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Adrian Muniz: Well, I first wanted to start by asking you where you were from. State your name, what you do, where you were born and all that.
Ben Russell: Sure. My name is Ben Russell. I was born in Springfield, MA, but only lived there for six months or so. Lived in Littleton, CO until fourth grade; southern California till twelfth grade; Providence, RI for a year, Australia for a year, Providence for two years, South America—Surinam—for two years, Chicago for three years and Providence for three years.
AM: You moved around a lot…
BR: I guess you could say that.
AM: What was your childhood like?
BR: What was my childhood like…
I mean, Colorado was really great, it’s a really shnazzy and nice. You know, pre-adolescent memories of that place which involves large snow forts and playing war. And then southern California is a terrible place to grow up, I think. So, but I went to a lot of movies and I used to surf a lot. I was very attached to the ocean so that’s how I spent my time: in the dark and in the water.
AM: Why’d you move around so much?
BR: I think—Well, my father was in real estate and… yeah, it was only three significant moves in my adolescence, but they were all at critical junctures and the rest was maybe catching up with that or resisting settling down. I don’t know.
AM: And what are you doing now?
BR: Right now, well, I’m at the end of my spring semester. I’ve been teaching film in a variety of permutations at the School of Museum of Fine Arts, Emerson College, and Brown University, and I mentor MFA students at the Art Institute of Boston, so I’ve been teaching a whole lot—More than is perhaps wise so that in two weeks I cannot work for a good six or seven months and go on tour and do some filmmaking stuff of my own.
AM: You do a lot of your own video work.
BR: Film work, yeah.
AM: Yeah and how does that—how’d you get started on that?
BR: Well, I went to Brown University and when I was here I was also doing photography at RISD and I started—I was working on photographic series work which maybe actually started more in Australia. And then took a video class and was doing some video installation, but the movement from sort of larger series pieces, like, of upwards of twenty images… Um, it just made sense to make the shift into cinema. And when I first—I took—my last semester at Brown was a film production course with Leslie Thornton, and that was when I feel like everything sort of crystallized. And since then I went into the Peace Corps. I was a development worker in South America for two years, but I went in knowing that I was going to go back to graduate school to make experimental films. So, yeah, it just made sense I guess.
AM: So, you went to the Peace Corps knowing that you were going back into filmmaking…
BR: Yeah. The Peace Corps was more of a way to get out of the country for a while and kind of not have to pay my way to do something. It was perhaps, in retrospect, unwise because the Peace Corps isn’t the most ideologically sound organization, but I was in a very, very far off place. I was very separate from the organization and I kind of went with the assumption that I would be a good development worker, actually intending to do water and sanitation projects and ended up working with women’s groups doing community building—community groups, capacity building and mosquito net projects, and writing grants, and teaching literacy. But, yeah, it wasn’t—I think it was a way to figure myself out and the world out before I started concentrating my efforts on making media.
[00:04:21]
AM: And how much of that influenced what you did after.
BR: I mean, yeah, everything.
AM: Really. I mean, anything specifically or…?
BR: Well, the first film that I made that came out of that was a film called “Daumë” which was, I would say, is the most personal and the most oblique film that I’ve made, and it did really well in terms of the experimental film world in that in screen in New York, and it screened a wide, wide array of places, a lot of auspicious places, and it was the first film that I had kind of pushed out there so I felt I had, in that sense, had set up a precedent for other work to follow. But, I think the experience of having to learn a new language and come to terms with your own cultural and ethnic identity in the face of complete and total difference is sort of life-altering in and of itself.
