Fragments from the night cinema – instructions from shadow to light
Ace Hotel New York Gallery Exhibition & Artist In Residence
Third Rail Projects & Ace Hotel New York present
STANZAS
An Interactive Film-based Art Installation
by Tom Pearson
SCHEDULE:
Artist-In-Residence: Sundays in June, 2019
Exhibition: July 5 – August 6, 2019
Free and open to the public 24/7
Opening Reception: July 10, 2019 at 7:00PM
A foreign stillness suggested a change, the
Right of Spring to grow our voices, parallel
To silence, this flesh in the garden, and a
Dream of exit signs.
Stanzas
Stanzas, at Ace Hotel New York, is a gallery exhibition focused on film, poetry, installation art, and augmented reality. The still frames, excerpts, and poetry fragments that comprise the work relayed the symbolic layers of the artist's dreams, in a catalog that dated back to 1993.
Stanzas is situated in a personal interstitial creative space, intersecting with several other projects, including early performance sketches for Ikaros, character and thematic explorations in film for both Passaggio, early installation art that evolved into the Archives of Asterion, and a reprise of elements from the experimental short film The Night Garden, including film projections, analog flip books, and augmented reality portraits. All, though, share common DNA, being born from a process of individual, colloquial, and collective unconsciousness dream sharing to manifest within “branches” of an evolving multimedia “library.” Branches of this library are interactive art installations and performances in a variety of formats, media, and venues, ranging from ephemeral manifestations, to temporary exhibitions, to forthcoming and existing publications, and a more permanent, evolving, collection online.
In the future I will think of him: along
A cartography of where his hands have passed,
Maps drawn on silk, hidden in coat pockets, and
Of his quiet stealth.
Colony Collapse
Tom Pearson (b. 1974). Colony Collapse, 2019. Still frame prints and poetry. 23”x23”. Featuring Andrew Broaddus.
Card Catalog
Tom Pearson (b. 1974). Card Catalog, 2019. Installation assemblage: wood boxes, cut paper, film stills, flip books, glue, books, bookends. 24”x12”
Video Courtesy of Marie Van Eersel
NOTE: Visitors are encouraged to engage with the interactive features of the installation, including: opening drawers, handling and viewing flipbooks, turning the crank on the music box, reading cards or viewing still frames within the card catalog, and removing drawers in order to view the micro-environments within. It is asked that audiences handle these delicate pieces with care and return everything as it is found.
Leningrad
Tom Pearson (b. 1974). Leningrad, 2018. Still frame prints, poetry, music box, flip book, miniature trees and snow. 23”x23”. Featuring Maxim Mityashin
Photo by @Claeemms
Passaggio
Tom Pearson (b. 1974). Passaggio, 2019. Digital film (one 6:46 min. and four 4:00 min. films, looped, shot exclusively on iPhone, digital frames. 20”x30”. Featuring Andrew Broaddus, Marta Luné, Justin Lynch, Mary Madsen.
Passaggio Gallery Film Series Excerpts
Full Passaggio Film
Passaggio short film available to rent ($1.99/48 hrs) or buy ($4.99) on Vimeo.
In the sea, more than before us, and in that
Effort to notate what had occurred in the
Night, more than nearer your promises–more than
The whispering waves.
The Night Garden
Daria Karpova (b. 1989), Anastasia Nesterova (b. 1990), Marissa Nielsen-Pincus (b. 1979), Tom Pearson (b. 1974), Renata Zhigulina (b. 1990). The Night Garden, 2018.
Augmented reality mosaic (31 still frame/15-second films) shot exclusively on iPhone, zinc paper. 36"×48" overall (31 2"×3" tiles) with full film also projected onto wall.
Augmented Reality Mosaic
Video Courtesy of Kevin Lowry
Below is an example from the AR Mosaic. Free Lifeprint app needed to view. Get it on Google Play or App Store. Launch the app and view images on your phone through the hyper photo viewer.
The Full Film
The Night Garden full film was also projected onto a wall of the gallery, and ran 24/7 for the duration of the exhibition. The film went on to win more than 20 awards at over 40 film festivals worldwide in 2022, and is now available to download or stream.
The full 28-minute short film, plus bonus interview with directors, is available at Vimeo On-demand for rental/streaming at $2.99 for 48 hours or for purchase at $9.99 for streaming/download.
Dragonflies lower themselves like a curtain.
Along the shore, the old men begin to reel
In their kites. Rain is coming to the rain room.
Rain is coming.
Gallery Opening
Laying out ideas there upon twin beds,
Pushed together at night and boldly turned down
For a harvest inside of future dream, for
What was yet to come.
Ace Hotel New York Gallery Exhibition & Artist In Residence
Third Rail Projects & Ace Hotel New York present
An Interactive Film-based Art Installation
by Tom Pearson
CREATIVE TEAM
Films Written, Directed, Choreographed, Photographed, and Edited by: Tom Pearson
Ikaros Film Sequences Feature Performances by:
Andrew Broaddus, Justin Lynch, Marta Luné, Mary Madsen
Filmed in: Portofino, Ventimiglia, and Bogliasco, Italy; San Diego, CA; and during Artist Residency at Ace Hotel New York.
Featuring a Reprise of
The Night Garden
Written, Directed, Choreographed, Filmed, and Performed by: Daria Karpova (Russia), Anastasia Nesterova (Russia), Tom Pearson (USA), Marissa Nielsen-Pincus (USA), and Renata Zhigulina (Russia)
Featuring Additional Performances by: Marta Luné (UK/Italy) and Maxim Mityashin (Russia)
Edited by: Tom Pearson & Daria Karpova
Augmented Reality Mosaic by: The Creative Team
Filmed in Saint Petersburg, Russia
WRITTEN WORK
All written materials are from Tom Pearson’s poetry collections: The Sandpiper’s Spell, ©2018; and Still, The Sky ©2022 from Ransom Poet Publishers, New York. Poetry featured in The Night Garden is by the creative team. All rights reserved.
PRODUCTION
Created and Produced by: Tom Pearson
Production Support (Italy): Maví Dagnino
Production Support (Russia): The Creative Team
PROJECT SUPPORT
COMMISSION & FUNDING
Stanzas was presented by Ace Hotel in New York City. The project has also received development support, in part, from: CEC Artslink’s Back Apartment Residency and the Art Prospect Festival 2018 (St. Petersburg, Russia); Wesleyan University Center for the Arts, where Tom Pearson was a Creative Campus Fellow in Theater in 2018–19, a residency which was part of Wesleyan’s Creative Campus Initiative and supported by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation; and from the Bogliasco Foundation in Liguria, Italy with a Residency Fellowship in Theatre. Stanzas is also made possible, in part, by Materials for the Arts/New York City Department of Cultural Affairs/Department of Sanitation and from the Third Rail Projects Producers Circle, which is supported by individual donors.
ACE Residency
ACE HOTEL ARTIST IN RESIDENCE
Tom Pearson was an Artist In Residence at Ace Hotel New York in June of 2019, spending Sunday nights at the hotel and creating work towards the exhibition Stanzas, which included poetry, installation art, film, augmented reality, and live performance, created at Ace Hotel.
The Artists In Residence program invites an artist each month to spend Sunday nights at the hotel. Ace AIR is a retreat from the world of domestic habits. It is an immersion in our ecosystem to focus on developing a piece, any piece, presented at the end of the month in our public spaces.
Learn more at Ace Hotel.