for immediate release
PXL THIS 29 Toy Camera Film Festival premieres Sunday, Nov 24, 2019 at 7pm (preshow 6pm),
free admission, at Beyond Baroque 681 Venice Blvd Venice CA 310-306-7330
Links to still image and video screener (more follow):
Bretton Neese's The Truth Is Homeless explores truth and consciousness through the voices of Venetians and the distorted Image of the PXL. Pixelvision video: https://youtu.be/pO7M0nmTqXo
The PXL-2000 (Pixelvision) is a toy camera, manufactured by Fisher-Price from 1987-89, that records on quarter-inch audio cassette tape. The low resolution and high contrast was made for kids, but became suitable for artists. Today Pixelators are merging Pixelvision with cell phones and live streaming. Electronic Folk Art . . . Lo-Fi Hi-Jinx !
The 29th annual toy camera film festival PXL THIS 29 features Pixelvision. PXL THIS, one of the oldest film festivals in LA, celebrates visionary moving image artists from seminal experimental filmmakers to 10-years-olds to homeless to professionals. This year includes entries from across the US.
Pixelvision has been screened recently at Lincoln Center in New York, and at LACMA's 3D exhibit in Los Angeles. PXL THIS celebrates 30 years in November 2020. We hope to attract all the Pixelators who have not entered PXL THIS like Leighton Pierce, Stacy Peralta, Todd Rundgren, Red Hot Chili Peppers and ?. We encourage all the previous participants and new ones to dust off their PXL cameras and join in the "3 decades" hoopla, PXL THIS 30.
PXL THIS 29 highlights include:
Gemini Huan Bowden's Ghost Dick -- A hardboiled San Francisco private eye wades hip-deep into the
paranormally perverse to solve a case.
Donivan Fox documents the band Curly rocking Burning Man with the song Schweinhaux
Bruno Kohfield-Galeano's The Andalusian Man - Salutes the solution to beat poetry meets beats.
James Noel's Coordinated Film (creator of OMADOX, VREM, and 13 MYSTERIES) epic "streamliner," as Hal Roach would have classified it. Produced on a budget of 40 dollars by a 16 year old. Shot with the PXL-2000 camera starring Janet Housden, of DESPERATE TEENAGE LOVEDOLLS, wearing PXL friendly giant polka dots, along with Steve Moramarco, Cat Noel, and Edward Parker Bolman. Trailer: https://vimeo.com/145078261
Nicole Zwiren's Maya Sita Goes to College - She’s already 14 months old and ready to go off to college. Maya’s mom and dad commiserate over losing her to her future career and reminisce over the days when she was just learning how to become her own woman. Nicoleknows@gmail.com
Ana LaRey's Pour Some Sugar On Me is a fun take on how to get a date for Valentine's Day.
Charlie Sands' Robert Crumb flips out the classic cartoon flickbook. Charlie is pictured in the Facebook events page with two PXL2000 cameras.
Gerry Fialka's M.O.M. Matriarchy Or Mafia gives birth to new ideas. Why does the word "mafia" start with the word "Ma" ? "I wanted to use the Mafia as a metaphor for America." - Francis Ford Coppola. What's a meta for? What is the nurturing control that influences the head of the family? Do words evoke more than their meaning? Lame? Mamma is the natural sonic vibrations in baby talk imitative of the sound made while sucking? Mother tongue? Special Thanks to Tyler M. Pedersen. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jIRvfkXi9tE&feature=youtu.be
Joey Icon's (aka Joe Nucci the Limo Driver) Qbist Tear evokes the homonym for the word "tear," or "tier." 35 years in the making, these sonic reflections are inspired by the LA band Kubist Tear.
King KaKaPhony: 20 Years of King Kukulele PXL Magic - After 20 years of LIVE PXL, King Kukulele (aka Denny Moynahan) returns with the first historical retrospective rundown of the Kings 20 years of PXL shorts.
Jay Paulson's Have Your Cake probes human desires.
