June 7th (Mon), 19:00~ Screening: International Film Selection（from Paris）@ Uplink Factory
June 10th (Fri), 20:30~ Screening: International Film Selection（from Paris）@ M Event Space & Bar
Soundwalk
Soundwalk is an international sound collective based in New York City. In the early 2000s, Soundwalk made its name by producing cutting-edge audio guides, mixing fiction and reality to provide an exclusive and poetic discovery of a city, on the bridge between Baudelairian stroll and cinematic experience.
Romon Kimin Yang aka Rostarr is a multi-disciplinary artist, painter, calligrapher and filmmaker living and working in Brooklyn, New York. A graduate of The School of Visual Arts where he studied experimental graphic design and printmaking, Early in his career he has managed to produce work in both the art and graphic design spheres, blurring the lines between the two.
Kill the Ego, US｜2008｜40’ ｜video
Kill the Ego is an epic 40-minute-long poem composed of 10 years of sound recordings made in New York between 1998 and 2008. The fragmented memories of poets and dominatrixes, of pimps and prophets, of visionaries and lost children – the gamut of stories from the street: of the most obscure corners, of underground unrest, intimate and universal biographies of Manhattan, Brooklyn and the Bronx – Soundwalk has captured and woven together the sounds, conversations, and songs of urbanity. In February 2008 Romon Yang, otherwise known as Rostarr, was listening to that song intently, memorizing it, envisioning it. He and Soundwalk had been brought together by French producer Eric Dalbin to make a movie for a March 4th film festival deadline. Directors Jim Helton and Ron Patane were then commissioned along with line producer Joie Reinstein Lefebvre to make a movie of Rostarr’s vision of Soundwalk’s sound. Inspired by the process oriented masterpiece “The Mystery of Picasso” by Henri-Georges Clouzot and the work of experimental filmmakers Stan Brakhage and Phil Solomon, the filmmaking process began almost at once. Rostarr worked like a madman for two weeks, producing all the work for the first installment of Kill the Ego in an amazing and remarkably physical burst of creativity. The filmmakers documented the work and tried to find ways to make the process come alive through the shooting and later through an equally furious editorial process. Rostarr’s physical presence as an artist is truly cinematic, he is like a martial artist of paint and ink as the utmost control and daring experimentation is combined with a reckless abandon and fluid grace. Each twist and turn of the sound design is reflected in Rostarr’s evolving process as canvases are painted over, stories are told and erased, transforming from representations to abstract emotional reactions. Throughout the shooting and editorial process the soundtrack played over and over, the sound merging with the paint in Rostarr’s studio and later with the image as the two elements became merged into what is now known as Kill the Ego.
