Cinema Soiree: “Celluloid Scopophilia: The Sensual Dimensions of the Human Body” with Kerry Laitala and Live Music by Wobbly - Thur. Dec. 1st - 8PM

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Oddball Films welcomes moving image artist Kerry Laitala to our Cinema Soiree Series, a monthly event featuring visiting authors, filmmakers and curators presenting and sharing cinema insights and films. Laitala will be returning to the cinestage to present Celluloid Scopophilia: The Sensual Dimensions of the Human Body, a film program that examines the fetishization of the human body through rare medical and first aid films as well as vintage fetish shorts, Laitala's own handmade films, and live musical accompaniment from Wobbly. Celluloid Scopophilia is a program that treads the line between visual pleasure and pain in the context of Scopophilia, (the pleasure of looking). Through the camera's gaze, the pleasure imparted by the extraction and isolation of body parts is explored and dwelled upon, sucking the viewer into this seductive, unseemly form of compelling cinema sequencing the program to make the resonance between the films vibrate with a very pervy frequency. This program investigates these abnormalities showcasing rare medical films such as Pain and Its Alleviation (1961) and Oral Hygiene films such as the Technicolor Danish, English co-production Es Leight Ans Dir (1951), later dubbed in German, industrial First Aid films such as Shock and Breathing For Others (1955), outtakes from Obsession, an adult film shot in San Francisco in the 1980s starring Jamie Gillis, and underground foot fetish films. The program will conclude with the viscerally compelling counterpoint Secure the Shadow…’Ere the Substance Fade, a hand-made film by Laitala, a filmmaker and long-time collector of obscure and disturbing medical and industrial films. Additionally the program with incorporate live cinema film loops, triple projections and Laitala wielding her infamous “film flogger”, a celluloid “whip” created to scatter multiple images throughout the screening room. Laitala’s frequent musical collaborator Wobbly will be on hand to create some new sonic interminglings. The program is curated by Oddball Films Director Stephen Parr and filmmaker/cinema historian Kerry Laitala and all films will be screened in 16mm film. Celluloid Scopophilia: The Sensual Dimensions of the Human Body promises to be a disturbing, darkly humorous and ultimately fascinating look at our perceptions of the human body in all its fetishistic forms.

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Date: Thursday, December 1st, 2016 at 8:00pm

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Secure the Shadow is a meditation on disintegration and mortality. The film utilizes antique Medical stereoscopic images from the Victorian era, which are simultaneously disturbing and beautiful. My intention was to attempt to reveal universal truths about the overwhelming quality of disease to render us ultimately mute, immobilized within a corporeal shell that has succumbed to imminent forces beyond our control. I also wanted the film to address the myth that dignity is automatically restored upon when facing death. In analyzing the original function of the stereoscopes, I intended to expose their classificatory nature. These anonymous subjects were reduced to paradigms of pathology, embalmed in time within their exterior presence. By rephotographing them on the optical printer and placing them in a mythical home, I was attempting to reanimate these visages to ensnare them or allow them to roam free on the surface of celluloid. Absence transforms to presence as the latent image reveals the manifest content, the slippery territories in between unraveling like the threads joining the crazy quilt that joins images together. An anachronistic Victorian sensibility places the images in a chimerical, historical context that embodies the film with a mind that is paradoxical and alien to our 21st century perspective. The title "Secure the Shadow. ..'Ere the Substance Fade, let nature imitate what nature has made", comes from a 19th century post mortem photographer who advertised his services. This reference speaks about the function of photography of as a democratizing medium that assists in the process of mourning and serves as a physical reminder of loss.

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About Jon Leidecker (Wobbly):Jon Leidecker has been producing music under the name Wobbly since 1990, improvising with recordings to produce music which inherently resist the act of being captured. Recent performances deploy a battery of mobile devices driven by their built-in microphones, reacting instantly with error-prone variations on the notes and sounds they believe they are hearing: a tightly-knit orchestra with inhuman reflexes, resulting in structures which the human performer influences more than controls. Your phone is a musical instrument, and your phone is always listening.  Leidecker's solo performances are complimented by extensive live and studio collaborations, including work with Dieter Moebius & Tim Story, Matmos, Fred Frith, John Oswald, Thomas Dimuzio, Huun-Huur-Tu, Sagan and the Freddy McGuire Show.  He recently became a full time participant in the culture jamming art collective Negativland, and as of last year inherited the stewardship of their legendary, long-running live mix media collage program Over The Edge on Pacifica KPFA FM in Berkeley.  His nearly completed eight hour podcast 'Variations' on the evolution of sampling and collage music in the age of recorded sound was commissioned by the Museum of Contemporary Art in Barcelona.