Lili White – Filmography

Using stylized gestures used as a mode of ritualistic format and screen performance, White’s modus operandi is often an exploration on the subject of relationships of power and repression; often drawing from ancient stories re-contextualized into meditations on the world in which we live and the ramifications of inaction and stagnation. Influenced by  art and its history; informed by Eastern philosophy and psychological theory, White’s work has been called “a magical act” with editing technique akin to “automatic” writing.

EXPERIMENTAL DOCUMENTARY

2008

EARTH: Searles Valley a.k.a. FOOL’S GOLD (feature length currently in pre-production); Stories about progress and greed told through extrapolated universal myths and surviving residents from a once wealthy Californian desert community whose fate rested upon its center: a mining town that turned into a mineral corporation

2007

WESTERN Sound; Color; voiceover doc reportage. Margot Niederland; TRT. 11.09 or 13.21; The American morality tale about law & order; with voiceover from a woman who disguised herself as an Israeli soldier. Featuring a motel room, appropriated images from Western TV shows and movies and footage of actual locals that include Tombstone AZ (the historic site of the shoot out at the OK corral) and NYCity.

2005

NY(see) Sound; Color; TRT. 68.00; What does it mean to be an artist-immigrant here at this TRT after 9/11, when the whole world is on the verge of major change? Three immigrant artists, Mara Wave, John Spinks, Kim Su Theiler, intersect with their own work; New York’s cityscapes and White’s gestural actions. Straddling the borders of city-symphony, docu-mentary and autobiography, imparting the archetype of “the artist” while revealing today’s mood of diaspora.

2001

TRAVELING with NEPTUNE: PORTRAIT of my FATHER Sound; Color; TRT. 8.00; My father describes his experiences as a WWII US Navy Radioman. as witness to the Bikini Bomb Tests and as “pollywog” undergoing the “Initiation into the Kingdom of Neptune” hazing ritual for sailors.

VIDEO INSTALLATION

2010

WHAT CAN’T YOU SEE? ; Sound; Color; TRT.4.22; movie: Love place as landscape, TV with assemblage; London Biennale NYC Satellite Event; curator: Dominic Cloutier; Christopher Henry Gallery; NY

GOT’CHA; Sound; Color; TRT.4.31; movie: damaged video tape pixels magic transformation of a Raven permatized, TV with assemblage, paintings; Whose AFRAID Of Ornament?; Curator: Natasha Kurchanova; NURTURE ARTS; Brooklyn NY

2009

TURQUOISE BEADS; Sound; Color; TRT.16.10; Video projected on assembled objects; Vision Festival; NY

2008

4 COLOR FIELD (exists in square and tondo formats); Silent; Color; TRT. 8.44 Minute; As above, so below

CLOUD TONDO; Silent; Color; TRT. 3.10; Clouds of varying tonal ranges

KALEIDOSCOPE TONDO; Silent; Color; TRT. 4.04; Kaleidoscopic imagery

2007

STANDING UPRIGHT; Silent; Color; TRT.5.00; Painting/Video environment for dancer Gus Solomons Jr; Commissioned by Patricia Nicholson Parker for A STATE OF MIND dance; Vision Festival; NY NY

AMERICAN DIASPORA 2 – Sound; Color; Time: 6.00; Wall Box (with drawing/ imbedded video screen); PAFA alumni show; DUMBO, NY

2006

AMERICAN DIASPORA; Sound; Color; TRT. 6.00; Assemblage: video projected onto painting; AMERICAN DIASPORA: TRANSFORMATIONS IN AN AGE OF UNCERTAINTY; Curator: Keungsuk Kim Sexton; Victory Hall; Jersey City NJ

5 ELEMENTS; EARTH, WATER, WOOD, FIRE; Sound; Color; various running times. “Powers” of nature presented metaphorically, each with their own distinct qualities

en INVIERNO; Sound; Color; TRT. 5.39; Documented reality with a hint of future loss— a cinematic reference and a phantasmagorical snow storm outside the childhood suburban home

