UNDERAPPRECIATED MOVIEMAKER: tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE

UNDERAPPRECIATED MOVIEMAKER: tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE

"Basically, what it boils down to is that I'm an UNDERAPPRECIATED MOVIEMAKER for the same reasons that I'm underappreciated in every other field: the work is too complex & too varied for any one human to be able to follow it enough to get the 'Bigger Picture' unless they want to invest serious time in studying it. I've invested serious time in studying the work of many other people & see no good reason whatsoever why others shouldn't expend that same effort toward me." - tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE

[tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE note: In order to inform the interested public who the UNDERAPPRECIATED MOVIEMAKERS are whose work will be screened at the UNDERAPPRECIATED MOVIEMAKERS FESTIVAL. I've asked all the participants to date to provide:

1. a bio (short or long, you decide - short ones, obviously, tend to be read more)

2. a picture

3. a list of your works (either complete or selected - but make sure you list your earliest movie to substantiate that you've been at it for 30 or more years)

4. 1 or more links to relevant websites

5. AN ESSAY EXPLAINING WHY YOU'RE UNDERAPPRECIATED (This is very important. What I'm hoping for is not only an explanation of why you feel underappreciated but what it is about you & your work that you think leads to people neglecting &/or rejecting it. This can be a socio-political-cultural analysis of what might be shortcomings of our society.)]

tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE (still from "365", a work in progress as of March 5, 2018)

1. the bio:

As a moviemaker, I was born in the fall of 1975. Having been otherwise born in 1953, I'd already been an artist, a musician, a mathematician, a writer, an anarchist, a draft resister, & an adventurer (of sorts) for quite some time. As of 1975 (or progressively thereafter), I was declaring myself a Mad Scientist / d composer / Sound Thinker / T ho ugh t Collector / As Been. The list of self-designations has grown considerably since then.

I decided early on that if I was going to be a serious creative person I was going to do so by working from within - instead of imitating what I might be taught at, e.g., an Art School. As such, while other friends of mine were attending places like the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) I was hitch-hiking around North America & having personal experiences that were more important to me than Art School could have ever been. I wouldn't've been allowed to attend anyway even if I had wanted to. I'd barely graduated from high school with a D average, I was incredibly bored there, & had to 'steal' my high school diploma because of a misunderstanding over whether I'd returned a book or not. I was also poor.

I refused to register for the draft. At the time this was a 'federal crime' punishable by 10 years in prison. I didn't acknowledge the 'right' of the state to rope me into its murderous system. The Viet Nam War was in progress at the time. I had no intention of murdering Vietnamese people, who had, after all, never done anything to me. If I were to be a murderer I was going to choose who to murder on my own.

It was my somewhat consistent intention to live in accordance with my imagination & to try to influence culture in ways that would thwart brainwashing. As such, I produced & continue to produce things that're intended to be cognitively dissonant: things that do-not-compute, this is an aspect of my being a COGNITIVE DISSIDENT, a person who avoids playing into being pigeon-holed.

In 1978, I declared myself no longer an artist. I became a Mad Scientist instead, a person who experiments in perverted ways deliberately outside the oppressive norms. In 1978, I also discovered what's commonly called "Mail Art". This helped me in my search for like-minded coconspirators. At an international level this helped me interface with the nascent Neoism movement, a cultural conspiracy that was similarly evasive of oversimplification.

At a local level, at my home base in Baltimore, I met people like the folks at the Merzaum Collective & became a cofounder of Balti-Media. There was so much happening: Language Writing, the Krononautic Organism, the Baltimore Underground Telephone Network (BUTN), the Church of the SubGenius. I was highly active in all of it.

Having realized that I was an anarchist in 1969 or 1970 it wasn't until 1976 that I met a fellow anarchist & it wasn't until 1986 that I actually went to a gathering of anarchists for the Haymarket Centennial in Chicago.

I've been very busy. In 1994, I move away from BalTimOre to Berlin in Germany. From there I went to live in a very rural area of Ontario in Canada. From there I moved to Buffalo, NY, where I met some of the most unpleasant pseudo-intellectual creeps (& a few really great people) I'm ever likely to meet. Next was Pittsburgh, where I arrived in early January, 1996.

During all these decades, I've been extremely prolific: giving, to date, at least 424 'performances' (I prefer terms like "Mad Scientist DidAction" & "UNCERT"). You can see a list of these indexed here: Mere Outline Index where there are descriptions, photos, & links to movies (when available).

I have at least 211 audio recordings available which you can see listed here: Audiography & at least 1697 texts & visuals published which you can see a list of here: Bibliography . About 2/3rds of the latter are book reviews.

My form of political activism is what I call "IMP ACTIVISM". I hope that I continue to be a monkey wrench in the great murderous machine that is business-as-usual - especially the business-as-usual that pits the 2 largest worldwide gangs, Christinanity & Mohammedinanity, against each other & that causes great suffering to all of us who're caught in the middle.

3. some lists of my movies:

The list of 507 movies that I've made to date is here: Movieography .

The list of my feature-length movies is here: Features .

The list of the movies of mine that I like the most is here tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE Personal Favorites of his Movies .

4. Here's the portal for links to most of my websites: index

5. AN ESSAY EXPLAINING WHY I'M UNDERAPPRECIATED:

A point that I've been making since at least 1975 is that CONTEXT is very important. Alas, no matter how clearly I explain that "ART", for example, is a context that restricts creativity rather than aids & abets it, people still can't understand why I choose to contextualize myself outside of established safe & UNIMAGINATIVE categories.

