6 Easy Pieces is a compilation of shots and sequences
made over the period 1996 - 1999, which seemed to find themselves together
by a kind of gravitational attraction. The work is intended as a kind
of sampler of the potential aesthetic range of DV and consumer-level
NLE systems, though of course not merely as a technical or aesthetic
matter. It is also a commentary on contemporary arts, past history,
creative energies, society, and shall we say a grab-bag of the author’s
interests, from social observations to the usage of symmetry in religious
architecture and music. The work was, more so than the two previous
works done in DV, a deeper exploration into the shifts which digital
media provoke - not only aesthetically, but, owing to the radically
altered financial aspect, to the mode of working and thinking itself.
I did not intend to make 6 Easy Pieces: not one shot was made
with any intention of using it in a film or with an a priori idea. Rather
they were made in process of experimenting with the medium, and it was
only after they had been made, and were sitting in the backshelf of
my mind that that found a connection and meaning for themselves. This
mode of working and of approaching “work” has been for me
invigorating creatively and, if you will, spiritually.
2000 | Digital Video | Color | Sound | 68 minutes
Camera, edit, and concept : Jon Jost
Music: highly altered
by computer baroque Romanesca and liturgical music
Featuring: Voice
over and writing and/or translation by Edoardo Albinati; Vera Mantero
(Dancer in sequence 5), Sarah Antunes (Shooter in sequence 5)
Shown at: Yamagata (Prizewinner), 2001; Rotterdam
2000; Palermo Immagine Leggere, VideoLisboa, Chonju (Korea), Popcorn
(Stockholm), Bergen International, Golden Horse (Taipei), New York Video
Festival, Chicago Underground Film Festival
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"Jon Jost takes us to the border of what film can be. It’s
an open project that doesn’t attempt to make any statement, but
stresses its materials as a composer would his music, using space, color,
time. The filmmaker insists that his “electronic cinema” is
a return to an authentic way of seeing. We took his word that his material
is documentary, i.e. taken from reality, not dramatic or loaded with meaning.
It makes us share in his pleasure at seeing, and captures moments of life
that never took a sense before. "
- Jury statement, Yamagata fest, for Runner up award, written by Hartmut
Bitomsky, Jury President and head of Cal Arts film department
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