Art on Film

Listen to Tam’s interview with several featured filmmakers.

Art, in its purest form, is an extension of one’s imagination. We can never force inspiration; we can never force beauty.

This evening UWM’s Peck School of the Arts, along with the INOVA gallery will host the final reception for the first annual Film Graduate Student’s Exhibition, showcasing what UWM’s film department is known for: Film as art.

UW–Milwaukee’s program is relatively small in size — it only admits about six students into the graduate program each year — but not in scope. The ethos is couched in experimental film, focusing on imagery and audio to convey a message.

The INOVA space is vast, the light is bright, the energy is conducive for art. The main gallery of the exhibit hosts multimedia pieces, forcing the viewer to interact with the environment.

Lisa Danker’s piece, Mirror, Mirror was recorded on an iPod and challenges the relationship of technology to everyday touch-and-go relationships. Has technology made voyeurs of daily life? Can we manipulate technology to present an idea?

The graduate reel, which is playing in one of the four spaces of the gallery, is inspiring. Megan Hessenthaler’s piece, Poets Say, is a throwback to the films of the 20s and 30s, manipulating text, audio, and images. Her film is saturated in color, which juxtaposes nicely against the theme and mood of the piece.

According to Sean Kafer, a second year graduate student, “Writing with light is imagery. That’s cinematography. It’s an image with just light.” A frenzy of light, sound, and text is what transpires. What matters here is not the image, necessarily. It’s the detail of the smallest mistake you can find.

Kellie Bronikowski’s photography and text piece, Grandma’s House, parlays memory into breathing and asks the viewer what inspires creativity. “I just know that I need to do this; make films for my own sense of sanity, for my own survival.”

Though renown for the experimental method, UWM’s film department also draws documentaries. Joshua Baum, of Massachusetts, says, “My most recent work is somewhere in between experimental and documentary… stories that are generated more directly out of reality.”

Kate Brandt explores gender identity in her work. Her three videos in the exhibit survey the different roles of male and female, subverting the generic stereotypes. The metaphor of the “threshold” of gender identity is questioned. Though satirical in nature, her themes examine what it means to be male or female— or in some instances, both.

Film has been thriving in Milwaukee for decades, with prominent voices in the scene. The range is wide. The people are diverse. The scene is panoramic. Students from New York, Florida, Massachusetts, East and West Coast come to Milwaukee for its film program. Several galleries around town showcase the local art fare; however, most galleries ignore film as a piece of moving art, begging the question: “What constitutes art?”

Perhaps no definition can be contained in these words. The visual, auditory, textual-based perception of reality is personal, such as these stories in movement.

The First Annual Film MFA Exhibition closing reception takes place tonight from 6-9 p.m. at the INOVA/Arts Center Gallery, located at 2400 E. Kenwood Blvd.