BALLOON GARDEN; Silent; Color; TRT. 6.30 ; A  balloon travels with abstracted patterns of water; Curator: Rocio Aranda-Alvarado, Ph.D; Jersey City Museum; Jersey City NJ

2005

MY SPACE; Sound; Color; TRT. 6.27; Performance of a triad figure; poetic voiceover

CLOUDGATE; Silent; Color; TRT. 3.07; Designed to be projected onto skin of a skyscraper or city sidewalk; Presented as outdoor projection at ART IN ODD PLACES during the LES’s HOWL Festival; Curator: Ed Woodham; host: The Phatory LLC; East Village NY

2004

WATER GODDESS (aka, HOMELESS) Silent; Color; TRT. 1.30; Figurative apparition with water droplets

2003

CORNER PIECE Silent; Color; TRT. 3.00; Images reflect inside cardboard box and its objects

2001

TRAVELING with NEPTUNE; Video projected on assembled objects; THE PAST IS HERE Show; The Newhouse Center for Contemporary Art; SI NY

and

NY PRECIPITAIONS (2004)- London Biennale Cross Pollinations; Curator: Adam Nankervis; NY

VIDEO SHORTS

2011

8 HAPPINESSES IN 8 MINUTES at the PARK; Color; Sound TRT. 5:49; Motherhood, in almost one shot, transmuted

STUFF of our DREAMS; Super 8 flamingos and a TV game show comment on the Gulf Oil Disaster in 2010.

Everything BUT; Color; Sound TRT. 3:00; A shorter film culled form THE KITCHEN SINK: a smorgasbord of agricultural facts and stories— poppy plants, Monsanto, war in the Middle East, famine— that stretch between humor and horrific reality.

2010

AScENSION; Color; Sound; TRT. 9:02; Architectural structures of Taos Pueblo transfigured with color and shape, tracking the most important element:water.

The KITCHEN SINK; Color; Sound TRT. 11:24; Our FOOD situation: a smorgasbord of agricultural facts and stories— Goddess Diana, poppy plants, Monsanto, war in the Middle East— that stretch between humor and horrific reality.

THE OCTOPUS; Color; Sound; TRT. 5:54; Paul the psychic octopus who predicted the WORLD CUP winners, Native American dancers, the myth of Cassandra (who foretells the future and is never believed), eco-destruction

2009

TURQUOISE BEADS; SOUND: BUSHMEAT aka Thomas Stanley; Color; TRT. 38.14; Composed of landscapes from the cities of Chaco Canyon and New York after 9/11, portrayed in a atmospheric manner. Chaco Canyon was a major center of a thriving Indian culture from AD 850 to 1250, where, turquoise, a stone mythically born from the marriage between sky and earth, was traded extensively. The complexity of its community life, the high level of its social organization, and its far-reaching commerce created a cultural vision unlike any other seen before. David Stuart’s anthropological argument in ANASAZI AMERICA claims that today’s American society has similar patterns that existed in Chaco’s Anasazi community before its final collapse.

S/tr:w/EET WALK; Sound; Color; TRT. 18:51 NTSC /20:32 PAL; Lyrical, atmospheric, mini-epic: a video ‘response’ to Kathryn Maguire’s quest for collaboration. Shoes found on a Liffey quay that was a prostitute’s walk and houses a horse fair, take on a life of their own as they travel though Ireland, NYC, South Carolina and Savannah Georgia. Voiceover references about Civil War facts, a Cinderella fairy tale, feminist takes on eroticism & pornography, a personal narrative, views about public sculpture and various literary excerpts (Flannery O’Connor’s WISE BLOOD ) connect intuitively, with associations reminiscent of a dream state.

