Defamiliarizing Film

Self-styled 'spatial philosopher' Michael Joaquin Grey pushes metaphysical boundaries in REENTRY, an exhibition that explores the cultural and material properties of cinema and film. Fans of Grey's groundbreaking work in synesthetic cinema and computational filmmaking will love 'Perpetual ZOOZ,' in which Grey uses time and space as catalysts for the creation of a 3D sculpture featuring images and sounds from 'The Wizard of Oz.' The film plays out spatially, and in time, as the images move through a series of continuously rotating planes. Defamliarizing the familiar by granting technology and pop culture equal privilege in artistic production, Grey points the way to new forms of cultural expression that he himself pioneered. True to form, Grey riffs on biology in 'Reentry,' 'a silent cellular film visualizing past, present, and future simultaneously within a matrix of animation cells forming the larger body of another film.' And the 'So What Moon Calendar' sees him turn physics on its head as earth circles the moon. REENTRY is at New York's Bitforms Gallery until April 15. - Peggy MacKinnon