THE MAGIC FLOOOT 3 Festival of Hand-Drawn Animation
Curated by Rebecca Bird and Matthew Thurber
Dec. 6 and Dec 13, 2019, 8 PM at TOMATO MOUSE
301 Saratoga Avenue, Brooklyn NY 11223
Animations by Andy Heck Boyd, Lori Damiano, Conor Donahue, Sophie Galowitz, Alex Gibson, Sun Han, J.A. Mercer and Yifan Jiang, Pooh Kaye, Karla Lopez, Richard O’ Connor, Birgit Rathsmann, Ayesha Raees, Cassie Shao, Evelyn Wang, Vania Xiang, Lale Westvind
Curated by Rebecca Bird and Matthew Thurber
Dec. 6 and Dec 13, 2019, 8 PM at TOMATO MOUSE
301 Saratoga Avenue, Brooklyn NY 11223
Animations by Andy Heck Boyd, Lori Damiano, Conor Donahue, Sophie Galowitz, Alex Gibson, Sun Han, J.A. Mercer and Yifan Jiang, Pooh Kaye, Karla Lopez, Richard O’ Connor, Birgit Rathsmann, Ayesha Raees, Cassie Shao, Evelyn Wang, Vania Xiang, Lale Westvind
THE MAGIC FLOOT is a screening series of contemporary Animation curated by Matthew Thurber. The first took place in 2014 and the second in 2017.
Magic Floot 2
curated by Matthew Thurber
Grannies still whisper about the Magic Floot to put babies to sleep. Its first appearance in 2014 has become legend, but nobody remembers exactly what dress they wore that evening, or whether their horses got stuck in a swamp or to the side of a glacier. Now it returns and not a moment too late... rippling out of mundane reality like an gauntleted fist clutching a bouquet of Goldenrod...! What is FLOOT? a manifestation of the most phantasmagoric, hallucinatory, rare, and brilliant Animations being made today, files ZIPped into rabbit carcasses by a cackling nerd-hag, formed into tinctures, and dribbled before your eyes with exacting precision....the Floot's second manifestation on this plane can only bring Delight, Enchantment and Revelation as to the miracle that is Animated film!!! Works by CATHY AISON, LILLI CARRÉ, LISA CRAFTS, ERIN DUNN, ANNA FIRTH, BILLY GRANT, ROYA HAROUN, JAMES MERCER, RUBBER O CEMENT, and SETH SCRIVER .
Magic Floot 2 will be screening at 8 PM, Nov. 12 as part of the Color Giants Animation Exposition (Color-giants.com), at Brooklyn Fireproof, located at 102 Ingraham Street, Brooklyn NY.
curated by Matthew Thurber
Grannies still whisper about the Magic Floot to put babies to sleep. Its first appearance in 2014 has become legend, but nobody remembers exactly what dress they wore that evening, or whether their horses got stuck in a swamp or to the side of a glacier. Now it returns and not a moment too late... rippling out of mundane reality like an gauntleted fist clutching a bouquet of Goldenrod...! What is FLOOT? a manifestation of the most phantasmagoric, hallucinatory, rare, and brilliant Animations being made today, files ZIPped into rabbit carcasses by a cackling nerd-hag, formed into tinctures, and dribbled before your eyes with exacting precision....the Floot's second manifestation on this plane can only bring Delight, Enchantment and Revelation as to the miracle that is Animated film!!! Works by CATHY AISON, LILLI CARRÉ, LISA CRAFTS, ERIN DUNN, ANNA FIRTH, BILLY GRANT, ROYA HAROUN, JAMES MERCER, RUBBER O CEMENT, and SETH SCRIVER .
Magic Floot 2 will be screening at 8 PM, Nov. 12 as part of the Color Giants Animation Exposition (Color-giants.com), at Brooklyn Fireproof, located at 102 Ingraham Street, Brooklyn NY.
REVIEW OF THE MAGIC FLOOT FROM ARTNEWS
Tiny Space, Grand Guignol: Tomato House Hosts an Evening of Experimental AnimationBY John Chiaverina POSTED 09/30/14 10:35 AM
This past Friday, Tomato House, the gallery run by artists Rebecca Bird and Matthew Thurber in Ocean Hill, Brooklyn, felt more akin to a DIY music venue than any kind of gallery in Chelsea. A tight-knit crowd packed in for a night of experimental animation called “The Magic Floot,” part of an ongoing screening series dubbed “Thurb’s Grand Guignol,” after the 1900s Parisian theater that specialized in productions full of questionable taste and high entertainment value, all videos projected from Thurber’s laptop to a gallery wall.Handcrafted animation ruled the night, with many artists in the show coming to video sideways through other disciplines. Melissa Brown’s background is rooted in painting and printmaking, but on Friday she showcased a hypnotic stop-motion video called Shell Game, which featured a dazzling soundtrack, some of it sourced from field recordings Brown made of casinos in Atlantic City.
Billy Grant, a founding member of the legendary psychedelic art collective Dearraindrop, premiered Untitled Car Ride Movie, a study in familial road trip dynamics using loosely animated sketches and deranged sound design. While the work lacked Dearraindrop’s signature hyper-color insanity, it retained a bit of the collective’s sensibility through sharply twisted dialogue that wouldn’t feel out of place on a more outré Adult Swimprogram.
