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Gwendolyn Audrey Foster Experimental Films - Portfolio

My films have been screened at The Nederlands Filmmuseum, Rice Museum, Collective for Living Cinema, Swedish Cinemateket, National Museum of Women in the Arts, DC, Bibliotheque Cantonale, Lausanne, Switzerland, International Film Festival of Kerala, India, Films de Femmes, Créteil, Outfest LA, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Women’s Film Festival of Madrid, Kyobo Center, Korea, Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Université Laval, Quebec, Forum Yokohama, Anthology Film Archives, Amos Eno Gallery, NY, SLA 307 Art Space, NY, Maryland Institute College of Art, NETV, Studio 44 Stockholm, Museum of the Future, Berlin, X-12 Festival, Gainsborough, UK, BWA Contemporary Art Museum in Katowice Poland, Filmhuis Cavia, Amsterdam and many other venues around the world.

As a queer bisexual+ nonbinary artist of détournement, my work explores the aesthetic space between film & video through collage and abstraction techniques. I create my films from recycled found materials, combining elements of Surrealism, eco-feminism, bisexuality, punk, automatism, slow film, romantic anti-structuralism, and chance editing. Chance is my favorite collaborator. I often compose the music and soundscapes for my films, which have been described as surreal, contemplative, and hypnotic. ―Gwendolyn Audrey Foster

Click on the bird icon (at the top right corner above) for film annotations and more information.

Contents of this portfolio copyright © 2016 - 2018 Gwendolyn Audrey Foster. All rights reserved.

  1. Art in Heaven

    "Art in Heaven," aka "Glitch Borealis" is a dérive from "In Art We Trust," a video itself composed of baked VHS glitch materials. Slow cinema meets materialist beauty in this four channel installation: In Art We Trust - Installation

    Thousands of post post-structuralist glitchy video paintings, framed by many more thousands of digital paintings suspended in the clouds, begging the questions, is the art in the frame or is the frame the art, or both?

    Videos in the "In Art We Trust" installation are derived from deteriorated VHS – baked in the sun for three decades. This VHS material was transferred to DVD, then to video and further abstracted to highlight myriad glitch patterns and find the beauty in "mistakes" and infinite "distortions."

    The soundtrack is a collage of a few minutes of public domain sound, layered and looped in serial repetition.

    View the four channel installation "In Art We Trust" here: In Art We Trust - Installation

    "In Art We Trust": vimeo.com/281717391
    "Art in Heaven": vimeo.com/282035577
    "Binary/Non-binary": vimeo.com/282036450
    "Sleeping with Sirens": vimeo.com/282037444

    For Joan Jonas, Joyce Wieland, Marie Menken, Jane Brakhage, Su Friedrich and Sadie Benning. You women paved the way with your brilliant home-made film/video abstractions and dazzling visual art.

    “Art in Heaven” is made, in part, from materials found in the Public Domain, or released under a Creative Commons CC0 Public Domain license.

    “Art in Heaven,” music and video by Gwendolyn Audrey Foster. Copyright © 2018 Gwendolyn Audrey Foster. All rights reserved.

  2. Making America Straight & White Again [Extended Version EP]

    "Love takes off masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within." —James Baldwin

    An EP (extended version) of "Making America Straight and White Again." In this punk video, mayhem, distortion and disturbances reflect the dissonant media response to current events. Media fosters a sense of anger, helplessness, and apathy, but when we rise above the noise and divisiveness, progressives will inevitably stem the tide of the retrograde. We will not slip backwards.

    The only way to get through the very worst is to go forward - directly through it. Tune out the discouraging noise and act. Be firm and resolute in the knowledge that we can move forward and we WILL move forward. Don't just react: ACT!

    aclu.org/ glaad.org/

    See a one hour TV special of Gwendolyn Audrey Foster's Queer Short Experimental Films on Salto TV for Amsterdam Queer Pride Festival, Summer of 2018:
    salto.nl/programma/the-screening-room/4ZpdBswF6UygIGwCSiEkk0/

    See related videos:

    "Making America Straight and White Again."
    vimeo.com/276777732

    "Making Gender Great Again Again"
    vimeo.com/274999017

    "Making Women Great Again"
    vimeo.com/200517156

    Genderqueer Doll Party
    vimeo.com/280267311

    Bisexual Materialist Ragtime Party
    vimeo.com/272007107

    Membership Has Its Privileges
    vimeo.com/228603996

    The 1%
    vimeo.com/197542956

    “Making America Straight & White Again [Extended Version EP]” is a collage of détourned images and sounds found in the Public Domain, or materials released under a Creative Commons CC0 Public Domain license.

    "Making America Straight & White Again [Extended Version EP]," a détournement by Gwendolyn Audrey Foster. Copyright © 2018 Gwendolyn Audrey Foster. All rights reserved.

  3. Chromatograph [for Mary Field]

    A tender experimental documentary and chromatograph sketch for Mary Field (1896–1968), the British documentary filmmaker known for her pioneering short films in the "Secrets of Nature" and "Secrets of Life" Series.

    Among her many accomplishments, Mary Field made hundreds of beautiful early black and white experimental nature documentaries, pioneering various cinematographic and micro-photographic techniques to capture nature's secrets in action. Field was also one of the first to create female-focused instructional films and was instrumental in establishing The Children's Film Foundation. Though Field is often lost or forgotten in documentary film history texts, she won an OBE for her services to educational and children's film. Read more about Mary Field's work in my book, "Women Film Directors."

