Summer Blockbusterz, Day 3,
Aug 7, 2024

1–3 PM:
Satellite Collective presents Works by Satellite Rogue Film Unit that feature intense new shorts by young filmmakers, and a suite of animated shorts by writer Kevin Draper and filmmaker Lora Robertson, written, animated and scored with original music by Brooklyn composers, and films created and premiered in Satellite Collective ballets.

"Globe" 2022, 3:54 min. Choreographer: Mio Ishikawa; Co-Creators: Mio Ishikawa, Olga Rabetskaya, Carlos Cardona and Tushrik Fredericks
"Gran Jericho" 2016, 10:34 min. Filmmaker: Lora Robertson; writer: Kevin Draper; score: Stelth Ulvang; dance: Lauren King, and Marika Anderson, New York City Ballet
"Edie Leaves Twice" 2015, 9:50 min. Filmmaker: Lora Robertson; writer: Kevin Draper
“Twin Star Event" 2014, 6:52 min. Filmmaker: Lora Robertson; writer: Kevin Draper
"Luzia On Fire" 2021, 9:59 min. Filmmaker: Lora Robertson; writer: Stelth Ulvang
"A Pair of Ideal Landscapes" 2014, 12:00 min. Filmmaker: Lora Robertson; writer: Kevin Draper
"Liar Lear King" 2023, 12:45 min. Filmmaker and producer: Lora Robertson; lead writer, producer, illustrator: Kevin Draper, writer, editor: Nikhil Melnechuk, writer: Tamar Charney, Lora Robertson; composer: Baile; unknown subway singer
"I Am The River" 2024, 6:21 min. Filmmaker and producer: Lora Robertson; producer: Kevin Draper; soundscape composer: Lora Robertson
"Grapefruit" 2024, 7:16 min. Written and directed by Jessica Liu, a Satellite Fellow
"Preggers" 2021, 8:51 min. Written and directed by Sylvia Ray, a Satellite Fellow
"Chicken At Home Tastes Like Dal" 2019, 6:45 min. Written and directed by Nikhl Melnechuk, a Satellite Fellow
"Cosmonaut" 2010, 10:15 min. Writers: Kevin Draper, Nick Jaina; Composers: Nick Jaina, Amanda Lawrence, Nathan Langston; Filmmaker: Lora Robertson; Writer: Kevin Draper
"Blue Vice" 2018, 12:07 min. Blue Vice is a film created by BodySonnet, with videography by Robert and Shana ParkeHarrison, and original sound by Dorothy Chan and Lucy Yao of chromic duo
"Echo & Narcissus” and “Liar Lear King” 2023, 9:00 min. Choreographed animation shorts that were incorporated into live ballet performances with dancers; Filmmaker: Lora Robertson; Writer: Kevin Draper - an exploration of film as a character

Since 2010, Satellite Collective has fused visual art together with music, dance, spoken word, and film in innovative productions. Satellite’s Rogue Film Unit has produced much of the foundational vision for these works together with young composers and talented writers and filmmakers. These films are the creative briefs of massive productions; and in many cases were woven into the performances themselves. Now, with the Orbit program, Satellite has begun to work with a new cohort of young filmmakers and their themes. These films are at the heart of a bright new paradigm of collaboration, as defined by Satellite Collective.

4–5 PM:
QTV (aka QueerTV) curated by Billy Miller, featuring short videos by Adam Baran, Matthew Burcaw, Wayne Coe, Christa Joo Hyun D’Angelo, Michael Economy, Ryan Foerster, Joel Gibb, Matt Keegan, Wayne Koestenbaum, Rachel Mason, Lucas Michael, Joe Ovelman, Stuart Sandford, Marc Santo (Revel), Ethan Shoshan, Sanh Tran, Jan Wandrag, and Tony Whitfield.

"Queer TV" is an ongoing series showcasing artwork in video form, representing different approaches to LGBTA+ expression. In this iteration, eighteen artists present individual approaches to queer sensibilities in short videos from the early 2000s to the present.

Adam Baran “Dirty Boots” 2014, 5:09 min

Matthew Burcaw “Ground Meat” 2024, 3:02 min

Wayne Coe “Sand Paintings” 2010, 4:55 min

Christa Joo Hyun D’Angelo “Bitches and Witches” 2019, 4:55 min

Michael Economy “Wake Up It’s Pansy Beat” 2018, 4:33 min

Ryan Foerster “23tfrdrdfr” 2024, 3:00 min

Joel Gibb (The Hidden Cameras) “In The NA” 2009, 6:22 min

Matt Keegan “2 Gallons of Milk, Ready for Work, and Fellow Travelers” 2019, 3:24 min

Wayne Koestenbaum “Uneasy Rider” 2024, 1:24 min

Rachel Mason “Tigers in the Dark” 2016, 4:12 min

Lucas Michael “U Don’t Bring Me Flowers” 2006, 3:30 min

Joe Ovelman “The Last Gayborhood” 2024, 00:51 min

Stuart Sandford “Splash” 2019, 4:01 min

Marc Santo (revel) “Peter McGough–Artist” 2008, 5:44 min

Ethan Shoshan “Spider Invocation” 2009, 3:36 min

Sanh Tran “Where Have All the Young Men Gone” 2022, 3:02 min

Jan Wandrag “In Wolfgang’s Pool” 2024, 00:80 min

Tony Whitfield “Ruth Ellis Alive” 2022, 5:45 min (Ljanai Cortez ‒ project artist, Philip Carrel ‒ director)

Billy Miller is an artist, curator, and independent publisher based in NYC.

