, and has been made with someone seeing it in mind."

As technology and social media increasingly shape perception, the films in the “SAW” program employ a variety of methods to critique and observe how people watch.

Paul Pfeiffer presents the third of his seminal three-part video installations, “Long Count III (‘Thrilla in Manila’)” which shows the 1975 fight between heavyweight champions Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier. Pfeiffer digitally erases the boxers from the film so that the viewers’ attention shifts from watching the missing fighters, to the roaring crowd cheering back at them.

Navigating the pressures of structures is also explored in Rachel Rose’s “Everything and More.” As an astronaut describes the sensation of leaving earth behind, the viewer falls into a similar void through associative and digital manipulations.

Reconstructing memory is examined in “E-Ticket” in which Simon Liu recomposes his personal archive of vacation ephemera into a pulsating performance that alludes to the contemporary condition of media exposure.

Jordan Lord’s “After….After….(Access)” is a documentation of the filmmaker’s own heart surgery. The film proposes a new kind of engagement with accessibility in mind, by rendering what is seen and heard into subtitles.

Durand and Daniel Chew’s film “First” follows a teenage girl as she negotiates the interrelationship of online and real world interactions.

Laurel Nakadate explores similar entanglements in “Oops!” in which the artist is invited into the homes of men through chance encounters and asks them to dance with her to Britney Spears’s iconic song “Oops!...I Did It Again.”

Admission to the “SAW” film screening is $12 (free for Parrish members and students). The Parrish Art Museum is at 279 Montauk Highway, Water Mill. Visit parrishart.org for details.