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AM: So you’re teaching at Brown now, and you’re also working with the Cable Car and Magic Lantern…
BR: Yeah, well that’s… So when I first moved to Providence I was actually working at the Cable Car as a barista and a projectionist, and I guess I did that for a few months and knew that I wanted to start a screening series because I sort of—it seems that in small towns these things sort of come in cycles and [sic] had stopped doing “Movies with Live Soundtracks” so there was this palpable absence of experimental media. Leslie Thornton was the only—she teaches it at Brown but RISD doesn’t… they have a really strong animation program and a documentary program but nothing that’s experimentally based in terms of cinema, so… yeah, I just couldn’t stand being in a place where none of that was being shown so I started doing it and I started doing screenings at AS220 and working with a woman who was living at the Dirt Palace at the time, Carrie Collier, and so she would make posters and help a little bit with the prep and I would curate some shows. And we did about… I guess we started in February of 2004 perhaps? So not so long ago. And we did shows up until July and then… I guess up until August until we got funding, and Carrie had left by that point so I was doing shows at AS220 and I was doing screenings down at the Cable Car as well, midnight screenings and still losing about 200 dollars a show. And at that point I wasn’t able to pay any of the artists to show the films I was showing, which is really sad because we don’t make any money and film is sort of a very prohibitively expensive process to undertake. So from the beginning I decided—Carrie and I decided—that we would send these posters out to people as a thank you, and also pay for shipping and do as much as we could. And then more people started to come. The midnight screenings were working and then in the fall of 2002 I was fortunate enough to receive funding from both the Rhode Island State Council for the arts and Brown University and so I’ve had about two years of about ridiculously solid funding that allows me to pay all the artists what they should get, pay rental fees, bring in visiting artists, pay for shipping, pay for poster production which is amazing, pay for rental space and then also pay myself a tiny amount. So, yeah, so that’s, so magic lantern is a series. It’s a tri-weekly series of thematically curated experimental film and video programs with occasional visiting curators and visiting filmmakers, video artists, who come in and present their work. So, I think at this point I’ve done about 27 programs in the last two years, maybe more, and attendance ranges from—it averages around 50 or 60 and it ranges from 30-140 which is sort of startling. I mean, yeah, that’s, there shouldn’t, I mean there isn’t an audience for this sort of thing in other cities and I think it has to do with the infrequency and the lack of other work that’s being shown in those terms
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AM: What kind of themes have you explored…
BR: So, the first show we did was the “Fear and Anger” show and then the next was the “Love” show. I think that was a Valentines Day show. So it was “Love” and then “Fear and Anger.” I think my two favorites were the “Animal Show: Part One, Bats versus Cats” and the “Animal Show: Part Two, Four-legs versus More-Legs,” so bat films, cat films, animal films, insect films. Since then it’s gotten a little bit more rigorous I think in its approach. The “Gun” show was really, really solid and it had works by Bruce Connor who is a graphic artist, oil painter and printmaker as well as a filmmaker who does found-footage films alongside a superman cartoon from the forties which was kind of exciting. “The shoot” by a fellow whose name I forgot but will remember shortly. So if you—I guess I usually—my approach with Magic Lantern is actually based on this model that was set up by this dude named Amos Vogel who ran something called “Cinema 16” in New York in the late 50’s, early 60’s which was, at the time, a way to get around obscenity laws was to become a membership club and they had a membership, I think, at its peak, around 7 or 9,000 people and they would do screenings where they had 1,500 people come which is—while its exciting to have 30 people come, and 100, its certainly not 1,500. But, his programs had a mix of brand new documentaries, science films, animation, and experimental films by up and coming filmmakers who would be Kenneth Anger and Stan Brackadge, Marie Mankin, and Willard Moss. All these people who weren’t getting played anywhere else were getting played there also wasn’t any sort international distribution system. But what he did was he had a mix, I guess, its… some people say his membership was so high because there were, because he was obstensively showing films that were obscene and maybe he was using that to put in these other films to expose audiences to wide array of cinema. But it was really effective and I think people came because they were excited about the type of films he was showing. So, my feeling is, in doing what I’m doing which is sort of the other alternative or the other kind of present model for experimental film curation—
If you want to—
AM: No, no, I was just holding something…
