Late in announcing this, but I’m very happy to share that I was awarded a NYSCA Support for Artists grant for my work-in-progress, Missing Person, an experimental doc about my mother.
Bill Santen and I made a music video for Bill’s band Birddog. We shot it on 16mm! It was fun! The release of Point John, a collaboration between Birddog and Wake Up, was featured in Magnet Magazine.
Happy to have installed Unity Island and Last House at Termite TV’s Cherry Street Pier Studio from January 17 to April 2025. I used to be a member of Termite in the late 90s and through the aughts when I lived in Philadelphia, so it’s especially nice to show there. Once a Termite, always a Termite!
Very pleased to share that I have a few events/screenings coming up this fall:
On September 27, 2024 at 7pm, I’m screening some of my work, old and new, including Unity Island, at Scribe Video Center in Philadelphia, PA. Philly friends – I hope to see you! The following day, I’ll be leading a rayograph workshop at the Halide Project.
On October 19, 2024 starting at 6pm, Unity Island will be installed at Turning Bridge Tavern (1797 Niagara St, Buffalo, NY, United States, NY -- right across from Unity Island!) as part of the Buffalo International Film Festival's Off-Screen program.
On November 9, 2024, Unity Island will screen at the Engauge Film Festival in Seattle, WA. It will be part of the closing night program with live musical accompaniment. The Engauge Film Festival, sponsored by the Interbay Cinema Society, is a fest featuring work that originates on analog film. I’m excited to be part of a festival with.
Still image from Unity Island
The awesome Michaela Schmidbauer invited me to screen the single channel version of my film triptych, Unity Island, at Caffe Aroma as part of the Buffalo Infringement festivities and to coincide the film's broadcast on WMHT's TVFilm. But that's not why you should come. I'm also showing brilliant films by Vav Vavrek (who's also part of the TVFilm broadcast), Vincenzo Mistretta, Dorothea Braemer, and Laura Kraning! Here are the details:
Facebook Event Page: https://www.facebook.com/share/HyuLYb58v8F1TaYT/
Friday, August 2, 2024 10-11pm @ Caffe Aroma
957 Elmwood Ave, Buffalo, NY, United States, New York
Where We Are: A screening of short films about places and spaces
Join us for a free program of short films about landscapes (in the world and in our heads) to coincide with the 2024 Buffalo Infringement Festival and the broadcast of Carl Lee’s Unity Island and Vav Vavrek’s planet_______:signal lost on WMHT’s . In addition we will screen films by Vincenzo Mistretta, Dorothea Braemer, and Laura Kraning. TRT approximately 30 minutes.
Unity Island by Carl Lee (2024, 13:30)
Unity Island looks at a 1/4 square mile stretch of land situated between Niagara River and Black Rock Canal at the border of Buffalo, NY and Fort Erie, Ontario. A railroad traverses the island from Canada to the U.S. passing by a park visited by picnickers, bicyclists, and fishermen. Freight trains cross a canal over a swing bridge which rotates open for boats and the occasional freight ship. A hill sits on the former site of an incineration plant and garbage dump. From there you can get a 360° view of the island, the city, the river, and the highway. I’ve been going there for walks with our dog for years. Filmed on 16mm in triptych, Unity Island is a personal exploration of the site over time in an attempt to reveal its beauty, its moments, and its contradictions.
planet________: signal lost by Vav Vavrek (2022, 3:00)
An experimental science-fiction film ... shot with very expired film inside a lomo kino and hand-processed with vintage 1980's C-41 chemicals.
Sfantumata Series #2: Dirt Cheap Abstractions by Vincenzo Mistretta (2023, 4:10)
Sfantumata,’ is a mutable Sicilian word heard in my community of Aspra which can be used to identify something as ‘degraded’, ‘broken down’, or ‘Sloppy’. This video is created by taking various still images of the sloppy displays at Dirt Cheap retail stores and animating them in a sequence where the image changes every two frames. Over time the sequence loops and is layered over itself multiple times to create a degraded abstraction that evokes a feeling of anxiety and chaos. The sound was recorded at Dirt Cheap stores and digitally manipulated and distorted to complement the degraded images of the video.
