dan browne

april 2017

Spring is starting off very busy for me, with six events in a single week!

On April 4th, Field (2016) will be presented at Athens International Film + Video Festival.

On April 8th and 9th, Cinema 25 in Manchester (UK) will be hosting a full retrospective of my film and video works, The Cinema of Dan Browne. This event is my first international solo show and I am honoured that it will take place over two nights and include all of my works to date. The first evening will cover my films from 2007-2011, plus some never before seen Super 8 rarities and the UK premiere of The Lost Cycle (2016). Day two will cover my digital work, including memento mori (2012) and a post-screening live interview via Skype. Special thanks to curator and host Christian Dymond.

On Saturday April 8th, I will be performing live DJ and VJ sets at Electric Circuits Festival in Kingston, ON, as well as taking part in a panel discussion on digital art in the afternoon at the Tett Center.

On Saturday April 8th, Factory Media Center in Hamilton, ON, will present Poem (2015) at 150 Seconds of Ontario Film Festival – PART ONE: Hand-Processed & Experimental. This is a great programme with filmmakers Barbara Sternberg, Kelly Egan and Josephine Massarella attending in person.

On Saturday April 8th, NOFEST in Milan, Italy, will also host the World Premiere of my new film, concrescence (2017). This is one of several new short films, with more to come soon. 

Routes (2011) screens as part of "Focusing on the landscape," at Sessió Xcèntric, Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona, on April 20th. From the programme description by curator Albert Alcoz: "Exploring the representation of nature in the film medium serves to transfigure it. Speeding up its development in time, suspending its physical presence, distorting its configuration or revealing its interstices are cinematographic operations that expand perception of the landscape. Describing the immanence of the forest is the pretext for a selection of films that show the landscape not as a physical place, but as a series of cultural perceptions, based on a place."

Festival of Light (2007) screens as part of "Entracte #27," organized by Le collectif BLAST at Museum of Fine Arts, Angers, France, on April 25th.

Still from concrescence (2017).

march 2017

I am excited to announce that I was commissioned by Images Festival to make the official trailer for this year's festival. This was a great honour, and since it is Images' 30th anniversary, I decided to pay homage to the festival's staff, artists and attendees by creating a collage out of the nearly 15,000 images in their archives. If you've ever been to Images before you will see some familiar faces, and maybe even yourself! Check out the trailer below, or on the big screen at this year's edition, which runs from April 21-28th in Toronto. The music is by Karl Fousek, "Second" from Pattern Recognition (2015).

Other things of note: I recently published a short text, "Notes on the Fragile Image," in Otherzine #32, "Cinemas of Resistance". My work was featured in two music videos, "Runaway" by Alexandre Bazin, and "Deepest Blue" by Emanuele de Raymondi on Zerokilled Music. And video documentation of my live sets at Audiopollination #51 have been posted online here, here, here and here.

Upcoming presentations of my work:

Passage (2016) will be presented at CSIF $100 Film Festival in Calgary on March 22nd. You can view their festival trailer here, with excerpts from my film included. 

Field (2016) will be shown at Athens International Film and Video Festival, Ohio, on April 4th.

A very new work, Concrescence (2017), will be shown at NOFEST 2017: Non è pranzo di gala (Is not a dinner party), at UNZA! in Milan, Italy, on April 8th. An extended remix of this new work will also be presented alongside a live poetry reading by Lizzsea Shipman at An Evening of Confluence in Vancouver, on March 25th.

I will be doing live video performances at Spectrum featuring Michael Red in Toronto, on March 24th, and at Electric Circuits Festival in Kingston ON, on April 8th (with an artist workshop in the afternoon).

Still from Field (2016, 2 min, 16mm)

february 2017

This winter I'm taking a breather from making new works in order to focus on my dissertation, which centres around process-based aesthetics and decay in experimental film. Writing about decay and the world feels very appropriate right now, I think I chose a timely topic! Been reading a lot of theory and am excited by my recent discovery of Bataille's The Accursed Share, which I feel perfectly summarizes the role of avant-garde cinema -- looking forward to writing on this connection, which seems to have gone unaddressed. I've also completed some notes towards a short theoretical/aesthetic manifesto called "The Fragile Image," that is an attempt to work through some common themes in my practices. Whatever happened to the days when artists wrote creative manifestos? We need more of that!

I will be doing live improvised video projections with pianist Jacqueline Leung at Audiopollination #51 at Array Space on Saturday February 11th in Toronto. I'm also exhibiting two video installations, Cathedral and Grid024 (both 2015), on The UMW Media Wall at the University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg, VA. And Núria Giménez Comas will be presenting her re-scored version of my film Abraxas (2006) in concert at "Zone(s) de combat," Consortium on February 10th in Dijon, France.