BR: Um, the other model for experimental film and video curation is single-artist shows where, you know, Kenneth Anger will come and show a body of work and those works will interact with each other and sort of inform the viewer’s sense of his practice in relation to him. I’m kind of more interested in the way works function in relation to other works in the world and I’m taking a sort of… not an a-historical approach, but one that causes linkages, one that creates linkages between works from like 1903 and 2006 that would otherwise not exist but by placing them together there becomes an interaction, right? So, also I feel like having works that are super austere, really formal works, alongside more accessible populist works is really helpful because, you know, the experimental—the educated experimental film audience is really not prevalent anywhere and in order to arrive at difficult works you have to sort of—its sort of like teaching a new language and so you have to teach your audience a new language, which may sound kind of, I don’t know, pedantic? I don’t know. But I’m not interested in really formal work so when I curate my own programming and it reflects my own sensibilities and my own interests. And I think experimental film, avante garde cinema has a bad, but perhaps somewhat deserved, reputation of being obscure, and difficult, and unaccessible, and tedious, and boring, and all of these things. And, I think that there’s a lot of joy and humor in these works that this, my programming, at Magic Lantern is allowing me to access and kind of present. So…
[Pause]
[00:13:38]
AM: So, do you think that the guest curators you bring follow that same sensibility? Do you choose them that way?
BR: Um, I don’t—how many have I had? I’ve only had about four people and generally, I mean, the experimental film community is kind of small so I know most of these people and its sort of a catch because, because there is so little funding in the states and there are so few options for screening it seems really important to give the touring curators and touring filmmakers a venue in which to screen their works sort of regardless of how I feel about them. Which isn’t to say that if they were terrible I would give them a space, because I wouldn’t. But I have shown work that I’m not excited about because I feel like its more important that they get exposure and because the more, you know, the older I get the more conscious I get of my own… you know, that my aesthetic is my aesthetic and that there are other people who are really, really excited about totally different things and we can have [sic] and so I feel like there are a lot of different approaches. But in terms of curation, yeah, the curators who have asked to show work have asked because I have a faith in their curatorial abilities I guess.
AM: And who are some of the people you’ve brought in?
BR: Well one was one of my collaborators [sic] who teaches at the University of Missouri and she did a sort of… it was called the “Fake Snow” show, or “Fake Snow is imminently preferable to the real thing” which was about illusionary tactics and mostly video technologies, video works. Providence local Joe Dairy did the “Animation” show which is the top-selling show of all time because the kids love animation, you know? And it was really great. [Sic] just came through. She’s a sort of, well, she used to be a sort of an art star curator but I think has come, is doing a lot, is doing really well. And the work she’s doing now is really interesting. I think she definitely has a sort of voice, and the program she brought was all sort of contemporary video works. Michelle Pitts, who is a grad student at the University of Chicago and runs an experimental film club screenings out there is coming through with the “Magic” show in two weeks which is mostly older works but all kind of circulating around the idea of magic and cinema. Its gonna be really great, I’m really excited about it. So yeah, I mean the truth is it’s really less exciting for me to have visiting artists and curators because I would prefer to put shows on. But, this semester, because I’ve had so many teaching jobs, I’ve also had the option of paying people to come in and so I was able to bring in three visiting filmmakers this semester and able to give them a fair amount of money for their time and energy which is really great.
[00:16:48]
AM: Has any of the work been student work, or is it all professional?
BR: [pause] Um, I think so. I don’t know, I guess… my feeling about student work… I—definitely graduate student work and undergraduate? Probably. I’m not really sure. I mean, I don’t really think about it in those terms, I guess? But I definitely sort of to my, well, I feel a little guilty about it but I’m definitely more interested in showing 16 MM films because that’s what my own practice is and I feel like that work is less frequently screened and the truth is that not many students are finishing on sixteen. So, in some ways it, I mean, I feel like there’s more rigor in the works that are presented. I think it’s really easy to make videos. And it’s really easy to make films too, but capitalism makes you pay, right? At least you pay a lot to make a, I dunno. But yeah, I do have an open call for submissions and don’t—I don’t get that many and I haven’t thus far—I think there are three things I’ve come across that I would be excited to program but because I program things thematically, usually what happens is I’ll see one film that I really really really like and I’ll figure out how it fits and how to fit things around it. So there’s a Nathaniel Dorsky film, a recent one called “The Visitation” which is just, its just phenomenal. And I’ve been thinking a lot about other films that I can accumulate around that. So that’s what happened with the “Gun” show, with the Bruce Connor film “Crossroads” and… yeah.
