The 48th Ann Arbor Film Festival extends its commitment to moving image and film-inspired artists through public installations that move beyond the confines of theatrical screenings. Throughout festival month, local and regional artists display their talents across various venues, surfaces and medium. As springtime arrives in Ann Arbor, installations of the AAFF bring the city to creative life and aim to capture the cinematic imagination of its community.
Michigan Theater | Work Gallery | Ann Arbor Art Center | Other Venues
Michigan Theater
Main Installation in the Grand Foyer [The Bang!, Ann Arbor, MI]
The dance party collective known as The Bang! returns to head up the lobby installation for the 48th Ann Arbor Film Festival. Lead by local artist Jeremy Wheeler, the team yearned to bring more glitz to the proceedings, which can be witnessed in the glittery area above the lobby. With the help of other area artists, they also created the various light boxes seen around the Michigan Theater, in addition to the hanging lantern centerpiece – the images of which tie together both pictures from the festival, as well as the spirit of experimental filmmaking.
Image Bank (1-3) [Ross Nugent, Pittsburgh/Milwaukee, WI]
Medium: Motion picture film (various gauges), (3) 2’ x 3’ lighboxes
This project finds its origins in the darkened projection booth while winding film reels lit from below, adjusting my eyes to alternately watch each frame pass or allow the patterns of shifting colors and shapes to dominate. Placed in this new context one is able to examine more closely the frame-to-frame relationship of motion picture film, as well as exploiting its basic function as a medium to record variations of light.
Pedal Powered Film Projector [Michael Flynn, Ann Arbor, MI]
Flynn’s installation harnesses Film Fest energy as visitors generate electricity to power an 8mm home movie projector! Ann Arbor artist and inventor, Michael Flynn, reinterprets key design elements from our historic Michigan Theater building in this interactive installation of art and science.
Ann Arbor Film and Floral Festival [Lisa Waud of pot & box, Ann Arbor, MI]
Although it is easy to jump into a display green growth and joyous colors of the coming spring, it is important to acknowledge winter's end as well. The floral installations symbolize a moment of change: the eight monotone birch trees giving way to the awakening colors of the new season's flowers below.
Mindstream Animation Station [UM School of Art & Design, Ann Arbor, MI]
The popular Animation Station makes a return visit to the AAFF, inviting audience members to animate their experience for all to see on the theater’s big screen.
Work Gallery [306 S. State St., Ann Arbor, MI]
The Ghost in the Machine [C. Jacqueline Wood & Oren Goldenberg]
Medium: projectors, slides and screens
University of Michigan alumni and current Roman J. Witt Visiting Artists Oren Goldenberg and C. Jacqueline Wood present The Ghost in the Machine, a sculptural light installation co-curated by the UM School of Art & Design and the Ann Arbor Film Festival. Work • Ann Arbor will be transformed using suspended translucent screens and multiple slide projectors to explore the relationship between space and the moving image. 
Kinetic Study #3 [Frank Pahl]
Accompanying The Ghost in the Machine is a special light and shadow piece by artist and current A&D faculty, frank pahl. the work, titled Kinetic Study #3, is an attempt to create a kinetic otherworldly ambience through low-tech means.
Ann Arbor Art Center [117 West Liberty Street, Ann Arbor, MI]
Intermission
March 5 – March 28, 2010
The Ann Arbor Film Festival's first exhibition in collaboration with The Ann Arbor Art Center, "Intermission" features films, new-media, and film-inspired works from a group of talented Michigan artists hand-picked by the AAFF staff.
Please join the Closing Reception for “Intermission” from 4 – 7pm, Friday March 26, 2010 with an artists’ talk and Q&A at 5:30pm.
Tether, 2010 [Heidi Kumao, Ann Arbor, MI]
Medium: glass case, glass bell jar, video projector, picture frame, mirror, speakers, wood.
“Tether” explores the medical condition known as “Locked-in Syndrome” as described by Jean-Dominique Bauby in his book, “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly.” After a massive stroke in 1995, Bauby was completely paralyzed except for the use of his left eye that he could blink to indicate one letter of the alphabet at a time. With the help of a therapist, he tediously “blinked out” letter after letter, formulating words, then sentences and paragraphs describing his daily experience with exceptional humor. After one year, he completed his memoir that was published a few days before his death.
Luxembourg [Ted Kennedy, Ann Arbor, MI]
Medium: Video
Transitional moments create alternative understandings of a primary work by exposing social or physical support systems.
Glory & the Widow Shrine System [Thylias Moss, Ann Arbor, MI]
Medium: Video
This video (and my other visual work, including text) pursues interactions as evidence of a fundamental collaborative nature of all things. These interactions may occur on any scale for any duration of time in any location, and may be visual sonic, tactile, olfactory, imaginary, etc. in nature. Glory & the Widow Shrine System pursues evidence of interaction with hope and devotion to forms of loss that become a cherished system of apparition and uplifting desperation. This piece was made according to principles of Limited Fork Theory (the study of interacting systems).
“ANIMA SCRIPPS” [Gary Schwartz, Detroit, MI]
Medium: Video
Under the exquisite care of the City of Detroit, Scripps Mansion burned to the ground. As an Artist-in-Residence at the William E. Scripps Estate (James E. Scripps’ son), I created an animated stop-motion/ time-lapse video based on the concept of the 14th century Camera Obscura. Utilizing quarter size pinhole lens, historic interiors of the Scripps Mansion are transformed temporarily into giant room size cameras. The exterior gardens & landscapes of the estate are projected into the interior walls, creating a melding of the two spaces in the fourth dimension. The earliest written record of the use of a Camera Obscura –Latin for veiled chamber or dark room – was by Leonardo da Vinci.
Decomposition (Color Series One) [C. Jacqueline Wood, Chicago/Ann Arbor, MI]
Medium: 80 slides (vacuumated acetate filmstrip material)
C. Jacqueline Wood uses the concept of the archive as a grounding principle in her film, video, and installation work… She considers light her primary medium… working with space, time, and moving image to explore the tangible (and not so tangible) remnants of things passed…
Cineastes: Pioneer High Film Teachers of the 1970s" by Mike Mosher [Michael Mosher [Saginaw, MI]
Medium: Mural acrylics & bronze leaf on styrofoam, 16 x 60 x 2 inches.
In the architecturally decorative "Cineastes: Pioneer High Film Teachers of the 1970s", images of teachers Ray Silverman, Allan Schreiber and Gwen Lagoe are surrounded by Super-8mm cameras, projector and spools of film. Mike will also give a talk at the Ann Arbor District Library on Friday, March 19, "Bison Boys & Famous Monsters of Michigan: 1970s Super-8mm Films of Jimm Juback & Cary Loren".
The Detroit Projection Project
Keep an eye out for large scale moving image art on building surfaces in downtown Ann Arbor during the week of the film festival. Brandon Walley and Steve Coy comprise DPP. 
Breathing Room at Allure [Deanna Morse, Grand Rapids, MI]
Examining nature through the lens of time. Light sweeps languidly across the tiles in a room. Outside the flowers erupt in a riot of color. Filmed while an artist in residence at Fundacion Valparaiso, Mojacar, Spain Film by Deanna Morse. Music by Edie Herrold. Location - Allure at 607 E. Liberty St., Ann Arbor