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Game

Going Somewhere: The Role Playing Game
     Free to Download and Play from Genres Game System, LLC

Review

"Film Scratches: Recombinant Modification of Sci Fi - Going Somewhere (2015)"
     David Finkelstein, Film International, 26 June 2017

Interview

"Peripheral ARTeries meets Michael Betancourt"
     Dario Rutigliano and Melissa C. Hilborn, curators, Peripheral ARTeries magazine, 2017


Going Somewhere poster

Michael Betancourt's Going Somewhere is a glitch-collage movie serial where each episode is 7 minutes long and employs a consistent collection of technical and aesthetic strategies in its construction. Every episode is organized around an archetypal science fiction film narrative schema, one that is immediately recognizable, in order to address the fantasies that these narratives present. They are made with documentary/scientific NASA/JPL documentation, pieces of public domain movies and abstract glitch footage, the episodes also employ a standard title card and an orchestral soundtrack made from Holst's The Planets.

The data stream that is the digital file has been glitched to create a continuous flow of imagery that functions syntactically—eschewing montage and the long take—so that each shot develops seamlessly into the next, morphing from one image into another. The overal structure of these images allows for a consideration of the relationship between displacements (primarily einbau structures) and their capacity to amplify the conceptual-narrative aspects of the science fiction 'story.' At the same time, the conversion of the shot sequence into an ASCii code animation enables a consideration of the distinction between the surface of the image and its internal organization as code. The audience is central to this process: without them, there is no coherence, no organization to this progression.

My use of glitch processes makes us aware our interpretation depends on digital signals, the translation of a machine language whose code is easily alterable, depending on a set of intangible electronic data that is inaccessible to humans: the data stream that is the digital file has been glitched to create a continuous flow of imagery that functions syntactically (by eschewing montage and the long take) so that each shot develops seamlessly into the next, morphing from one image into another. The overal structure of these images allows for a consideration of the relationship between displacements (primarily einbau structures) and their capacity to amplify the conceptual-narrative aspects of the science fiction 'story.' At the same time, the conversion of the shot sequence into an ASCii code animation enables a consideration of the distinction between the surface of the image and its internal organization as code. The audience is central to this process: without them, there is no coherence, no organization to this progression.


  Going Somewhere Screenings

  • Episode I, 2016
    Here Comes Everybody, Episode 26-1, July, 2018 monthly Experimental cable access show broadcast in Los Angeles and Berkeley CA; Portland, Olympia, and Seattle, WA; Waukegan, IL; North Liberty, IA; Ithaca, NY
    Exploding Cinema, The Horse Hospital, April 21, 2018 London, UK
    "Gamelan Oneirum," 5th Syros International Film Festival, July 14-19, 2017, Syros, Greece
  • Episode IV, 2015
    London Experimental Film Festival, October 17, 2016, Container Gallery, University of East London, University Way, London, UK
    Les Rencontres Traverse Video, March 7-11 (7-31), 2018, Toulouse, France
  • Episode VI, 2016
    Cityscape, March 30-April 15, 2018, Czong Institute for Contemporary Art (CICA), Gyeonggi-do, South Korea
  • Episode X, 2016
    Experiments in Cinema v12.3, "Experiment 4," April 17, 2017, Albuquerque, NM
    Sign On/Sign Off, Merz Akademie 24 hour streaming festival on Acre TV, June 30, 2017, Denmark, http://www.acretv.org
    "Gamelan Oneirum," 5th Syros International Film Festival, July 14-19, 2017, Syros, Greece
  • copyright 2016-2018 Michael Betancourt / Artists Rights Society (ARS) all rights reserved.