Tea & Passive-Aggression from chad stone on Vimeo.

Code and Modes Conference

On Saturday November 8th Hunter College hosted a symposium of documentary film makers entitled Codes and Modes. Many of the panels consisted of respected documentarians who discussed an aspect of documentary film making. At 1:30 pm in HN 436 Ernie Larson and Sherry Millner hosted a panel on Agit-Prop documentaries named Flying Under the Radar: Altering Reception to Change Perception.

Mr. Larson commenced the panel by speaking about a project he and Ms. Millner had conducted in protest of the war in Afganistan. They later went on to discuss how they have been accumulating agit-prop media from around the word and have been asked to curate international presentations of these short works.  Ms. Millner went further to illustrate as to how hard the work of gathering these films was before the advent of the internet.

The lecture was punctuated by three short films shown by international film makers. the first was Le Glas (The Deathknell). A short film in protest of the hanging of three insurrectionists within colonial Africa. The second film Was by Mario Handler titled Me Gustan Los Estudiantes. This film showed the plight of Honduran students against the dictatorial government of the time. Riotous students were inter-cut by scenes of grand government happenings all to the song "Me Gustan los Estudientes". To close the discussion Requiem for M by Philippine film maker Kiri Delena was shown. Documetning the outrage and anguish of a community in the Philippines after the murder of 30 plus individuals on their way to register to vote by a gang in favor of the incumbent mayor.

The themes touched upon in this discussion where of engagement without resulting in imprisonment. Turning the screenings of the short films into more of a participatory event with a "collective liveness". Ultimately these two self described anarchists want to engage discussion and encourage questions with their curatorial juxtaposition of work with their "radical politics and radical form".

Museum of the Moving Image

On October the 29th the film and media 160 class too a trip to the Museum of the Moving Image (MoMI). Located at historic Kaufman Astoria studios this museum is a repository to all things cinematic.

We commenced our tour with an introduction by the staff and were then broken I to smaller groups and led through the main exhibit of the museum. Our docent brought us to the optical toys that underscore the basics of film. These were all very early toys and while archaic they were fun and engaging.

One concept that I had not formally heard named was "moment of rest". I understood the principal; there must be a moment between images for each frame to register on the screen so as to not turn into a blur. Moment of rest is the empty screen between the images. While the emptiness is too rapid to register it allows the registration of each fram on the screen. The culmination of the linear frames and non-frames (moments of rest) allow for apparent motion.

This idea was brought home by the use of a zoetrope. When one looked through the top of the toy only a blur registered. When looking through the slits in the side a moving image registered to the viewer. A rather brilliant art installation illustrated these concepts further.

Feral Fount by Gregory Barsamian is a stroboscopic zoetrope with 97 independent sculptures fixed on a rotating scaffold to create a short animation when seen in conjunction with a strobe light. This art installation alone was worth the two hours of time and $6.50 of cash.

Classified

Blog Entry 2 - Sound Walk

On one-hundred-eight street in NYC a cacophony of sounds hits one's ear. The constant whirl of traffic on Second and First avenues provides a whoosh undertone to the area provide a consistent background. Birds chirp in the trees to counterpoint while people walk to and from their apartments. Entrances and exits from the corner bodega are constant and contain conversation. The trundle of hand carts filled with earthly goods are pushed down the street by abuelitas, adding a metallic overtone to the traffic.

When a large car or truck passes, with a modified muffler, car alarms are incited drawing signals to their sounding distress. Dogs will bark at squirrels gathering their autumnal acorns and a cat will slink by on silent padded feet. The fauna disturbs the flora in passing, adding a brief and minute punctuation of rustles and brushes to the overwhelming hustle of the area.

On one-hundered-ninth street is a small church and on Sundays can be heard the distinctly sonorous bells calling the faithful to worship. If one listens closely enough, it can be imagined that the upraised voices of the congregation, in psalm, can be heard on the wind winding it's way to God's ear. The neighbors gather to play stick ball across the avenue and the crack of the broom handle against the rubber ball echos off edifices as men run to and fro, encouraging one their team with boisterous and grand statements while mocking their competition. The children in the corner park laugh as they swing higher into the Sunday sky. Crossing wooden bridges and climbing towers they build their castles with shrieks of merriment. These sounds landmark the space, allowing for this area to be individual from other areas in the city.

Sense of Place

sense of place from chad stone on Vimeo.

Artist Statement

Chad started as a “Professional Artist” at the age of seventeen, after many years of training as a classical ballet dancer. With many of his formative years in the baroque art form of Classical Ballet, Chad has been influenced greatly by the structure, discipline and subtle intricacies inherent in art and life in general. This has provided Chad with a lens through which he enjoys juxtaposing different ideas and finding the similarities and vice-versa in the minutiae of their contrived existence.






In light of these immense influences of his training during youth, professional late teens and early 20’s, Chad loves highly formulated pieces and compositions. From Bach and Mozart to Phillip Glass the genre of classical music have been most prevalent in his life, however pop is always appreciated. Lars von Trier, Baz Luhrmann and Wes Anderson are some admired directors. Von Trier for his understated elegance, Anderson for his composition and Luhrmann for his sheer spectacularity. The television shows that strike Chad most right now are Hannible on NBC, Game of Throne on HBO and Continuum on Canadian Television. In regards to books, Game of Thrones for the realism in fantasy literature and St. Thomas Aquinas for insights into western spirituality.






The subjectivity of “art” drives it to live in the shadows of human existence/experience. Being a creator does not make one and artist nor does being an artist make one a creator. The ideas of art are, and always will be, relative to the time and place within which art is created and the viewing audience (not that art depends on an audience). The social world humanity constructed is just that, a construction. In a Kuleshov manner, Chad likes to explore constructs and induce those watching to ask questions.