Katy Kondrat's Sister Circle marks meaning with tattoos, and her hilarious H.over by Me Holiday (aka Katy Kondrat).
To String Pete Newman strips down the smoking blues.
Wrasslin' Poodles Temple of Jupiter abstracts dada folk music.
Bretton Neese's The Truth Is Homeless explores truth and consciousness through the voices of Venetians and the distorted Image of the PXL. video: https://youtu.be/pO7M0nmTqXo
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PXL THIS 29 PROGRAM:
Maya Sita Goes to College Nicole Zwiren
Have Your Cake Jay Paulson
Qbist Tear Joey Icon
Sister Circle Katy Kondrat
Sleeping With A Psychopath Alita Arose
Muses Alita Arose & Amber Marie
H.over Me Holiday (aka Katy Kondrat)
Pour Some Sugar On Me Ana LaRey
Robert Crumb Charlie Sands
To String Pete Newman
Temple of Jupiter Wrasslin' Poodles
(Program subject to change. These films are short, except for the last title)
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PXL to CELL: Bravo to Brett for this help in adapting the PXL2000 camcorder to your cell phone: Brett Neese, brett@neese.rocks, contributes this method of shooting Pixelvision with an Android smartphone. Note that this method has only been tested using a Google Pixel XL (1) and will probably not work with an iPhone/iOS device. Google Pixel (1) can be found on Amazon here. · - The hardest part is first: the camera itself needs to be modified to support composite video out, as the existing hardware only supports modulated RF video (essentially, it pretends to be an analog antenna TV channel.) Patrick Gill, the PXL camera repairman can modify - patrickg0799@yahoo.com & http://www.bentstruments.com/. There is also a very old DIY guide here. · - Then, use a video capture card to process the incoming video and an app on your phone to interface with the capture card and record the video. We have had some success with this one. · - That video capture card has a full-size USB port on it, so it needs an adapter. If, like the Pixel XL, the Android phone is newer and has a USB-C port, you'll need something like this. If it's an older phone with a micro-USB port, grab something more like this. Not all phones have the ability to plug accessories into the USB port -- do some research to see if your phone supports "USB OTG." · - The app we've had the most success with is "USB Camera Pro," available here. There is a free version that can be used to check if this setup will work. Again, not all phones support this and we've only tested it with a Google Pixel XL (1), so your mileage may vary, as they say. We welcome comments.
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Roy Parkhurst ropascopic@gmail.com wrote: I recently came across Thomas Worth / Rarevision who have recently released an iOS app that emulates the PXL2000. Tell us more...
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PXL THIS 29 celebrates its 29th year of creative filmmaking by everyone from kids to professionals. One of the most unique film festivals ever, PXL THIS has been attended by Oliver Stone, Daryl Hannah, Kim Fowley among many more. Pixelvision has even made it onto the big screen via Richard Linklater (Slacker), Michael Almereyda (Nadja, produced by David Lynch) and Craig Baldwin (Sonic Outlaws). The irresistible irony of the PXL 2000 is that the camera's ease-of-use and affordability, which entirely democratizes movie-making, has inspired the creation of some of the most visionary, avant and luminous film of our time.
"If movies offer an escape from everyday life, Pixelvision is the Houdini of the film world." - SF Weekly
PXL THIS, featuring films made with the Fisher-Price PXL 2000 toy camcorder, is one of the longest running film festivals in the entertainment capital of the world. Celebrating "cinema povera" moving image art, it evokes Marcel Duchamp's axiom "Poor tools require better skills." Pixelators from across the globe hoick up inventive approaches to the unassuming throw-away of consumer culture. These low-tech hi-jinx films come through loud and clear by reframing a new cinema language. Past PXL THIS participants have included Lee Ranaldo (Sonic Youth), Chris Metzler (Fishbone & Salton Sea documentaries), James & Sadie Benning, Joe Gibbons, Cecilia Dougherty, Peggy Ahwesh, Jesse Drew, Margie Strosser, Cory McAbee (The Billy Nayer Show), Ann Randolph, Kirsten Stoltmann, Terri Sarris, Bryan Konefsky and Michael Almereyda.
