An Evening with Abigail Child
Harvard Film Archive is pleased to present an evening of film and video work by award-winning experimental filmmaker Abigail Child, chair of the Film Department at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts and a Harvard alumna. The evening’s program will feature the Boston premiere of Child’s latest work, Surface Noise, along with two original video pieces and perhaps a few surprises. Steve Anker, curator of the San Francisco Cinematheque has written that "with the release of her video Below the New: A Russian Chronicle and film Surface Noise, Abigail Child confirms her position as one of the leading avant-garde filmmakers of this generation."
PROGRAM
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Below the New: A Russian Chronicle
Directed by Abigail Child.
US/Russia, 1999, video, color, 30 min.
This video essay combines diary footage of St. Petersburg with archival material, accompanied by the voices of two young Russians who, through personal anecdote, describe the emotional, political, and economic transformations that have wrenched their society.
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Shiver (from 8 Million)
Directed by Abigail Child.
US, 1992, video, color, 5 min.
Experimental music and eroticism swirl about each other in this second installment of the 8 Million stories, a continuing "album" made in collaboration with percussionist and composer Ikue Mori.
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Surface Noise
Directed by Abigail Child.
US, 2000, 16mm, color and b&w, 20 min.
In Surface Noise, sound and original footage are woven into a sonata form to explore public and private arenas. Child centers the film around work and issues of class: the divisions between home and public spaces, owners and workers, saturation and flow, structure and improvisation. The sound montage was created by Child with additional recording by musicians Zeena Parkins, Christian Marclay, Shelley Hirsch, and Jim Black.
