Brett Simon
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Contact Information*:
Venice California USA |
Contact Type: Artist |
| web: www.brettsimon.com | |
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Bio:
BIO Brett Simon is a Javits Fellow, a PhD candidate in Film Studies, and an MFA graduate in Art Practice at UC Berkeley. He graduated from Princeton University in 1997 with a degree in Comparative Literature and Creative Writing. His personal hygiene has been described as “satisfactory.” His films and videos have screened in festivals around the world including ResFest, Toronto, and Telluride. He was a finalist in the Student Academy Awards, and won first prize in the Black Maria Film Festival. Since 1998, he has been teaching film history, film theory and video production at UC Berkeley. He is currently working on a vampire movie, his dissertation, and his posture. ARTIST STATEMENT I work in the place where narrative and experimental video meet. While digital technologies allow for new possibilities in interactivity, I consider storytelling to still be the most powerful tool to forge a relationship between the viewer and the work. I use stories the way jazz musicians use pop standards--as a familiar trail to follow through unfamiliar territory. In a similar gesture, I riff off of certain conventions of film language to find a new language that is particular to video. The conflicts between art and entertainment, and between film and video, serve as subplots in many of my pieces. Filmography/Awards Info: EDUCATION Current PhD Candidate, Film Studies, UC Berkeley (dissertation will completed 2003) 2002 MFA, Art Practice, UC Berkeley 1997 BA, Comparative Literature + Creative Writing, Princeton University SELECTED EXHIBITIONS AND SCREENINGS 2003 Images Festival, Toronto, Canada, Datax Installation: My Best Friends Ever(J 1977-85), My One True Loves (A-Z, 1987) 2003 Rencontres Internacionales, Paris/Berlin, Counterfeit Film 2003 South by Southwest, Austin, TX, When You Heard You 2003 Galeria do Poste, Rio, Brazil, Cellular Crimes, The Flickerflash 2003 Cinema Vortex, Miami, Fl, The Flickerflash 2003 Noiselab, Seattle, WA, Cellular Crimes, The Flickerflash 2003 Museum of New Art, Detroit, MI, Cellular Crimes, The Flickerflash 2003 L’Alternativa, CCCB, Barcelona, Spain, The New Step, Counterfeit Film 2002 Pacific Film Archive, Berkeley, CA, Alternative Visions, 10 videos by Brett Simon 2002 Toronto International Festival, Canada, Counterfeit Film 2002 GenArt PT Studios, San Francicsco, CA, Selected Videos 2002 111 Minna Gallery, SF, CA, “Microcinema”, Untitled 2002 Arts Benitia Gallery, Benitia, CA, “Cream” Selected Videos 2002 SF Camerawork, San Francisco, CA “Home Movies” Untitled, The New Step 2002 Cincinnati Art Museum, OH, “Black Maria” Counterfeit Film 2002 Southern Exposure Gallery, San Francisco, CA “Appropriate” Counterfeit 2002 Seoul Net Festival, Korea, Featured Artist, Selected Videos 2002 Berkeley Art Museum, CA, “New Knowledge” Selected Videos and Datax 2002 Melbourne International Animation Festival, Counterfeit Film 2002 San Francisco International Film Festival, Counterfeit Film 2002 Firestation #3 Gallery, Houston, TX, Selected Videos 2002 Hirshorn Museum, Washington, DC, “Black Maria” Counterfeit Film 2002 South by Southwest, Austin, TX, Counterfeit Film 2001 Film Arts Foundation Festival, San Francisco, CA, Switch Fish 2001 SomArts Gallery, SF, CA Pipe Dreams (installation) 2001 RESFEST, international, Counterfeit Film 2001 Telluride International Film Festival, Counterfeit Film 2001 Chicago Underground Film Festival, IL Counterfeit Film 2001 GenArt, San Francisco, CA, Emerge 2001 Blausthaus, SF, CA “Women and Media Art” Good Friday 1999 Dallas Video Festival, TX, Love Potion, Objects in Mirror 2000 Ohos Gallery, San Francisco, CA, Outcasts (installation) SELECTED EXHIBITIONS AND SCREENINGS (cont.) 2000 San Francisco IndieFest, CA, A Film for my Unborn Supermodel 2000 Pacific Film Archive, Sea Changes 2000 Virginia Film Festival, Femme Fatale SELECTED AWARDS AND GRANTS 1998-2003 Jacob Javits Fellowship in the Arts and Humanities 2002 Finalist, Student Academy Awards 2002 Eisner Prize in Art, UC Berkeley 2002 First Prize, Experimental Film, Kansas City International Film Festival 2000 First Prize, Black Maria Film and Video Festival 2001 Eisner Prize in Film and Video, UC Berkeley 2001 Outstanding Graduate Student Instructor Award, UC Berkeley 1999 Block Grant, UC Berkeley 1997 Suma Cum Laude, Princeton University 1997 Mary Quaintance Memorial Prize in Art and Writing, Princeton 1996 Ward Prize in Creative Writing, Princeton