Join the School of Visual Arts and Visual AIDS for the world premiere screening of a new series of short videos, titled Alternate Endings, created for the 25th anniversary of Day With(out) Art, followed by a Q&A with select filmmakers.
On December 1, 1989, Visual AIDS organized the first Day With(out) Art””a national day of action and mourning in response to the AIDS crisis. To honor the 25th year of Day With(out) Art, Visual AIDS is commissioning seven artists/collaboratives””Rhys Ernst, Glen Fogel, Lyle Ashton Harris, Derek Jackson, Tom Kalin, My Barbarian, and Julie Tolentino””to create new short videos to be screened internationally on/around December 1, 2014.
Day With(out) Art will premiere in New York City at the School of Visual Arts’ SVA Theatre in Chelsea at 7pm on December 1, 2014. A post-screening discussion featuring artists Tom Kalin, Lyle Ashton Harris, and Derek Jackson will be moderated by SVA faculty member and film critic Amy Taubin, with a reception to follow the screening and discussion. Visual AIDS is also partnering with approximately fifty sponsoring organizations and hosting venues to distribute ALTERNATE ENDINGS internationally. Dates and locations for additional screenings will be announced soon on Visual AIDS’ website.
This event is free and open to the public.  No RSVP is required.  Doors will open at approximately 6:30PM.
Select information on the commissioned videos:
My Barbarian, Counterpublicity, Hd video, 2014 (Shot in LA at My Barbarian Studios)
My Barbarian’s Counterpublicity is a staged video performance based on an essay about Pedro Zamora, AIDS activist and star of the Real World: San Francisco, written by José Esteban Muñoz in his book, Disidentifications. The three members of My Barbarian re-perform scenes from The Real World in an alienated style, resisting the affect of “reality tv” even as they interrogate its politics, contrasting these scenes with the embodied performance of 90s-inspired music videos, with lyrics adapted from Muñoz’s theory of Queer counterpublic spheres that operate against the dominance of racism and homophobia.
Derek Jackson, The Village, 2014, Digital video, Directed by Derek Jackson, Shot by Rollin Leonard
Hi Tiger, the Portland, Maine based art-punk band fronted by visual artist and performer Derek Jackson, recreates the song “The Village” by New Order. Originally, New Order recorded the song as an upbeat new wave tune in 1982. With Hi Tiger’s re-imagining some 30 years later, The Village becomes a torch song that meditates on themes of love and loss, complicity and defiance. In the context of HIV and AIDS, the song becomes a love letter to those that have passed and a call to arms for the ones who remain.