"Gerry Fialka's annual PXL THIS is a reliably surprising and seductive round-up of recent work achieved with the PXL 2000 camera. This humble outdated toy continues to bring out the visionary child in filmmakers and viewers alike, and no one has kept the PXL flame burning longer or brighter than Gerry." - Michael Almereyda, director
"Gerry Fialka's PXL THIS festival snaps, crackles and pops off the screen with the funky, user-friendly energy of real first-person cinema. Goofy, gorgeous, and altogether groovy, his provocative program of pieces produced with the Fisher-Price PXL 2000 toy video camera is not only downright entertaining, but more, its blipping and buzzing black 'n' white picture-bits coalesce into a veritable inspiration to all those who cherish the playful, spontaneous gestures and low-cost of electronic folk art." - Craig Baldwin, director & curator.
"All the PXL THIS videos reflect festival organizer Gerry Fialka's commitment to the freedom produced by making art without financial constraints. PXL THIS is a welcome highlight in the Los Angeles media scene celebrating the rich lexicon available in a tool which might initially seem rather limiting." - Holly Willis, LA Weekly.
"Pixelvision may be firmly ensconced in the pantheon of once-popular dead media, but for many of the faithful it captures the heart of the American experience as it should be seen: in basic black and white." - David Cotner, LA Weekly
"PXL is the ultimate people's video." - J. Hoberman, Premiere Magazine.
Seminal film experimental filmmaker Hollis Frampton evokes PXL THIS in 1978 : "I didn't really like the work I thought was my best work. I liked the stuff I didn't like a lot more." Rewording Jimmie Durham's overhearing conjures PXL THIS: "Are those real films or did you make them yourself?"
"When the aliens are here and deciding whether to vaporize all mankind for our inhumanity, cruelty and greed, showing the aliens PXL THIS will save the world. PXL THIS shows our best nature as humanist creators and subversives against those who deserve it. Save the world. Support PXL THIS." - George Manupelli, founder of the Ann Arbor Film Festival, filmmaker, poet, collagist and political/environmental activist
Pixelvision conjures Bucky Fuller's ephemeralization - the idea of minimal material with maximum performance. The PXL THIS Film Festival is similar to what Rachel Kushner wrote about Silvia Kolbowski's After Hiroshima Mon Amour: "The overall effect is well beyond an avoidance of comparison. It's refusal of the seductive surface of the Resnais film, as if to coax viewers out of the trance of filmic nostalgia and toward our own catastrophes and forgetting, our own longing to be faithful to a moment in the face of oblivion."
Seminal film critic Pauline Kael evoked Pixelvision in her book Hooked: "I am still a child before a moving image."
Hollywood Reporter called Pixelvision a "precursor of today's DV filmmaking."
We welcome your input:
1- McLuhan quote, "If it works, it's obsolete."
2- One audience member said that with all the great new digital effects and equipment, it seems as though you could "fix" the picture.
3- PXL pioneer Erik Saks declared many years ago (say what?): "Pixelvision is an aberrant art form, underscored by the fact that since the cameras wear out quickly, and are no longer being manufactured, it holds within itself authorized obsolescence. Each time an artist uses a PXL 2000, the whole form edges closer to extinction.”
Ain't no stopping us now. Dig infinity...focus.
PXL THIS 30 - Entry deadline Oct 22, 2020 - simply send a dvd (NON RETURNABLE, and we may accept a youtube or vimeo link or online file link, if there is no way to send a dvd, yikes) to Gerry Fialka 2427 1/2 Glyndon Ave, Venice, CA 90291, 310-306-7330 pfsuzy@ aol.com NO entry fee. PXL THIS 30 premieres Nov 22, 2020 at Beyond Baroque, Venice CA
ALSO: (tentative) May 21, 2020 Thurs, PXL THIS 29 Toy Camera Film Festival at 8pm (doors open at 730pm) screens at Echo Park Film Center, 1200 N Alvarado St, LA 90026
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