(By the way, if any web developers out there reading this are familiar with Koken -- which this site is run on -- I'm encountering glitches when updating content that I really could use some assistance with!)

Still from Grid024 (2015).

january 2017

2016 was a great year for me personally, and not such a great one for the world...

Let's start with the good: I somehow managed 52 screenings, installations, and live performances, including five solo presentations and a Loop Collective touring programme that spanned from coast to coast. I made seven new 16mm films, a handful of other projects, and resurrected four older films with new digital restorations. I finally managed to place all of my work in distribution with CFMDC and Light Cone, so something will survive if my house burns down. My films were mentioned on 'best of' year end lists by Rinaldo Censi, Donatello Corona, and Ángel Rueda, and I was happy to do my first lengthy interview on my filmmaking with Edwin Rostron. I have three new projects in process that I am confident will be among my best work to date, and I began several new collaborations and working relationships with other artists and organizations that I look forward to continuing in the coming year. And my personal life continues to blossom as I enjoy the struggles and triumphs of being a parent.

Grid024 (2015) and Cathedral (2015) at the Media Wall at University of Mary Washington, Fredericksburg, VA, on continuous loop for the month of February.

Still image from Palmerston Blvd., work in progress.

december 2016

This month I am touring the "Loop Collective: Recent Works" programme at Canadian Film Institute's Café Ex Series in Ottawa on December 7th, followed by two screenings at La Lumière in Montreal on December 8th and 9th, featuring the Loop programme and a solo programme of my own 16mm films, entitled "Materia Prima." This second programme will be similar to what was shown at Early Monthly Segments in October, and I am looking forward to presenting the new set of prints of these films, and distributing copies of the Loop Collective book for these last two stops our 20th anniversary tour.

Collectivo Toronto will also be presenting Alberta (2014) and Poem (2015) at Club Cultural Matienzo in Buenos Aires, Argentina, December 13-14th, in a great programme curated by Guillermina Buzio.

B Movie (2005) will be presented in Montreal at La Lumière on December 16th as part of Contre Courant, a programme of found footage works curated by Guillaume Vallée.

Finally, I'm happy to announce that the final show prints of the films in The Lost Cycle are ready and will soon be available for rental via CFMDC and Light Cone, at long last. Please go and rent them! :)

Hope you all stay warm and focused this winter.

Still images from On Sundays (2007) and Field (2016).

november 2016

Screenings this month:

November 3rd: Field at Pleasure Dome New Toronto Works 2016
November 12th: Poem at San Diego Underground Film Festival
November 25-27th: Poem at KLEX - 7th Kuala Lumpur Experimental Film, Video & Music Festival

And here are some recently published interviews and articles:

Outside the Text: An Interview With Mary Helena Clark, Incite Journal of Experimental Media.
Dan Browne at Edge of Frame, by Edwin Rostron.
The Lost Cycle (2016) at L'emergere del possibile, by Francesca Rusalen.

^ Still from Passage (2016, 4 min, 16mm, col, sil)

EARLY MONTHLY SEGMENTS #89 = Dan Browne in person!

Early Monthly Segments is pleased to host a screening of the work of local artist Dan Browne. A prolific film and video maker over the last decade, Browne finds himself drawn to the abstract patterns of nature, organizing them visually into immersive films that examine light play and embodied vision.

After a few years diving prolifically into digital image-making—including the much lauded memento mori—tonight’s screening features a return to celluloid for Browne with a brand new compendium of seven short films, entitled The Lost Cycle. The cycle, for Browne, “came about as a result of the process of going through my negatives — I found these otherwise lost moments in my filmography, moments that had meaning, which I had intended to do things with but never got around to doing, and decided to release them as a coming to terms with my karma for the medium.”

Programme:
Quanta, Dan Browne, Canada, 2008, 16mm, 9 min.
On Sundays, Dan Browne, Canada, 2007, 16mm, 20 min.
Hand-processing, Dan Browne, Canada, 2010, 16mm, 3 min.
The Lost Cycle, Dan Browne, Canada, 2016, 16mm, 24 min.
Festival of Light, Dan Browne, Canada, 2007, 16mm, 3 min.