University SELECTED REVIEWS AND MEDIA 2003 “Microcinema’s Independent Exposure: Love and Other Difficulties,” Eric Campos, Film Threat.com, February 13 2001 “A Contemporary Bard,” Jeanne Aufmuth, Palo Alto Weekly, Oct. 4 2002 “Brett Simon’s Counterfeit Films,” Peter Crimmins, Berkeley Daily Planet, August 30 2002 “Campus Beat: Counterfeit Film” Kodak.com, July 2002 “The Territory,” PBS showcase of short films, January 8 2002 “Artists Respond to 9.11” documentary by Dana Plautz 2001 KALX interview with Peter Crimmins 2001 “A Loop to the Past,” S. Kent, Release Print Magazine, October 2000 “Tell and Show,” J. Lichtenstein, The New Republic Online, Nov. 3 2000 “Next Generation of Digital Media Makers,” Film/Tape World Magazine, January, San Francisco, CA 1999 “Digital Dreams” San Francisco Chronicle, December 8 SELECTED PUBLIC LECTURES AND ARTIST DISCUSSIONS 2002 San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, 7th Art Series, Kira’s Reason and Dogma 95. 2002 Pacific Film Archive, Berkeley, CA, Making Counterfeit Films 2002 Toronto International Festival, Canada Wavelengths 2002 SF Camerawork, San Francisco, CA Home Movies 2002 Berkeley Art Museum, CA, New Knowledge 2002 San Francisco International Film Festival, Memory Arcade 2002 Firestation #3 Gallery, Houston, TX, Selected Videos 2002 South by Southwest, Austin, TX, Counterfeit Film 2001 RESFEST, Counterfeit Film 2001 Telluride International Film Festival, Counterfeit Film SELECTED PUBLIC LECTURES AND ARTIST DISCUSSIONS (cont.) 2001 GenArt, San Francisco, CA, Emerge 2001 Art 8, UC Berkeley, guest lecture: Pixel Nightmares invitation by John McNamara 2000 San Francisco Digital Underground, CA, A Film for my Unborn Supermodel 2000 Pacific Film Archive, Sea Changes 2000 St. Mary’s College, Love Potions SELECTED VIDEOGRAPHY 2002 The New Step A step-aerobics homage to Marey, Duchamp, and Busby Berkeley. 2002 Untitled A video lullaby for 9.11. 2000 Counterfeit Film A look at money, movies, and reproduction. 2001 The Flickerflash Once upon a time, I was happily ever after. Then one day something caught my eye. 2001 The End He’s from the wrong side of the tracks. She left dirty dishes in the sink. 2000 The Girl Who Would Do Anything Anything? Anything. 2000 A Film for My Unborn Supermodel Fame, fortune and family romance are just one film a way. 2000 Switch Fish Driven by envy, a boy and his pet goldfish decide to swap bodies. 1999 Objects in Mirror I teased her about pimping off her life story. She called it talk ‘therapy.’ 1999 before need A child never weans. His mother never ages. SELECTED INSTALLATIONS in progress 24-hour Peep A titillating strip tease of “digital” flip clocks. 2002 My Best Friends Ever (J, 1977-1985), My One True Loves (A-Z, 1987) Electric-powered rolodexes look back and move forward. 2000 Pipe Dreams A series of seven narrative shorts that all take place and are screened in bathrooms. 2000 Outcasts A tomb of the unknown actor constructed out of headshots. SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Journalism 2000 “Behind the Stage Door,” Fabula Magazine, San Francisco: v4:2. 2000 “Pop Art: Attention Deficit Theater,” Fabula Magazine, San Francisco: v4:1. SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY (cont.) 2000 “Radiation,” Fabula Magazine, San Francisco: v4:1 (as Emily Stone.) 1999 “A Second Serving,” Fabula Magazine, San Francisco: v3:4. 1999 “Silent History: The Photographic Archive of Doctor Stanley Burns,” Speak Magazine, San Francisco, Summer. 1998 “Mean Machine,” Lingua Franca, New York: July/August. Fiction 2003 “Sad Tales of Vampiro 3,4” Kitchen Sink Magazine, Oakland: v1:2. 2002 “Sad Tales of Vampiro 1,2,” Kitchen Sink Magazine, Oakland: v1:1. 1996 “Bird’s Eye View,” Euphorbus, Princeton, v1:1. This Contact appears in this database if Microcinema International has screened a film directed by the Contact, a film directed by the contact is featured in a DVD distributed by the Blackchair Collection Shop, or featured an organization or activity linked with the Contact. This database is used for commercial as well as informational, non-commercial purposes. It is a historical archive of Microcinema International's activities. Inclusion in this database and archive in no way implies a continuing formal relationship or affiliation with Microcinema International or the Blackchair Label nor an endorsement of its activities by the Contact. Contact details are not displayed in order to protect privacy. If you wish to contact this artist please see their website as listed above or write Microcinema International and we will be happy to forward your e-mail.