AM: So it’s mostly film and not video work.
BR: Well actually the video projection isn’t so hot and the problem is that I also—this is sort of the biggest dilemma of living in Providence—is that I don’t get to see very much work, right? But because I’m curating things its great because for the people who come but its not quite as great for me because I’ve seen all this stuff before, so I’m not actively introduced to new work and I’m not, I don’t, there aren’t a lot of opportunities for me to go out and see new work and that’s—and when I do I want to see things that I’m excited about which means I see a lot more film stuff than video stuff. But that’s why it’s great to have visiting curators because they bring in a whole different, you know, breadth of knowledge or familiarity with work. But no, I definitely do show video. I would say that maybe a third of all the stuff I’ve shown has been on video.
AM: And is the stuff that you show, does it have, or, hasn’t been screen anywhere else? Or is this stuff that’s been presented before…?
BR: I’m not… well.. I think all of it has been shown in other places but pretty rarely. For 16 MM film works, I either contact the artists directly and get works through them or I go to some main 16mm film distributors in the United States which are Canyon Cinema and Filmmakers Co-Op in New York City. And I think their films aren’t rented all that often, but because they’re really expensive. So a print of—I pay about 4 dollars a minute for a film, so a thirty minute film would cost 120 dollars to rent which means that its not gonna be screened all too often.
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AM: And the artists who present, how many of them come from the state, from Providence? Or how many of them are from outside? Do you know?
BR: Most of them, I mean I try to get at least one local person for every screening just because I think its important that this, well, for two reasons: one, I think its important letting people here see their work in this sort of national historical context , you know, and not being regionally isolated. So, Xander Morra, I’ve screened her work because I think she’s sort of the most prolific. Matt Brankman, Joe Dairy… There are a number of other people whose work I’ve showed. But you know it takes a while to make films. And its also great for the audience, I mean its really great to have somebody local because they bring their friends and more people will get to see their work in relation to other work. The one thing that I am aggressive about doing is getting the sort of local Providence screen printers which there are an abundance of who are really, really, really phenomenal to make the posters for all the screenings. And so I try to get a different screen printer for every show and I think I’ve almost gone full circle so I’m ready to start again with people. And it’s great, because I’m actually able to pay them close to what they should actually get paid and… I think that I give them card blanche. I let them do whatever they want in terms of design so I just give them the theme and the text and they figure it out. So it’s a surprise to me and a surprise for everyone else so it’s sort of the ideal screen printing job I think. And I’m really happy that I’m able to continue with that and then I send those posters to all of the artists whose work I’ve showed as well. But there’s—I would say that most of the work is national and part of it, and some of it is local. It’s hard to show international work because shipping fees and rental fees are so, so prohibitive. But… I did a French experimental film show, I guess, a year ago as part of the French Film Festival which was pretty amazing. It was actually a majority that I hadn’t seen, just read about because there’s just no way to see that stuff unless one goes to France.
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AM: And so, the postering and everything is as important to you as the films are, as an extension of the project really?
