article by Vienna Famous
I got myself a reputation at art school by declaring pop videos to be the perfect artform (that and for being frequently naked). My reasoning was that with something so short (I’m talking about videos here), not a frame can be wasted; our fickle attentions must be seduced into submission.
The sexy aesthetics of music video are in full effect in Aesthetica Magazine’s trailer for their second annual Short Film Festival this year: trannies, riots, cakes, psychos, and animated oddballs all dancing to the glitchy beat of exhilarating novelty. This is an all-you-can-eat buffet of information, and I don’t want to leave until I’m sick.
Salvador Dali, the Lord of Misrule, once stumbled out of an arthouse cinema clinging to his facial ornaments and mumbling, “new information for me…” Film’s megalomaniac monopolisation of sound and vision gift it the power to create immersive other-worlds which seem absolutely real for the duration of the projection. Sadly, the big money has always been with feature films, shorts usually having to be sneaked into prime viewing spots, appended to crowd pleasers like enigmatic The Skirt which prefixed Walter Salles’ On the Road and actually blew it away: more involving, better acted and less pretentious.
Between 8-11 November 2012, The Aesthetica Short Film Festival will be cramming York’s aged nooks and post-modern crannies with these cheeky upstarts, selected from a global open submission. Accompanying these screenings and premieres like cool older siblings will be a series of unmissable masterclasses from BAFTA award winners, original innovators Channel 4 and Sheffield’s Warp Films. Representing more than 25 countries, filling 15 venues and covering multiple genres from music to animation to drama, this will be a curated and cinematic experience with so much new sensory information that it will blow your surrealist socks off.
For more information go to www.asff.co.uk
words Vienna Famous