Early Monthly Segments #89 = Dan Browne in person!
@ Gladstone Hotel, Ballroom, 1214 Queen Street West, Toronto
Monday, October 24, 2016 | 8:00 PM screening | $5-10 suggested donation

october 2016

Newly announced screenings of Poem:

- UNEXPOSED Microcinema on September 30th, part of a three-part series on Canadian experimental film, alongside Shannon Harris, Erin Celeste Weisgerber, Parastoo Anoushahpour, Ryan Ferko and Faraz Anoushahpour, Scott Fitzpatrick and Mike Hoolbloom.

- Festival du Nouveau Cinema, "The New Alchemists #2," on October 10th & 12th, featuring works by Anouk de Clercq, Solomon Nagler, Katherine Liberovskaya, Matthias Müller, Jessica Sarah Rinland and Audréane Beaucage. I will be in attendance for both screenings!

- Transient Visions Festival of Moving Image, "Lines that we follow, shapes that we create," curated by Tomonari Nishikawa, on October 15th. Great selection of works, featuring Blake Williams, Robert Todd, Christina Hunt, Brian Wilson, Dana Berman Duff and Zach Iannazzi.

- KLEX - 7th Kuala Lumpur Experimental Film, Video & Music Festival, November 25-27th.

Also, Midway (2008) will be presented at Curta8 International Festival of Super 8 on October 8th, in a programme alongside works by Saul Levine, Stephen Broomer, Joseph Bernard, Malena Szlam, Alexandra Morales, and Eda Goksel and Rita Piffer. This is the first time the restored version has been publicly presented, many thanks to Rafael Schlichting and Cláudio Cárdenas!

september 2016

Upcoming screenings:

Quanta (2008) will be presented as part of Light Cone's Scratch Expanded Show on September 17th in Paris. This is a favourite among my own works that is rarely shown, and so I am very appreciative to have it included in an amazing programme of silent films by icons such as Hans Richter, Oskar Fischinger, Maya Deren, Robert Breer, Stan Brakhage, and contemporaries such as Stephen Broomer and Josh Lewis. The event will be a "projection en plein air," don't miss it if you are in Paris.

Poem screens at the BFI London Film Festival in the Experimenta section, in a programme entitled "Reinterpretations of Form" on October 9th. I am very honoured to be included in this programme (alongside the great Ken Jacobs!) and wish that I could attend in person, but unfortunately my presence will be limited to a spectre on the screen. Friends in London, I hope you can be there! 

Poem will also be presented in a great programme curated by Clint Enns and Leslie Supnet, "Beaneath The Tower: Moving Images From Toronto," in Cologne, Germany on October 14th. 

Poem will also be presented in an installation entitled "Inheritance" at Cineworks Vancouver, as part of Graphical Recordings' Variations project, a commissioned series recently released on DVD.

Four years ago this month I premiered memento mori at the WNDX Festival of Moving Image, where it received the Jury Prize for Best Canadian Work. I am grateful that it has been viewed over 4,000 times online and liked by 100 people on its Vimeo page since then, which means it is played almost 3x daily. I sometimes feel conflicted about offering my work online for free, but consider it important for it to be as accessible as possible because I want it to be seen. I am grateful to receive the following comment from one of my favourite filmmakers, Joseph Bernard, who writes: "Your life flashed before my eyes in this delicious experience of images and recordings interwoven with cinematic genius... a network of thought and displacement sharing an exposed nervous system -- all with a dense, dark beauty. This is a absolute rarity of pure filmmaking. Stunning!" If you have enjoyed memento mori (or any of my other works) and would like to support me, you can purchase a BluRay from me personally via email (I will be creating an official limited release to promote this soon). Or, if you are a curator, please consider renting this work from one of its distributors: Winnipeg Film Group, CFMDC, Light Cone. 

august 2016

Happy to announce that Poem will be presented at the 2016 San Diego Underground Film Festival this coming November!

As for August, I'm mostly laying low, but recently posted six new 16mm films online for public viewing, a short cycle of lost moments that have re-emerged after many years dormant. 

^ Still frame from Gulf (2016, 4 min, 16mm, col, sil)

Below are some photos from my show with Karl Fousek at Vector Festival in July courtesy of Vector and InterAccess. We had a great response to the performance, which was entirely improvised and our first time playing together (no rehearsal!), and I hope to collaborate with Karl again sometime soon. It was also great to perform with Michael Trommer and Eric Filion on the bill, and we all had a great panel discussion the next day, entitled "Algorithms, Generative Art and Machine Agency," moderated by festival co-curator Martin Zeilinger. This was the first A/V live show of Grids and it won't be the last.

And here's a short video of the performance by Vector co-curator Skot Deeming (aka mrghosty).