10 min excerpt from a 2 hour cut

WAX NOTES

Olive Tjaden Gallery, Ithaca, NY.​

Pauline Shongov: co-director of improv and film, single-channel film concept, shooting and editing, install concept, 16mm film loops, 18′ X 2′ light table
Aaron Glasser: co-director of improv and film, single-channel film concept, shooting and editing

Synth Musician: Sergei Levitsky
Opera Singer: Emily Akpan
Dancers: Leanna Myskiw and Elana Valastro
Experimental Percussion: Sergei Levitsky, Emily Akpan, Leanna Myskiw, Elana Valastro, Aaron Glasser

Wax Notes plays with the more fluid, itinerant forms of production, performance, improvisation, and distribution that predate cinema as we know it. 16mm footage was shot on location at the Stewart Park Pavilion where the Wharton Studios, a once prolific silent film production house, occupied the space a century ago in Ithaca, NY. The soundscape is a two-hour mix of a six-hour live performance that took place in the pavilion in collaboration with filmmaker Aaron Glasser, opera singer Emily Akpan, synthesizer musician Sergei Levitsky, dancers Leanna Myskiw and Elana Valastro. The performers improvised to the space, to 16mm film of that space projected in the space, and to one another. The roof, light rigging rails, and garage doorframe of the pavilion—elements that have remained intact since the time of the old Wharton Studios—became structures for experimentation with film’s indexicality. A twenty foot 16mm film loop spliced together with all the footage taken earlier in that space was projected onto the garage door by threading the film through the old light rigging rails on the ceiling.

This work is part of a larger project that asks, Can a trace still be a trace if it is reproduced?