BR: Yeah, I don’t know about in terms of importance. I would say that it seems really vital and it’s another layer to it. Its not just using… using this sort of umbrella project of Magic Lantern as a way of actually getting people in the state to do more art and actually getting paid for their work. You know, I mean, continuing I think—I think there’s also a direct corollary between analog art and practices like screen printing, design, and 16 mm processes so that it seems like the two go hand in hand. And the aesthetic of the screening series, at least in terms of the website, is super old-timey. Its very, like, turn of the century. I mean, the title Magic Lantern refers to pre-cinema stuff. So, yeah, I think its all part of creating a presence that’s not just, that’s not just the RISD film club but rather something that, you know, has personality and has identity and has some kind of presence, so.. Yes, screen printing is important. I’d say the two are really important. I would say the two are really, really vital. And that’s in thinking about the possibility of maybe doing this in other places which is always a possibility since I’ve moved a lot and it’s hard to not move. But I’m not sure how I would replicate that aspect of it because the Providence screen printing work is very, I mean it comes out of a particular environment, a very particular movement and it’s really great. And I know all the people. And this is the other thing, they’re all friends of mine so it’s really nice to be able to be in a position to give money to my friends.
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AM: So are you planning on taking this elsewhere?
BR: I won’t—I’ll set it up so that it stays here because it seems very located in Providence but I’m not sure how long I’ll be here, so..
AM: So who else do you work on it with?
BR: Right now it’s just me. It’s totally a one-person job. But, I mean, its gonna last—well, its already funded all the way through January so I’m committed to being here till then and I think in the mean time I think I’m going to work with some people who have similar interests and similar aesthetics of whom there are a great number. I think the, you know, in talking about the underground, any sort of movement, its always predicated on your own desire and if you don’t take it on yourself than its not going to happen, right? Like, waiting for something for somebody else to do. So, I’m sure it’ll become, I mean, it may stop, it may… I don’t know. My hope is that, I don’t know—My feeling is that, and this actually comes out of again sort of, Fort Thunder-Dirt Palace mentality that in order to—as an artist its not enough to make work, you have to create a context for that work and you have to, you know, I mean, kind of produce some kind of dialogue and I consider myself—I mean, I’m first and foremost a filmmaker and more interested—I don’t know if more—maybe more interested in doing that and making my own work than curating. Although curating is really great and I’m very excited about it. But, and oddly enough, last week was the first time—the third time that I’ve shown my films in the three years that I’ve been here so I haven’t been really, I haven’t been as aggressive about putting my own work out there as I have about getting other people’s work seen which I’m fine with. But it seems, yeah, it’s not enough to just wait for other people to come up and approach you and ask you to show things. Its like you need to set those structures up and once they’re established than other people will start doing it because they realize that there’s possibility in it. So, I mean Portland has a really, really vibrant film community. And there are other places in the states that do and its sort of surprising that Providence is… that everything is, its very there but its not present, its not immediate. I think music kind of co-opts everything else but... yeah, there’s a lot of potential for these things to gain full force and kind of… yeah.
AM: I totally just blanked on my next question… um… but how much do you think, how much do you see Magic Lantern playing into this greater, I mean, aside from the postering, as a greater extension of this Providence arts scene that you’ve talked about just now with Dirt Palace and all that…
BR: I have no idea. I mean, its really, because I am the curator, because I take care of all the prints, because I project all the shows, because I do all the postering and I make all the flyers, I’m so preoccupied when the screenings actually happen that I don’t really know whose coming, I don’t know who the audience is. I do know that most of the noise kids never come, which is sort of annoying. But, I also know that a lot of filmmakers and locals are there, as well as whom I would assume are Brown students and RISD students and bunch of other folks. I think that it’s, I think that there isn’t a single providence arts scene. I would hope that it’s productive and that it provides—actually, I just got an email from a friend who said that these shows have made her more excited about film again which she hasn’t been in a while. So, yeah, it’s difficult for me to have any sort of perspective on it because I’m sort of overwhelmed by it while I’m doing it. But, I mean, 120 people for an experimental film screening on a Wednesday night is pretty good, and seems—I would assume has some kind of fall out, has some kind of repercussions beyond just the screenings themselves, that people continue to talk about it. You know, that these people are engaged in various practices, maybe not media production or what have you, but cultural production is all the same, the same circle. And, people just don’t talk about film, which is sort of the thing that is sort of ingrained in the way we deal with commercial cinema is that it doesn’t ask for a response except for an immediate visceral, emotional response. It doesn’t ask for a dialogue, it doesn’t ask for a conversation, and so I would say that most moviegoers who go to Magic Lantern aren’t currently actively discussing it. Certainly not with me, while I’m there, but I’m also rewinding films so…
AM: Do you think the formula for Magic Lantern as it is could work anywhere else?
