Encounters: Pixelvision
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Thu 19 November 2009 // 20:00
Thurs 19th/ 8pm / £4/3
Tonight’s show explores the visionary aesthetics of the Fisher Price PXL-2000. Essentially a failed toy only made in the US from 1987 to 1989, the camera has since gained a small following from artists and filmmakers intent on exploring it's unique look and feel.
Beginning with a pictorial presentation by local PXL enthusiast, filmmaker and Cube volunteer, Gavin Maitland, we will follow with a selection of highlights of this years PXL THIS festival, now in it’s eighteenth year. The first ever genuine fake film festival prides itself with no corporate sponsors, no color brochures, no big shot movie director board members, no ticketmaster access and no competition. PXL THIS spans many genres: documentary, poetry, drama, art, music, political activism, cinema povera, comedy and the avant-garde.
"The PXL 2000 camera records picture and sound directly onto audio cassettes, which creates its grainy look. Another distinguishing feature is its "in-focus" capability from zero to infinity. The "in your face" attitude restores a certain human vitality to the sensory overload that bombards us daily. The magical PXL 2000 restores a certain humanity to the overpowering technology of video, with the irresistible irony 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"
-Gerry Fialka
"Gerry Fialka's PXL THIS festival snaps, crackles and pops off the screen with the funky, user-friendly en ergy 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 b lack '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
Tonight’s show explores the visionary aesthetics of the Fisher Price PXL-2000. Essentially a failed toy only made in the US from 1987 to 1989, the camera has since gained a small following from artists and filmmakers intent on exploring it's unique look and feel.
Beginning with a pictorial presentation by local PXL enthusiast, filmmaker and Cube volunteer, Gavin Maitland, we will follow with a selection of highlights of this years PXL THIS festival, now in it’s eighteenth year. The first ever genuine fake film festival prides itself with no corporate sponsors, no color brochures, no big shot movie director board members, no ticketmaster access and no competition. PXL THIS spans many genres: documentary, poetry, drama, art, music, political activism, cinema povera, comedy and the avant-garde.
"The PXL 2000 camera records picture and sound directly onto audio cassettes, which creates its grainy look. Another distinguishing feature is its "in-focus" capability from zero to infinity. The "in your face" attitude restores a certain human vitality to the sensory overload that bombards us daily. The magical PXL 2000 restores a certain humanity to the overpowering technology of video, with the irresistible irony 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"
-Gerry Fialka
"Gerry Fialka's PXL THIS festival snaps, crackles and pops off the screen with the funky, user-friendly en ergy 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 b lack '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