THIS LITTLE PLANET; Sound; Color; TRT. 5:33; Bowery Poetry Club reading of Katsuko Shiraishi’s poem, music: Itaru Oki, translated by Steve Dalachinsky & Allen Ginsburg

REVERIE; Color; TRT. 20:36; MUSIC: Theme & Variations For Piano & Orchestra by Yoritsune Matsudaira— Ichiro Nodaira, piano; Ken Takaseki & Osaka Century Orchestra; courtesy Naxos of America; shifting layers of place: classic world architectural sites; New Jersey beaches, New York City, Arizona, and Ireland’s Rock of Cashel; and integrated with a family’s slides make this a sliding jigsaw of 1^st and 2^nd generation immigrant families

2008

THE FUTURE IS YOU Sound; Color; TRT. 9.17; A monochromic future features New York City after the 9/11 disaster with shifting landscapes between trees and streets.

3 DAYS ; Sound; Color; TRT. 5.30 to 7.00; Monthly calendars are presented in grid form and weekly calendars stack the days in vertical rows. Here the same landscape shot over 3 days fits into these forms, as fuchsia flowers gestate and multiply….

CURLY Q; Silent; Color; TRT. 11.24; Salute to structural cinema

CANYONS TO STARS (several versions); Sound; Color; TRT. 2.25 to 6.00; Brice breaks through the universe.

EARTH IS THE GARDEN; Sound; Color; TRT. 4.58; Environmental concerns: singing frogs, stimulate their surroundings.

CRACKED; Sound; Color; TRT. 3.22; “Let’s GO!”, a second of fragmented tape locks a figure inside its horizontal roll.

ANOTHER TRIP; Sound; Color; TRT. 2.41; Humorous interplay from inside and out of a motor trailer.

11^th HOUR; Silent; Color; TRT. 2.40 Horrific encounter: humans engulfed in Nature

STRIKING GOLD; Sound; Color; TRT. 0.51; Haiku on a Spring walk through the woods.

FOR SALLY; Sound; Color; TRT. 2.37; Real time/life A beached ball has a way of changing things.

NO FOOL IN’; Sound; Color; TRT. 2.07 A snatched real life gesture is exposed. Whose toy is it anyway?

CRIB WORK; Sound; Color; TRT. 3.42; Suggests primal ritual or sub-conscious dream level.

PASSAGE; Sound; Color; TRT. 5.00 ; Passage – on a dream level.

FIREFLY; Sound; Color; TRT. 3.30 & 9.53 versions; a short and long interpretation of “fire” element

“S”; Sound; Color; TRT. 1.10; A hallucinogenic meditation on a “S”

2007

SAILING to BYZANTIUM; Sound; Color; TRT. 12.05; Title is from Yeats poem.

Sound: found family tape of Artist’s parents, siblings and grandparents, and aunt reciting poems.

Visuals: simultaneously in the two grand-mother lands at once; a Slovenian town square at sunset, and in Ireland rummaging through the other’s forgotten property.

NO FIT PLACE (part 3 of Triptych); Sound; Color; TRT. 2.14; Portrait of emotion: a place of fear & horror

SUB ROSA (part 2 of Triptych); Sound; Color; TRT. 3.53; Portrait of emotion: on joy

2006

THE GROUND FROM UNDERNEATH (part 1 of Triptych); Sound; Color; TRT. 2.18; Portrait: emotion: loss

GOODBYE SKY GOODBYE EARTH; Sound; Color; TRT. 4.40; In the desert in real life: a sunset, a TV on the fritz in the desert, a Hi8 video camera breaking down- all taken advantage of to make this edited-in-the-camera piece, with added soundtrack and one obvious visual element. News from no where.

APART; Sound; Color; TRT. 4.46; A variation on GOODBYE SKY GOODBYE EARTH

NEITHER HERE NOR THERE; Sound; Color; TRT. 3.36; Basis for the 2 previous works.

WORDS on PEACEPIECE; Sound: Thomas Parker Williams; Text: Lili White; Color; TRT. 1.37

Performer in composition with spoken poem and text by C.G.Jung

TREASURE; Sound: Thomas Parker Williams; Color; TRT. 3.30; Ecological comment. Searching for water; building a city on a beach; an ominous mood over Las Vegas NV; a defunct desert watering hole with petroglyphs; and Hoover Dam.

