Tone Glow Presents "Experiential Excess"

On August 9th and 10th, Tone Glow presents a screening of Tony Conrad's flicker films and Michael Snow's La Région Centrale

Tone Glow is excited to announce “Experiential Excess,” a two-day program featuring maximalist films from the legendary multidisciplinary artists Tony Conrad and Michael Snow. On Friday, August 9th at 7pm, we will screen five of Tony Conrad’s works: The Flicker, Straight and Narrow, Articulation of Boolean Algebra for Film Opticals, The Eye of Count Flickerstein, and Film Feedback. On Saturday, August 10th at 1pm, we will show Michael Snow’s La Région Centrale. All films will be shown on 16mm. None of these films make sense to view in a non-theatrical setting. Please note that the Tony Conrad films feature flashing lights. Viewer discretion is advised.

The effect I wanted to get was moving continuously from an absence of smashing stroboscopic effect into an area where the brain would be inundated with the dramatic quality of the patterns that were going on, and to move gradually, almost imperceptibly, away from this back to the point where reality would shine through again. […] The absence of contamination with imagery will be the fulcrum which will lever the attention of the audience directly toward full receptiveness to the characteristic flicker effects, which in most presentations are disrupted by eye motions connected with whatever activity is being illuminated by stroboscopic light. I expect to obtain unprecedentedly dramatic results in the audience due to this very lack of “subject matter.”

—Tony Conrad on The Flicker

I was trying, in a sense, to compose for moving one’s eyes. Like if you’re watching the rotation movement where the camera movement is just centered on the lens—which, as far as I know, has never been done before—an interesting thing happens to your eyes. Your lines of vision get tangled, because you are always making these turns, and you are always making a little hop, because you can’t follow the thing all around all the time. And I was trying to work from moving your eyes in that way, for a control of moving one’s eyes. I was literally arranging your eyes, the movement of them, at least the muscles of them, but also the iris part of it too, because there are sections where the amount of light is controlled. For instance, in the dawn sequence, where it goes along the dark ground, and then it goes into the sky, and what you have there is the screen itself just full of pure light, and it gets cooler, and then it gets warmer and warmer and brighter and brighter.

—Michael Snow on La Région Centrale

Tickets will be $15 for each program. Tickets for the Tony Conrad program can be found here. Tickets for the Michael Snow program can be found here. Special thanks to Ben Creech, Jiayi Chen, Canyon Cinema, Sunik Kim, Sweet Void Cinema, and Chicago Film Society.

Program 1: Tony Conrad’s Flicker Films (Friday August 9th at 7pm)

1. The Flicker (1966, 30 mins, b/w, sound)

2. Straight and Narrow (1970, 10 mins, b/w, sound) [With Beverly Grant]

3. Articulation of Boolean Algebra for Film Opticals (1975, 10 mins, b/w, sound)

4. The Eye of Count Flickerstein (1967, 7 mins, b/w, silent)

5. Film Feedback (1974, 15 mins, b/w, silent)

TRT = 72 mins (there will also be a short intermission after The Flicker)

Purchase tickets here.

Program 2: Michael Snow’s La Région Centrale (Saturday August 10th at 1pm)

1. La Région Centrale (1971, 180 mins, color, sound)

TRT = 180 mins

Purchase tickets here.