Microcinema Interview/Article:
1. Why did you select this style of filmmaking when you set out to make your art? What were the initial emphases? The images or the story? I never consciously picked a style. I wanted to use video because it was relatively new and there weren't so many rules and precedents. I wanted to make the video look like nothing I had ever seen. I wanted to make video beautiful to me, because when I started shooting, I considered video something like a low-rent film, an ugly duckling quacking out soap operas and home movies. Story is important to me. I think story keeps my work relevant (to what I'm not sure) and prevents me from falling too deeply into myself because stories after all, belong to everyone. The order between stories and images changes. With Anything Girl and the Flickerflash, I began with the word, and reverse engineered the images. Counterfeit Film was about the process of making the images. I experimented with the dollar bill, the photocopier, and I created images that appealed to me. Afterwards, I created a whole theoretical and historical narrative to surround the piece, a story I can tell at artist talks, q and a sessions, and in interviews. I think this story is so compelling (its too long to write out here) that I have myself convinced I was thinking about all these things before I made the piece. Maybe. Maybe not. With Untitled, I began with a text, went back and found some old footage I had shot to accompany the text, and then dropped the story altogether. In fact, a new story grew out of making the piece. On 9/11 I edited the piece while I waited to hear from friends in New York. I edited to pacify myself. A lullaby doesn't need to make sense, it just needs to sooth or distract. 2. Try to help us understand why or how you feel your work is unique from other moving image artists? I don't think its so unique. I so do feel I'm less concerned with separating "art" and "entertainment" than many of my contemporaries. I don't think entertainment is a bad word. In fact, I aspire to create entertaining work. For me, entertainment is the spoon-full of sugar. Art is the medicine. The two need each other. I don't want to make pixie sticks nor suppositories. 3. Narrative structure seems to be one of your main "collaborators" - can you explain this "relationship"? I talked about this a little above. Story is the touchstone for both me and my audience. I don't believe that button pushing always makes for interactive art. When I trust a narrator, when I identify with a character, I'm inside the work of art, and I am reshaping it in my own image while it reshapes me in its own image. That's my idea of interactive. 4. You seem to be quite a prolific filmmaker. How are you able to create and produce so much work? I never feel like I'm making enough work. I'm lucky to make a half dozen shorts a year. In film thinking, that would be a lot. In TV/video thinking or printmaking thinking, its not so impressive. In my thinking, I'm being too lazy or scared. The work I do create, I owe to inspiring friends and successful enemies. I also have been lucky enough to teach both pays the rent and gives me ample time to produce. 5. How important is telling a story in your works? How do you appoach telling a story in such an abstract medium? I think I've hit this above. 7. Who would you want to see your films at a special screening if you had the choice of all living and dead? Why? I'll assume that the dead have already seen it, at least those who wanted to. I'm sure both heaven and hell have cable with all the channels and TIVO. Among the living, I'd invite all my past teachers and professors. I want to show them what I'm up to. I want to say, 'thank you.' 8. What film haven't you made yet? There are so many. There's a vampire movie which I'll make this summer. There's a rock and roll psycho-drama which I'm currently writing. There's also a top secret Chuck-E-Cheese project which I'll be collaborating on next month. Oh, just you wait. |
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