PXL THIS is a festival that features videos produced using the PXL 2000, a plastic toy video camera that records sound and images directly onto audiocassettes. The PXL 2000 was available from 1987 to 1989 from Fisher-Price. The picture is comprised of 2,000 "pixels" as opposed to the 150,000 pixels seen on the average TV screen, which makes for a very grainy but appealing quality. PXL THIS organizer Gerry Fialka says, "PXL is the essential utensil of creation. The really creative artist does a lot with nothing. PXL THIS is based on the statements, 'It is literally possible to do more with less' -Buckminster Fuller and 'Film will only become art when its materials are as inexpensive as pencil and paper' -Jean Cocteau. It's a real pencil and paper mentality. Express yourself, and don't be afraid to break some rules. Like Cocteau said, "What one should do with the young is to give them a portable camera and forbid them to observe any rules except those they invent for themselves as they go along. Let them write without being afraid of making mistakes.' But PXL THIS is for all ages."
Hosted by: Amir George (The Film Culture)
Tonight's program features 14 shorts compiled from PXL THIS Film Festivals spanning 2003 to 2006 and includes the following works: Souvenir (Stephen Rose); Gestures (L.M. Sabo); Helen Possert: A WWII Rosie (Michael Possert); Somnigraphic Traces of the Otherwise Undocumented Friedkin Institute for Sleep Disorder Research (Struan Ashby & Roy Parkhurst); I'm in the Mood (Bryan Konefsky); About Flowers (Juniper Woodbury); Sleep (Doug Ing); Double-Duty Interrobang (Gerry Fialka); Fish (Joe Frese); PXL Manifesto (Ross Craig); Babblefesto #2 (Steve Craig); A Stake to the Heart: The Last PXL Movie (Ross Craig); Rugrat (Lisa Marr); and Zero (Eli Elliott).
Total running time: 89 mins.
General Admission: $8
Students: $7
Chi Film Members: $4
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