RPM Presents: Time, A Substance • Janie Geiser
- Sun, Apr 6
Run Time: 90 min.
Screening will be followed by discussion with Janie Geiser & Maya Erdelyi
RPM Festival, in collaboration with Brattle Theatre, is excited to welcome Janie Geiser, an internationally recognized experimental filmmaker and visual/theater artist, back to Boston for a special screening of her recent works on April at 2:00 PM. TIME, A SUBSTANCE is a series (2019-2024) of 7 recent works, including several that were made during the early years of the pandemic.
Memory, loss, and erasure surface and resurface in liminal worlds where time seems simultaneously suspended, stretched, and truncated. The films move in an out of tangible and intangible spaces, defined by material and immaterial collage sources including faded photographic slides, empty photo albums, a child’s shooting game, photographs and negatives, and renderings created with a desktop home designer program. Nothing stays in place, the ground is always shifting.
The phrase “Time, a substance” is borrowed from Marianne Moore’s poem Black Earth.
JANIE GEISER is an internationally recognized experimental filmmaker and visual/theater artist, whose work is known for its investigation of the emotional power of inanimate objects, its sense of mystery, and its strength of design. ”… Geiser gives voice to the reaches of the unconscious, pointing to the abandoned splendor that exists prior to the rules of society and language.” (Holly Willis, Res, 2004)
In addition to her film practice, Geiser has made a significant contribution to the field of contemporary performance with her innovative, hypnotic live performances that integrate performing objects and projection.
Geiser began making films in 1990, first as an element of her performance work, and then as a separate form. In 1994, she made her first film that was intended exist outside of live performance, The Red Book. An instant classic, The Red Book was screened as part of the 1996 New Directors/New Films series at The Museum of Modern Art and was later selected for inclusion in the Smithsonian’s National Film Registry.
Geiser’s films have been screened at the Museum of the Moving Image, Whitney Museum of American Art, the Guggenheim Museum, the Museum of Modern Art, Berkley Art Museum’s Pacific Film Archives, the Centre Pompidou, the Salzberg Museum, San Francisco MOMA, LACMA, Redcat, The Getty, The Academy Museum, Filmforum Los Angeles, and at numerous festivals, including the New York Film Festivals, the Rotterdam International Film Festival, the Toronto Film Festival, the London International Film Festival, San Francisco Film Festival, Oberhausen, and the Hong Kong International Film Festival.
Her performances have been presented at The Public Theater, St. Ann’s Warehouse, REDCAT, The Walker Art Center, CalArts Center for New Performance, LaMama, the Wende Museum, and other venues.
Absent Objects
Digital video, 7:41 minutes, 2020
Sound collage: Janie Geiser
Sound mix: Kari Rae Seekins
Digital Mastering: Astra Price
22 Light-years
Digital video, 17:30 minutes, 2021
Sound collage: Janie Geiser
Sound mix: Kari Rae Seekins
Digital Mastering: Astra Price
Vaporetto
Digital video, 3:16 minutes, 2021
Sound collage: Janie Geiser
Sound mix: Kari Rae Seekins
Heliotrope
Digital video,7:06 minutes, 2023
Sound collage: Janie Geiser
Sound mix: Kari Rae Seekins
Digital Mastering: Astra Price
Chameleon Law
Digital video,7:30 minutes, 2022
Sound collage: Janie Geiser
Sound mix: Kari Rae Seekins
Sudden Tourniquet
Digital video, 7:41, 2025
Sound Collage / Field Recordings by Janie Geiser
Sound Mix by Kari Rae Seekins
Sildeshow
Digital video, 8:15, 2024
Sound Collage / Field Recordings by Janie Geiser
Sound Mix (current draft unmixed) by Kari Rae Seekins
Total: 67 mins
Janie Geiser has been awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Rockefeller Fellowship, a Doris Duke Artist Award, and grants or fellowships from Creative Capital, Jerome Foundation, MAPfund, the Center for Cultural Innovation, the California Community Foundation, and others.
Geiser’s films are in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art, The New York Public Library’s Donnell Media Center, the Berkley Art Museum Pacific Film Archive, and the California Institute of the Arts, and others. The Archive of the Academy of Motion Pictures has selected her body of work for preservation in their archive of experimental films
Geiser is on the faculty of CalArts and is a co-artistic director of Automata, an artist-run non-profit gallery in Los Angeles’ Chinatown arts district
Maya Erdelyi is an award-winning animator and artist. Maya is a Colombian/Hungarian first-generation American. Born and raised bilingually in New York City, she is currently based in Boston where she teaches animation at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University and lectures at numerous universities. Maya holds an MFA in Experimental Animation from Calarts and first studied animation at Harvard University. She lives with her husband, an animator, and their daughter Paloma. Her works span experimental animation, installation, drawing, printmaking, and various collaborative experiments. Screenings and shows include national and international film festivals, galleries, museums, libraries and artist-run venues including: Lincoln Center, the Ann Arbor Film Festival, the Museum of Modern Art, REDCAT Los Angeles, Harvard Film Archives, Animation Block Party, and Boston Center for the Arts, among others. Maya presented a solo show at Trustman Gallery at Simmons University (2022), hosted artist workshops at the ICA Boston (2022), and held a Yaddo Residency (2019). Maya has an upcoming show this Spring at the Gelb Gallery at Phillips Andover Academy. Her work is in the permanent collections of Google, The Jewish Museum NYC, The Block Museum of Contemporary Art at Northwestern; Hotel Studio Allston, Isenberg Projects, and numerous private collections. Her latest film “Anyuka” an animated documentary about her grandmother’s life is currently streaming and broadcasting with PBS/GBH.
Maya is a former puppetry student and assistant of Janie Geiser’s from CalArts.
Please visit revolutionsperminutefest.org for more information.
Revolutions per Minute Festival (RPM Fest) is dedicated to short-form poetic, personal, experimental film, essay film, animation, documentary, video and audiovisual performance, and is co-hosted by Art and Art History Department and Cinema Studies at UMass-Boston, Brattle Theatre in Cambridge & Harvard FAS CAMLab.
Brattle Passes Not Accepted