Erin Dunn, who currently has a show of figurative watercolor paintings hanging at Tomato House, offered up two pieces of stop-motion animation, the second of which (titled Frog) featured a series of short vignettes centered around a curious handcrafted monster-like figure, all bedazzled, puffy painted, and full of fur. During the loose and lively Q and A, Dunn explained that the monster was inspired by her grandmother, with whom she lived in her mid-20s. “She lost her teeth and had this very expressive character,” explained Dunn, who went on to praise her for the inspiration over the years.
Dash Shaw’s Wheel Of Fortune — a humorous recreation of a New Years Day episode of the titular television program using marker on paper—was one particular highlight of the night. Wheel Of Fortune used not animation but a quick succession of stills to storyboard the episode, the images ranging from abstract to figurative. “I wanted the beginning of 2008 episode but it wasn’t any good,” said Shaw, commenting on the quality of that particular installment of “Wheel Of Fortune.” He instead used an episode from New Year’s Day 2009 that he deemed better, “but changed the audio so it said 2008,” he said during the Q and A, deadpan.
In contrast to most of the program, James Mercer’s Landfillwas over 10 minutes long and created through digital means. Far from slick, however, Landfill owed more aesthetically to an earlier generation of new media artists. A video about waste management in a dystopian future, Landfill‘s lo-fi brilliance rested in its details—the crudely-rendered corporate logos that ran throughout the piece recalled the primitive ’90s software Kid Pix. In the Q and A, Mercer stated that he “didn’t study animation,” and revealed that the animations were made in Adobe Photoshop and arranged one frame at a time, “like an animated gif.”
The fun, handcrafted feel of “The Magic Floot” was much in line with the overarching aesthetic running that’s governed Tomato House’s past two years. “We like things that show some hand. That’s just our taste,” said Thurber in an interview after the screening, referring to his and Bird’s impressive program of group and solo shows from a mix of veterans and first-timers. “It’s really fun to give an artist their first solo show,” said Thurber. “It’s kind of like taking their art virginity.”
Copyright 2018, Art Media ARTNEWS, llc. 110 Greene Street, 2nd Fl., New York, N.Y. 10012. All rights reserved.
Tiny Space, Grand Guignol: Tomato House Hosts an Evening of Experimental AnimationBY John Chiaverina POSTED 09/30/14 10:35 AM
This past Friday, Tomato House, the gallery run by artists Rebecca Bird and Matthew Thurber in Ocean Hill, Brooklyn, felt more akin to a DIY music venue than any kind of gallery in Chelsea. A tight-knit crowd packed in for a night of experimental animation called “The Magic Floot,” part of an ongoing screening series dubbed “Thurb’s Grand Guignol,” after the 1900s Parisian theater that specialized in productions full of questionable taste and high entertainment value, all videos projected from Thurber’s laptop to a gallery wall.Handcrafted animation ruled the night, with many artists in the show coming to video sideways through other disciplines. Melissa Brown’s background is rooted in painting and printmaking, but on Friday she showcased a hypnotic stop-motion video called Shell Game, which featured a dazzling soundtrack, some of it sourced from field recordings Brown made of casinos in Atlantic City.
Billy Grant, a founding member of the legendary psychedelic art collective Dearraindrop, premiered Untitled Car Ride Movie, a study in familial road trip dynamics using loosely animated sketches and deranged sound design. While the work lacked Dearraindrop’s signature hyper-color insanity, it retained a bit of the collective’s sensibility through sharply twisted dialogue that wouldn’t feel out of place on a more outré Adult Swimprogram.
Erin Dunn, who currently has a show of figurative watercolor paintings hanging at Tomato House, offered up two pieces of stop-motion animation, the second of which (titled Frog) featured a series of short vignettes centered around a curious handcrafted monster-like figure, all bedazzled, puffy painted, and full of fur. During the loose and lively Q and A, Dunn explained that the monster was inspired by her grandmother, with whom she lived in her mid-20s. “She lost her teeth and had this very expressive character,” explained Dunn, who went on to praise her for the inspiration over the years.
Dash Shaw’s Wheel Of Fortune — a humorous recreation of a New Years Day episode of the titular television program using marker on paper—was one particular highlight of the night. Wheel Of Fortune used not animation but a quick succession of stills to storyboard the episode, the images ranging from abstract to figurative. “I wanted the beginning of 2008 episode but it wasn’t any good,” said Shaw, commenting on the quality of that particular installment of “Wheel Of Fortune.” He instead used an episode from New Year’s Day 2009 that he deemed better, “but changed the audio so it said 2008,” he said during the Q and A, deadpan.
In contrast to most of the program, James Mercer’s Landfillwas over 10 minutes long and created through digital means. Far from slick, however, Landfill owed more aesthetically to an earlier generation of new media artists. A video about waste management in a dystopian future, Landfill‘s lo-fi brilliance rested in its details—the crudely-rendered corporate logos that ran throughout the piece recalled the primitive ’90s software Kid Pix. In the Q and A, Mercer stated that he “didn’t study animation,” and revealed that the animations were made in Adobe Photoshop and arranged one frame at a time, “like an animated gif.”
The fun, handcrafted feel of “The Magic Floot” was much in line with the overarching aesthetic running that’s governed Tomato House’s past two years. “We like things that show some hand. That’s just our taste,” said Thurber in an interview after the screening, referring to his and Bird’s impressive program of group and solo shows from a mix of veterans and first-timers. “It’s really fun to give an artist their first solo show,” said Thurber. “It’s kind of like taking their art virginity.”
Copyright 2018, Art Media ARTNEWS, llc. 110 Greene Street, 2nd Fl., New York, N.Y. 10012. All rights reserved.