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BR: Yeah. Yeah, I mean it’s a function of access, right? It’s like providing things that people cant—and I think that’s what the sort of, what the thematic approach does is that it offers a way in. Its like, these are all films about this thing and if I don’t get it than at the very least—not that there’s that [sic] singular thing to get, but if I don’t, if I cant, if I don’t have the particular language to understand it, than at least I have this one entry point, at least I know that its dealing with this thematically in some way. And then when I see this other film I can connect it with that. And I think that variety allows more interaction. The single-artist shows are less well-attended which is a reflection on, I think, an unfamiliarity with the single artist on one side and also, perhaps, also a psychic understanding that it might be harder to get into that work because its all one person’s subjectivity. But yeah, it does work, this sort of approach. I mean, it’s not something original. It’s not particularly novel or groundbreaking it’s just been, I think, I mean, yeah, produced in a certain way.
AM: what else, where else can people see what you screen?
BR: In New York City there are a number of theaters: Anthology Film Archives is sort of the largest and that was actually started by Jonas Meakus in response to Amos Vogel’s Cinema 16, but Anthology Film Archives screens exclusively experimental film work. There’s also Millennium Film Workshop; Galapagos; there’s a screening spaces called Occularos in Brooklyn; The Roberta Beck Memorial Cinema; I mean there’s those few things. I know that Ithaca College has a screening—I mean Cornell Cinema in Ithaca has a screening series. In Chicago there’s a place called Chicago Filmmakers; in Bisbee there’s a place called Eardrum. I mean, there are a lot of places scattered throughout which are collectively referred to as micro cinemas or screening series or what have you. In Philadelphia, my friend Ted Passen runs something called Small Change which is a kind of rotating—he actually does something similar except he doesn’t have funding and he doesn’t have a locked screening space so what he’ll do like birthday parties at roller skating rinks where he’ll have film and then have a roller skating jam. Or, I think he did a, some sort of fire station party. Again, he sort of takes on these sorts of themes but uses the screening as a jumping off point and gets really great audiences as well. There are a lot more spaces in Europe that have, that exist because there is funding in Europe, there is states funding for these works. I’m actually, in two and a half weeks, going on a three week tour film tour with a friend of mine and we’re going to twelve different spaces and showing our films and getting paid a fair amount at most of them which is sort of incredible. So, yeah, I mean, most college town have screening series and they have funding which enables that sort of thing to exist. There’s a lot of stuff in San Francisco as well. It’s a hotbed for experimental cinema.
[00: 34:42]
AM: So does Magic Lantern’s survival depend on Brown and Rhode Island Council on the Arts?
BR: Yeah.
AM: [laughter] Well, that’s a straight up—
BR: As it exists. I mean, its most—you know, Ted Passen who does Small Change, they try to do more traveling curators and filmmakers because those people are bringing the work with them which cuts down on shipping costs and they buy them dinner and give them whatever part of the door they have, so they give them what they can, right? But, I mean, my rental budget is 300 dollars and my shipping budget is like 110 dollars. My total budget is about 900 dollars a screening and I probably, if I get 100 people I get 500 dollars so I lose 400 dollars at least, and that’s, there’s no way that that can be done. I mean, its also 5 dollars a screening so, which I think has a lot to do with the number of people who come is that it’s not expensive. And I mean, experimental film is not a money making venture and, for better or worse. It could exist, but not in the manner that it does. And the Cable Car needs to make money, you know. I don’t need to make money, but the people who make the screen prints need to make money. FedEx needs to make money.