Snails by Dorothea Braemer (2022, 4:00)
A dream about my mother and snails that my daughter interprets for me.
Co-directed by Kyla Kegler, who also provided the puppets.
Camera/Color Correction/Sound Mix by Carl Lee
Actors: Dorothea Braemer & Lindsey Griffith
Voices: Dorothea Braemer & Greta Lee
Music: “Mount Pleasant, Dawn” by Thalia Brisson
de-composition by Laura Kraning (2023, 3:00)
A textural macro collage of a rust belt landscape- scratched, splattered, dripping, cracking, and bursting to the surface. Photographed and meticulously edited over one year in Buffalo, NY, the reverberant tones of the New York Central rail line provide the rhythmic pulse to a rapid cascade of multi-hued material decay and metallic de-composition.
The single-channel version of Unity Island has been selected for inclusion in the 16th season of WMHT’s TVFilm. WMHT, based in Troy, NY, is the Capitol Region’s PBS station and TVFilm is their long-running “showcase for short, creative works of a diverse regional community of independent film and media artists in Upstate New York” (and Western NY!). Unity Island is set to air August 2, 2024 at 11pm.
I’m very pleased to share that the single-channel version of my project, Unity Island, is screening at the 2024 Cosmic Rays Film Festival in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, March 1-3, 2024. Unity Island is part of the “Public Surfaces” program on March 2 at 7PM.
My three-screen installation Unity Island is on view at Buffalo Arts Studio from September 22, 2023 to November 3, 2023. Shot on 16mm film, it’s a personal look at Unity Island, this island park in Buffalo, NY where I’ve been going to take my dog for walks for almost 10 years. More info about the installation.
Three black and white images next to each other; Left is a bridge, center is a dog walking through a foggy field, right is a close-up of a snail shell in dry grass.
Happy to be asked to donate a print to Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center’s annual art auction AHA! 2023. The print is a triptych of 16mm films stills from my current work-in-progress film installation, Unity Island (to be shown at Buffalo Arts Studio in September 2023). Even happier that people bid on it and it sold!
Still from Unity Island
I’m excited to have received a 2023 NYSCA Support for Artists grant through the Buffalo Arts Studio in support of my upcoming show in September 2023.
I’m very pleased to share that I’ve been awarded a 2020 NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellowship in Digital/Electronic Arts. It’s real surprise and an honor to receive this kind of support alongside so many amazing artists. Here’s the announcement: https://www.nyfa.org/introducing-2020-nysca-nyfa-artist-fellows-finalists-and-panelists/.
Representing Undercurrent Gallery (Brooklyn, NY), my 3-screen video installation Last House was installed in Vilnius, Lithuania as part of the Art Vilnius ‘20 art fair. On view from October 2-4, 2020.
Last House installation view Art Vilnius ‘20 (Photo by Laura Zaveckaite)
A video I made way back when, Spaceman Vs. Cowboys, is screening as part of Notes Toward an Infinite Film curated by Laura McGough at Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center. It’ll be showing in their Virtual Video Viewing Room (VVVR) as part of Program 1: The Promise of Props.
A review of June 2019 show at Undercurrent Gallery in Brooklyn, NY was published in the January/February 2020 issue of Sculpture Magazine.
Telescope House 2 installed as part of the group show “The Body and Architecture - Cinematic Expressions of Space” curated by Vincenzo Mistretta at Studio Waveland in Waveland, Mississippi. January 10 February 15, 2020.
Participating artists: Giuliano Lombardo, Dorothea Braemer, Carl Lee, Tim Riedlen, Katrin Pesch, Amalia Pistilli, Vincenzo Mistretta
Solo show myoptic (Telescope House, Vision Test, Home Movies) + Last House (2010) installed for Undercurrent Gallery’s inaugural exhibition in Brooklyn, NY. June 6 - July 13, 2019.
Solo show myoptic (Telescops House 1 & 2, VIsion Test, Home Movies, Still Lifes) at Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center, Buffalo, NY January 11 to March 1, 2019.