2005

I SEA; Color; silent; TRT. 1.18;
The human eye and the sea are composed of the same elements

I SEE CHINA; Silent; Color; TRT. 1.06; A count up to a minute of time, using American and Chinese numerals, and elements of Chinese calligraphy

RENASCENCE; Silent; Color; TRT. 1.15; Visual etymology of the Chinese character for “view”combine characters for “eye” and “light”, influenced by Hans Membling’s portraits.

2003

DEPARTURE; TRT.10.20; Color; Sound: Lili White & Keith Strand through Brooklyn’s The Outpost Residency. Musical Collage: of Chopin, Delibes, Shinto Ceremony; Afro-American Fold Songs; Irish Sea Shanty;  Arriving at a sense of balance and harmony in the execution of calligraphy is similar to the struggle of Homo sapiens to maintain equilibrium as they walk upright; departing from the realm of the strictly animal, evolving their human consciousness. Forms of a snake and decrepit cattle gates mimic the “departure” ideogram .

2002

SNAKE SCALES or THERE ARE NO STRAIGHT LINES; Music: Sun Ra Arkestra; Color; TRT. 13.00; Snake imagery toys with the concept of the “edge” or “frame” in the 2-D image.

1999

JUST FOR MY FRIENDS; Sound: “Last Thought on Woody Guthrie” by Bob Dylan; Color; TRT. 7.17

Mappings the SECRET LANGUAGE installation space, abstract glyphs change into written alphabets.

1998

PETALS & THORNS ; Music: Nicholas Kodaly & Bela Bartok; Color; TRT. 9.07; Voiceover of a fairy tale as the performer, changing her hat seems to ask “what is real, and what is not?”

1997

THE HOUSE OF THE GENTLE; Sound; Color; TRT. 30.00: segments run from 2 to 10 minutes; White performs interpretations of eight hexagrams from the I Ching, the Chinese Book of Changes, that describes sixty-four different but archetypal forms of energy. The “gentle” refers to the wind (or wood), both gentle yet penetrating essential forces.

Presented: EARTHQUAKE ARTS FESTIVAL; American Museum of the Moving Image; Queens NY

1996

The GIFT OF THE DREAM prelude; Music: Waymen LaMont Widgens; Color; TRT. 10.10

Text derived from medieval alchemical writings and dream fragments; images based upon dreams experienced while sleeping in Chaco Culture, an Anasazi city; Canyon de Chelly, home of the natural monument to Spider Woman, creator of the world; and Shofuso, the Japanese House and Garden in Philadelphia.

DV & SUPER 8 HYBRIDS

2008

MY LOVE IS LIKE ROSE & BLUE; (Sound; Color; TRT. 8.25); re-edited Super-8 Film. Memories of love, frustration, grief—are hinted at in this piece that evolves seemingly through a world of mirrors in an artist’s loft; drifting thru psychological space, where an alchemical situation is engaged.

2007

SHE DREAMS THE WORLD; TRT. 6.00; Music: Peace Creeps; re-edited Super-8 Film. She who “dreams the world” ushers in psychic counterparts: a feminine “shadow” and a Dionysian “animus” who travel through mythic terrain of death and rebirth.

2011

STUFF of our DREAMS; Super 8 flamingos and a TV game show comment on the Gulf Oil Disaster in 2010.

 

MUSIC VIDEOS

2008 JEWELS & GEMS Music: Tigran Martikyan; Color; TRT. 6.31 A call from beyond; earth meets the sky.

2007 JEWELS & GEMS Music: 3epkano; TRT. 9.44 (see description above)

2006 SHE DREAMS THE WORLD Music: Peace Creeps; TRT. 6.00 (see description under “Hybrids”)

 

SUPER-8 FILM

1981 CAREERING Sound; Color; TRT. 3.00; Music. Public Image Ltd; Color;

1980 IG 79 Sound; Color; TRT. 3.00; Iggy Pop at Philadelphia’s HOT CLUB

1979 REVOLVE/er; Sound; Color; TRT. 3.00; MUSIC collage: Punk Rock Bands. IMAGE collage: war in Iran; ON THE WATERFRONT; a mind-reader does his tricks on TV, Punk Rock Band personages