In preference to calling my writing "Poetry", for example, I call some of it "Concrete Essays". That's a simple enough term to understand but by cutting myself out of the 'Poetry World' I immediately become neglected because that world is all about membership & often sports an aura of 'divine inspiration' that I find utterly ridiculous.

Instead of calling the sounds I produce "Music" I prefer such original terminology as "booed usic", "d composing", "Low Classical Usic", "Earchiving", etc.. Even though these terms are etymologically fairly obvious most people seem to prefer the established terms like "Music" because they're familiar &, therefore, comfortable.

In all of my creative endeavors, I've tried to stay lively, to not fall into overly repetitive & easily categorizable production. I've tried to conceive of formal & technical means that reinforce the content in unique ways. Many of my 507 (as of early March, 2018) movies are experimental documentaries but there are over 100 that aren't. Those that are are made with the intention of catalyzing critical thinking. People who like to be aware are more likely to enjoy the experience they provide. People who find conformity satisfactorily safe will not like them. That means most people - including people in conformist non-conformist subcultures.

Just as Andy Warhol made one stupid garish portrait of rich people & celebrities after another to establish himself as a brand name, so do many moviemakers become money-making-celebrities by repeating themselves in recognizable ways. John Waters, for example, is the 'trash' filmmaker that all the faux-pervert sycophantic sheep can flock to for hero-worship & for fleecing.

I've taken an opposite route by making a huge variety of work. There's an enormous difference between:

001. c. "Lamar "Chip" Layfield / Carol / Pat Brown / tentatively, a convenience" (1975/1995)

& 006. e. "3 Mile Island" {version 5} (1979)

& 024. "A Double Negative As Not A Positive" (1982)

& 041. b. "Subtitles (3/4" version)" (1980-1984)

& 087. Philosopher's Union Member's Mouthpiece #00,015: "Emma Elizabeth Downing" (1988)

& 100. b. "Murraygate Busking" (1988)

& 134. d. "One Word per Person Party" (version 4 for YouTube with titles added} (1990)

& 146. c. "The "Official" John Lennon's Erection as Blocking Our View Homage & Cheese Sandwich" (1990-1995)

& 166. "How Orgone Cinema Treats Its Visiting Filmmakers" (1995)

& 174. b. "El Departamento de Quizás Presenta: una Demostración de Soluciones de Rompecabezas" (1995/2004)

& 179. "The Postman Always Rings the Homunculous of Woody Allen & Hollis Frampton Twice" (1996)

& 188. "Background Movies for Home Music: Light Motion" [should be Hurry] (1997)

& 205. a. "Shuffle Mode" (1999)

& 212. "Don't Walk Backwards" (Long Version) (2000)

& 225. e. "Multiple Projections - 1978-2009" (for YouTube) (2009)

& 251. "Ledger of St Dermain" (2004)

& 265. "Steelers Fans Against War" (2006)

& 336. "WARNING: TV Suffocates the Senses like a Bag over the Head" (2009)

& 339. c. "Stanley Cup FINAL 2009" (revised for YouTube) (2009)

& 375. d. "Reductionism + Interpretive Duncing + Artifacts" (1997-2011)

& 378. "COLONY" (2011)

& 379. b. "Spectral Evidence" (2011)

& 383. b. "mm 05" (YouTube version) (2012)

& 392. "Pi(ano Fort)e" (2013)

& 396. "Soap Box Opera episode 1" (2012)

& 417. "I wouldn't make a movie like this if you fucking paid me." (2014)

& 418. "mm 49: Vivian Fine Marathon!" (2014)

& 419. b. ""A Catamaran Animist Vigor" @ Babyland - 2015.01.24" (for YouTube) (2015)

& 427. "Bemusement Park" (2015)

& 433. "Tex-Mix (Giddyup Americana)" (2015)

& 455. "Music Boxing" (2016)

& 479. "Monte con o sin safos Rides Again" (2016-2017)

& 481. "Is this a Black Theorem?" (2008/2017)

& 485. a. ""EL" IP" (2016-2017)

& 501. "Where did you get the idea for your most recent book?" (2018)

& 502. "The Struggle to End Death by Incarceration" (2018)

& 506. "Cluck" (2018)

& just about everything in between (except for series in which continuity between pieces is part of a meta-structure).

As a result, a person who likes "experimental film" might like "Subtitles (3/4" version)" & dislike "The Struggle to End Death by Incarceration". I was offered a screening in Prague, for example, which was then retracted at least partially because I've been making so many "Experimental Documentaries" instead of 'pure' experimental film. As such, someone who likes "The Struggle to End Death by Incarceration" might not like "Cluck" & so forth & so on. I like them all & refuse to narrow down the conceptual range of my work to appeal to a particular (v)audience.

Furthermore, the work is complex & sometimes focuses on esoteric subjects that it doesn't make less esoteric. As such, something like "Is this a Black Theorem?" doesn't dumb down its subject to appeal to an LCD (Lowest Common Denominator) because such dumbing-down would depreciate the perverse abstraction of it all.

Basically, what it boils down to is that I'm an UNDERAPPRECIATED MOVIEMAKER for the same reasons that I'm underappreciated in every other field: the work is too complex & too varied for any one human to be able to follow it enough to get the 'Bigger Picture' unless they want to invest serious time in studying it. I've invested serious time in studying the work of many other people & see no good reason whatsoever why others shouldn't expend that same effort toward me.

tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE

idioideo at verizon dot net

to the tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE Anti-Neoism page

to the tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE Audiography page

to the tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE Bibliography page

to my "Blaster" Al Ackerman index

to the tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE Books page

to the tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE BYOC page

to the tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE Censored or Rejected page

to the tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE Collaborations page

to the tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE (d) compositions page

to Amir-ul Kafirs' Facebook page