• Adam Baran – “Dirty Boots” 2014: 5:09 mins. – The music video for Holopaw’s “Dirty Boots” follows a sexually-charged day in the life of a gay biker gang in Brooklyn. They awake in a tangle of leather, then suit up and ride to an underground sex club to initiate new members. Boundaries are pushed, but the boys find love, family and the unexpected. The Virgin Snow’s costumes were designed by Juan Betancurth, Select Wardrobe on loan from Scott Ewalt. Featuring Artwork by Billy Miller, Michael Bilsborough, Jacolby Satterwhite, FranciscoHurtz, Mark Tusk, and John Orth.

• Matthew Burcaw – “Ground Meat” 2024, 3:02 mins: a rapid-fire slideshow of images of personal profiles from the popular online gay social networking and “dating” (aka, cruising-for-sex) site Grindr - set to the electronic pumping beat of a classic New Wave dance track by the aptly-named Liaisons Dangereuses. Personal ads featuring images of faces and torsos strobe in rapid succession, as the throbbing soundtrack echoes and reinforces the urgency of the hunt.

• Wayne Coe – “Sand Paintings” 2010, 4:55 mins. - Wayne Coe’s sand drawing performances covered lower Manhattan (and Europe) for three years. The series is an institutional critique with Coe inserting contemporary fine artists into 70s-era male porn ads drawn on public sidewalks. His process-heavy, seven-hour drawings geographically map historic male porn locations to contemporary fine art marketing locations: galleries, museums, and auction houses. Coe dialogues with large audiences throughout his painstakingly immediacy of sand painting. After completion the artists walks away from the piece and allows the public to interact with -and walk over- the art and thus, time, language & property boundaries disappear as does the work.

• Christa Joo Hyun D’Angelo - “Bitches and Witches” – 2019 – 4:55 mins - Bitches and Witches is a video collage which combines frantic editing amid various versions of Lady Gaga's song Bad Romance among movie scenes from Metropolis, Secretary, The Craft and The Witches of Eastwick. Working with themes of heartbreak, shame, misogyny and lust, Bitches and Witches strives to uncover the invisible ways in which misogyny unveils itself in relationships through playful soundscapes and face-paced jump cuts.

• Michael Economy – “Wake Up It’s Pansy Beat” 2018, 4:33 mins. - created to accompany the “Pansy Beat” book which revisits the seminal queer zine Pansy Beat of 1989-90, reprinting the original issues alongside new essays, interviews and artwork from the artists featured in its pages. In the video, Pansy Beat’s debut 1989 cover boy, “Then”, makes a phone call to his present day self, “Now” (both portrayed in the video by Brooklyn drag king Maxxx Pleasure.) In colorful conversation reminiscent of late-80s informercials, Now and Then get reacquainted as they compare the challenges of their respective days. Then as Now, the two find more in common than not, despite advances in technology, ever-expanding ideas about gender and sexuality, and the unstoppable passage of time.

• Ryan Foerster – “23tfrdrdfr” 2024, 5:00 mins - Filmed in the New York City subway, the artist documents an impromptu happening by a sartorially provocative and gender ambiguous performer in a fishnet cat-suit, high heels, and, (naturally) a huge boombox to provide an appropriate soundtrack for startled commuters who aren’t sure if the whole thing is art, or mishegoss – who’s to say?

• Joel Gibb (The Hidden Cameras) – “In The NA” 2009, 6:22 mins. – Fronted by singer-songwriter Joel Gibb, The Hidden Cameras consists of a varying roster of musicians who play what Gibb describres as “gay church folk music”. “In The NA” was the first single taken from The Hidden Cameras symphonic pop work titled ‘Origin: Orphan’. The single finds Gibb playing every instrument except bass and drums. The eponymous video that accompanies the song depicts formation of the group dissecting and exploring a pastoral landscape.

• Matt Keegan – “2 Gallons of Milk • Ready for Work • Fellow Travelers” 2019 – Three videos of identical length (1:08 mins) based on real-world ads and tropes. In “Ready for Work”, a Teutonic male model dressing for Wall Street; with “Fellow Travelers”, a group of New York City subway riders assigned typological epithets (aka, ‘Chinatown Homies’, ‘Indian Hipsters’, ‘Do-Good Bluebloods’, etc.); and with “2 Gallons of Milk”, we are presented with two fridge-cold gallons of milk beading with sweat. The videos create an afterimage in the mind’s eye encouraging the viewer to make their own mental connections and associations.

