Hide (Matthias Müller & Christoph Girardet, 2006)

Composed of densely atmospheric and highly stylized recycled commercial footage of young, picture perfect models pleasurably applying personal hygiene and cosmetic products in a quick cut montage of disembodied, glistening skins, hairs, hands, and lips, juxtaposed against the sensual application of assorted foams, lotions, waxes, and creams, these carefully constructed, plastic images begin to fade, speckle, crack, distort, and burn with the material deterioration of the celluloid itself, before being reduced to the stark whiteness – and unadulterated purity – of an empty projection. At once idealized and grotesque, the disintegrating images become an integral reflection of the title’s double entendre of hide as both an organic surface that inherently decays with time, and the deliberate act of concealing its irreversible plasticity. Using the materiality of film as a surrogate for the materiality of the human body, Girardet and Müller create a droll metaphor for the vain pursuit of consumer-driven eternal youth.
(Views from the Avantgarde, 2007)

N-Zone (Arthur Lipsett, 1970)

45 min

Arthur Lipsett pieces together his visions of this fragmented world from odds and ends, even leftovers, from other people’s photography and sound recording. By juxtaposing his snippets of “found film” with snatches of comment or dialogue echoing the banality of human communication, Lipsett shows the emptiness of much of what we say or do. N-Zone is one man’s surrealist sampler of the human condition.