Gwendolyn Audrey Foster: Experimental Films Video Installations - Portfolio

"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.

A tender hand-made and hand-processed natural pressing and chromatograph made in honor of 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]” © 2018 Gwendolyn Audrey Foster. All rights reserved.

"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 hand-made punk video, mayhem, distortion and disturbances reflect the dissonant media response to the disturbing rise of white supremacism and attacks against LGBQ+ people, in news stories everyday.

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.

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/

An experimental self-portrait (actually a series of self-portraits) from rephotographed, bleached, distressed, and deteriorated Super 8mm footage recovered from storage in my basement. A study of that which lives "in between": the liminal phoenix realm of analog film.

Film exists in a state that is alive, and yet not alive at the same time, a liminal space. It is a living memory. Film can be a living body. Film can resurrect. Film is warm and has skin. Grain is freckles and wrinkles. Film grain has a heartbeat.

See No Personal Checks for another experiment in purposefully distressed Super 8mm:
vimeo.com/274295020

"Super 8 Grainy Salsa Selfie" - a film by Gwendolyn Audrey Foster. Copyright @ 2018 Gwendolyn Audrey Foster. All Rights Reserved.

"When will the arbitrary be granted the place it deserves in the formation of works and ideas?"― André Breton

"Inchoate" is an automatiste détournement collage painted with materials in the Public Domain, or materials released under a Creative Commons CC0 Public Domain license.

"Inchoate"- a détournement by Gwendolyn Audrey Foster. Copyright © 2018 Gwendolyn Audrey Foster. All rights reserved.

Collage of vintage film. Bizarre vaudeville 'acts'(early performance art) as poetic metaphor for mother/daughter struggle.

Ironically, modern performance art is considered "high art," yet it has firm roots in vaudeville, which is largely regarded as primitive "low art" - of and for the lower classes and a mass audience, rather than the privileged elite.

As a child, I was fortunate to hear many tales of "The Vaudeville" from my Great Grandmother and her many sisters, my Great Aunts. In their imaginative Irish storytelling, vaudeville seemed so very mysterious and magical: a lost art, full of the bewitching and ritualistic elements of fairy tale, and oral legends. This is my tribute to their conjurings and yarn spinning; a child's enchanted and awestruck imaginings of women's tales, passed on through the ages.

"Three Wishes" is created from recycled and repurposed images and sound in the Public Domain, or material released under a Creative Commons CC0 Public Domain license. "Three Wishes," by Gwendolyn Audrey Foster. Copyright © 2017 Gwendolyn Audrey Foster. All rights reserved.