AM: [laughter] That’s all very true.
BR: It is, I mean, cost is prohibitive, which is why I’m really lucky to be in the position that I am when I can, I mean I can rent anything and I can bring anyone kind of, or I can invite people. I mean, I can’t pay for airfare and such but, you know, it’s great. And there’s a guaranteed audience of at least 30 people.
AM: That’s true. And you mentioned earlier that you collect submissions and that’s on the website, isn’t it?
BR: Yeah, yeah, so there’s information on the website about the submissions. I need to update it because and explain that its more thematic than—I’m also really—I think that the reason why I make films and why I run a screening series is that I don’t watch television and I don’t watch movies on TV ever. So it’s actually really hard for me to watch submissions, and its good that people don’t send me a lot of stuff, but I’m getting much better at is. But yeah, I mean, I’m very invested in cinema. That’s like, that’s sort of what I really like and enjoy, and yeah.
AM: But no TV.
BR: I’m not really excited about TV, no.
Scale. I like scale. I also like the social aspects of it, I like being in the dark, in a big room and that all harkens back to—I mean I can create a sort of mythology about childhood that creates that—I don’t know.
AM: Magic Lantern also allows for audience to interact with the filmmaker too, right?
BR: Oh yeah, definitely. When they come I always try to have Q and A at the end. And I try to show Boston filmmakers, I mean I try to make it regionally at the very least, have some New England and Rhode Island filmmakers in the show. And there’s a Q and A, yeah.
[00: 38: 00
AM: How important do you think that is to the experience itself?
BR: I’m kind of torn because I feel like Q and A’s… well, I don’t… I guess… as a filmmaker I feel like it’s not just a one sided experience. It’s not just presenting work and then having people watch it and ask questions. Like, I’m really invested and interested in getting responses because otherwise, I don’t know, and I feel like Q and A’s, maybe the first time you show a film or the second time is really great, but if you’ve shown a film two or three times you get the same questions and you have the same answers. So I think it’s useful for the audiences because I think that experimental film stuff is not, I mean, it takes work. I guess there’s, that’s the sort of the main difference is that commercial cinema proposes a passive viewer and experimental media requires an ac—sorry, commercial cinema proposes a passive viewer and experimental media requires an active viewer, right? Like you’re participating in the production of meaning, you’re participating in the production of whatever these things are and so with somebody there afterwards to answer your questions they can really help you interpolate and understand what’s been going on. And I think it is useful, I don’t think it’s essential. The dream would be that the works stand on their own, but gain more nuance or depth through the presence of the maker.
AM: Anything interesting happen during a Q and A session?
BR: Well, people don’t—hmm anything interesting… there haven’t been so many Q and A’s, I guess Astrid [sic] does a little song and dance. She has a routine that she does where, when she came through for the “Quantum Leaps” show, she had the audience fill out cards defining what sex was and she said she was going to read them and people protested because it’s a small community I guess. She tries to make them a little more lively. David Gatten, when he was here he did a Q and A and he’s just an amazing human being so I feel like everyone was overwhelmed with warmth and love which is, I think, an exciting thing to happen in a Q and A. Yeah, you know, sometimes they suck. Sometimes they’re alright. But audiences seem really respectful and I feel like that’s really great. I would say that across the board, audiences in Providence aren’t hardened or jaded and that they’re willing to be both critical and excited about what they’re seeing. So there’s always a lot of laughter. People walk out usually, not a lot. I think there was a couple making out in one of the last shows which is great.
[00: 41:12]
AM: And if there’s anything that you really want people to, like, know about Magic Lantern. If you had to put it together very shortly, like what would it be?
BR: Magic Lantern is an amazing, thematically curated experimental film and video screening series that comes out of Providence, Rhode Island. That’s it.
AM: That’s it—
BR: [together] Its amazing.