Monday, March 24, 2008
7:30 PM
Anthology Film Archives
32 2nd Avenue, New York City

REPORT FROM THE GHOST CITY

The Disembodied Theater Corporation brings you an evening of dispatches, news, songs, and fragments from the Ghost City: the skeletal remains of abandoned towns, railways, and graveyards that stand as remnants of a lost society. Filmmaker Ross Lipman and author Julia Solis present this haunting assemblage of ruins, rants, and shards of memory that paint a collective portrait of dystopia.

The Disembodied Theater Corporation is an amorphous performance entity devoted to the temporary manifestation of non-filmic cinemas.

Featuring:

NO WAY OUT BUT ONWARD

An adventure in psychogeography through New York's High Line

PowerPoint performance by the Disembodied Theater Corporation
Written and narrated by Ross Lipman
Suite for Bass, Viola, and Trombone by Laura Steenberge
Photos by Leigh Evans, Ross Lipman, Nina Mankin

The High Line is the abandoned elevated freight rail that runs through the west side of Manhattan. Soon to be the site of an aerial public park, it for the moment remains a haunted paradise above the city--a verdant wasteland inhabited only by occasional taggers, wanderers, and police. In October 2004 a ragtag group of us ventured up to explore. As we were to learn, it's a space with its own internal logic, interacting with its visitors in a way unique to each. No Way Out But Onward is a recounting of that day's events, told in PowerPoint, the modern day equivalent of an old-time Magic Lantern performance.

DISPATCHES FROM THE WASTELAND
Presentations of three short imaginary narratives set inside abandoned mental hospitals:

TALES FROM THE SANATORIUM
A graphic novel set in an abandoned mental hospital - staged like a movie, but photographed as a series of stills. Drawing inspiration from "The Canterbury Tales," the series depicts an imperious Nurse leading a band of disheveled souls through endless apocalyptic asylum landscapes, occasionally pausing to tell stories. In the first installment, the Nurse recounts her own tale, "Rubber Lullaby." A combination of derelict spaces with mixed-media collage and still photography created by Bryan Papciak in conjunction with Ars Subterranea.

FUNERAL PLAY
A journey into a hospital bed. Text and photos based on a book by Julia Solis forthcoming from Furnace Press.

IRMA
Excerpts from a postmortem diary. By Tom Kirsch and Julia Solis.

FOLLOWED BY:
"Met State", an award-winning experimental short film by Bryan Papciak.

About the Contributors

Ross Lipman is an independent filmmaker, photographer, and writer who has presented work throughout the world at venues ranging from the Oberhausen International Film Festival to the Chinese Taipei Film Archive. He is a former member of Budapest's Bela Balazs Studios and Chicago's Theater Oobleck. His works have been collected by institutions and museums including the Sammlung Goetz in Munich. Lipman is also one of the world's leading authorities on the restoration of independent cinema, and was recently honored with the National Society of Film Critic's 2007 Film Film Heritage award. In recent years he has been designing film, video, and performance works exploring urban decay as a marker of modern consciousness.

Julia Solis conducts archaeological parlor games and investigates ruined urban spaces. As the founder of Dark Passage, she started the creative preservation group Ars Subterranea in 2002 with the object of staging scavenger hunts and exhibitions in unusual locations in New York. She is the author of New York Underground: The Anatomy of a City (Routledge, 2004) and an editor of Furnace Press, which specializes in publications on urban decay.

Bryan Papciak grew up near Allentown Pennsylvania, but moved to Boston in 1994 to work as a commercial animation Director, Designer, and Cinematographer at Olive Jar Studios, where he specialized in mixed-media and stop-motion animation. His work has won many awards at film and television festivals worldwide. Since Olive Jar’s closing in 2001, Bryan formed an independent film & animation company, Handcranked Productions, with long-time collaborator Jeff Sias. In addition to working commercially, Bryan also teaches courses in Animation and Experimental Film at Rhode Island School of Design, and he is a Directing Member of Ars Subterranea.

Tom Kirsch's work primarily consists of documenting abandoned locations in both text and photographs, using guerrilla methods of accessing dangerous and off-limits places. Both the stirring history of the state hospital system's decline as well as the abundance of abandoned psychiatric facilities in the United States have influenced his subjects greatly; most of his photographs and writing focus on exploring and documenting the remnants left behind in these shuttered institutions. He is also experimenting on incorporating these aspects of his and others' work into original music and digital multimedia. His work can be found at www.opacity.us.