• Wayne Koestenbaum – “Uneasy Rider” 2024,1:24 mins. – The artist’s stopmotion-animation short film (the title of which references a classic Hollywood film with a homoerotic theme) is a montage of cut-and-paste words and images that follows the movement of a cutout motorcyclist through a two-dimensional landscape of objects and abstract shapes.

• Rachel Mason – “Tigers in the Dark” 2016, 4:12 mins. - 'Tigers in the Dark' is the first single from Mason's ‘Das Ram’ album. Written from the voice of a hybrid animal-human, expressing the idea that the only place where real life happens is on the stage. The fictional "reality" of human existence is pure fiction and the stage is the place where anything real can happen – the creative dimension where "real life" exists.

• Lucas Michael – “U Don’t Bring Me Flowers” 2006, 3:30 mins. - A duet of one exploring the multiplicity and division of the self, self-love/self-hatred, and the long-term relationship one has with death while still being alive. To the soundtrack of Barbra Streisand & Neil Diamond’s song of the same title, the lyrics of which tell the story of two lovers who have drifted apart while they "go through the motions" and heartache of life together.

• Leon Mostovoy – “Transfigure” 2010, 2:51 mins. - Transfigure features the heads, torsos, and legs of 50 different transgender people. Subjects represent a variety of ethnicities, as well as a range of body sizes and age groups. Collectively, they highlight the diversity of the trans community itself; "Intended to explore political, social and legal ramifications of transgender/transsexual people, Transfigure investigates our physical bodies, body image, and body politics, in a playful and unapologetic way."

• Joe Ovelman – “The Last Gayborhood” 2024, 00:51 secs. – A short and sweet story of gentrification in the neighborhood (in this case, a trailer park) with our protagonist being the artist theirself. Inspired by Ovelman’s book of the same title about a gay sex and murder story of a man versus a predator set in South Florida.

• Stuart Sandford – “Splash” 2019” 4:01 mins - Referencing both Warhol and Picasso, a bronze head from the artist’s “Sebastian” series was buried for 6 months in the garden of Tom of Finland Foundation in Los Angeles and visitors were asked to urinate on the head. The uric acid within the urine reacts with the copper in the bronze prematurely ageing it and turning it a blue-green. The work was commissioned for a private collection and it’s rumoured that the Romans would utilize this same method, albeit with slave boys, to achieve a look that was akin to their beloved Greek bronzes.

• Marc Santo (revel) – “Peter McGough – Artist” 2008, 5:44 mins. - For over 30 years, the art duo of Peter McGough and David McDermott lived as if it was the end of the 19th century. From an 1800s townhouse in the East Village they created their art by candlelight, lived without modern appliances and traveled through Manhattan on horseback. As painters, photographers, playwrights and filmmakers, the artists came of age during the same East Village art scene that made superstars of Keith Haring (their one-time roommate) and Julian Schnabel (who’s championed their work). In this short overview of their work and life, artist Peter McGough talks about the duo’s practice and philosophy.

• Ethan Shoshan – “Spider Invocation” 2009, 3:36 mins - The spider weaves a web of intricate and subtle fabric as if to remind us that the past always influences the present. The web is a reminder that the world is woven around us, teaching to maintain balance –between past and future, physical and spiritual, male and female. We are the keepers and writers of our own destiny, Weaving it like a web by our thoughts, feelings and actions. -Ted Andrews, Animal Speak

• Sanh Tran – “Where Have All the Young Men Gone” 2022, - Tran, in drag, as a fashionable 1960s housewife, “sings” the lyrics to the eponymous anti-war anthem with the artist in full emotive posture and mood evoking a bygone time but at the same time showing cracks in the era’s gender conformity. Where have all the young men gone… well…?• Jan Wandrag – “In Wolfgang’s Pool” 2024, 00:80 secs – an homage to Fire Island Pines pool parties and the host of this particular one.

• Vagner Whitehead – “Paradise Lost” 2006, 00:55 secs – in this short work Whitehead’s personal history is fictionalized and (re) presented as a slide show –“Paradiso”, a real place, imagined and yet altered and reimagined via the quixotism of memory.

• Tony Whitfield creative director/producer (Ljanai Cortez – project artist, Philip Carrel – director) – “Ruth Ellis Alive” 2022, 5:45 mins – This short video celebrates African-American activist Ruth Ellis (1899-2000) known for her activism for LGBT rights and for being the oldest surviving open lesbian at the age of 101 (at the time of her passing), via, the Ruth Ellis Center in Detroit, MI, which works to create a supportive environment and community for LGBTQ+ young people.