    "Chromatograph [for Mary Field]" (alternate title "Fragile") an experimental nature documentary moving portrait; a cinepoem and homage by Gwendolyn Audrey Foster.

    “Chromatograph [for Mary Field]” is created from found material in the Public Domain, or released under CC0 license. Copyright © 2018 Gwendolyn Audrey Foster. All rights reserved.

  4. Making America Straight & White Again

    See a one hour TV special of Gwendolyn Audrey Foster's Experimental Films on Salto TV for Amsterdam Queer Pride Festival, Summer of 2018:
    salto.nl/programma/the-screening-room/4ZpdBswF6UygIGwCSiEkk0/

    "Making America Straight & White Again" and "The 1%" screened at nGBK Gallery, Berlin in the group show, "Fortune Unfolded," curated by Coral Short, in association with Coven Berlin. (Aug 18, 2018).

    "Love takes off masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within." —James Baldwin

    In this punk video, mayhem, distortion and disturbances reflect the dissonant media response to current events. Media fosters a sense of anger, helplessness, and apathy, but when we rise above the noise and divisiveness, progressives will inevitably stem the tide of the retrograde. We will not slip backwards.

    The only way to get through the very worst is to go forward - directly through it. Tune out the discouraging noise and act. Be firm and resolute in the knowledge that we can move forward and we WILL move forward. ACT NOW! RESIST!—GAF

    aclu.org glaad.org

    “Making America Straight & White Again” is a collage of images and sounds found in the Public Domain, or materials released under a Creative Commons CC0 Public Domain license."Making America Straight & White Again," a détournement by Gwendolyn Audrey Foster. Copyright © 2018 Gwendolyn Audrey Foster. All rights reserved.

  5. Kiki's Film

    "An Ordinary Day Film Festival" in Stockholm at Studio 44 (Aug 14 - Aug 19, 2018).

    A dream poem for Kiki de Montparnasse, (Alice Prin); artist, Muse, and creative partner of Man Ray. Kiki embodies the very essence of 1920's free queer sexuality and all things Dadaist and Surrealist. An interdisciplinary artist, Kiki was a wildly creative painter, model, writer, nightclub singer, photographer, performance artist, memoirist and vibrant bohemian provocateur at the center of the Dada and Surrealist literary and art scene in Paris, in the 1920s.

    Kiki de Montparnasse lives on in her direct frank expressiveness, sensuality, photographs, films, artwork and memoirs. She also (obviously) continues to Muse in her spare time.

    Kiki looks directly at the viewer in this exercise in Objective Chance Surrealism (automatism); a dream occult homage; a look through Kiki's eyes in her imagined "lost film."

    You are no doubt familiar with Kiki's image, as she appears in so many famous Surrealist films and photographs, including Man Ray's "Le Violon D'Ingres," which shows a naked Kiki, seated and viewed from behind, with two 'f's in her back; a celebration of her violin-curves. Kiki was more than a gorgeous woman who had the audacity to love her curves and flaunt them - in an era when women were expected to be shaped like a thin boy.

    Kiki was punk before punk. She was a performance artist before performance art. Ultimately, she was too intense for Man Ray. By the late 1920s, Kiki had her own cabaret, Chez Kiki, She had also begun painting primitives and, in 1927, had a sell-out exhibition. Her memoir, "The Education of a French Model," was banned in America. The more I read about Kiki, the more I fall in love with Alice. --GAF

    Kiki (Alice Prin) is featured in my related video, "Bisexual Materialist Ragtime Party": vimeo.com/272007107

    “Kiki's Film” is made from materials found in the Public Domain, or released under a Creative Commons CC0 Public Domain license.

    "Kiki's Film," by Gwendolyn Audrey Foster. Copyright © 2018 Gwendolyn Audrey Foster. All rights reserved.

  6. In Art We Trust

    A hypnotic post post-structuralist video painting from over 100,000 digital paintings, all as unique as fingerprints. A short experimental video feature, and the main channel of the four channel installation, "In Art We Trust." In Art We Trust - Installation

    "In Art We Trust" is made from deteriorated VHS – baked in the sun for three decades, transferred to DVD and then to video. Further abstracted and layered to highlight infinite glitch and grain patterns and random distortions. Chance is my favorite collaborator.

    The soundtrack is a collage of a few minutes of public domain sound, layered and looped in serial repetition.

    View the 4 channel "In Art We Trust" installation here:
    In Art We Trust - Installation

    "In Art We Trust": vimeo.com/281717391
    "Art in Heaven": vimeo.com/282035577
    "Binary/Non-binary": vimeo.com/282036450
    "Sleeping with Sirens": vimeo.com/282037444

    For Joan Jonas, Joyce Wieland, Marie Menken, Jane Brakhage, Su Friedrich and Sadie Benning. You paved the way with your brilliant home-made film/video abstractions and dazzling visual art.

    “In Art We Trust,” by Gwendolyn Audrey Foster. Music and video by Gwendolyn Audrey Foster. Copyright © 2018 Gwendolyn Audrey Foster. All rights reserved.

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