"Buffalo" by Mark Tollner

"Black Tornado" by Patricia Greene

Setting the Scene

A passel of film and video and other media artists will exhibit Friday, August 8, in the Hi-Temp building, 79 Perry Street, next door to the hockey arena. The exhibit is called “Mise-en-scene: in Mind and Matter.”

In film and video art, the term mise-en-scene refers to the assemblage and placement of elements that comprise the visual frame. What the viewer views. Filmmaker Vincenzo Mistretta, one of the organizers of the current exhibit, said the works in the show “navigate a tension between the known and the unknown, between what is seen with the physical eye and what is seen in the mind’s eye. The different artists explore themes of place, space, nature, the environment, self-knowledge, and the actual mechanisms of vision and representation.”

The sixteen locally well-known and not-so-well-known artists (in more or less alphabetical order) are musician and sound mixer Michael Bouquard, in collaboration with filmmaker and installation artist Adam Cummins on a work examining into audience reactions to colors.

Documentary and experimental filmmaker and former executive director of Squeaky Wheel, Dorothea Braemer.

Photographer Marten Czamanske, presenting landscape photographs with sculptures made on-site with found rocks.

Filmmaker, painter, and scholar Elizabeth Finnegan, whose work is a mix of narrative, documentary, and experimental forms.

Patricia Greene, painter of landscapes real and imagined, comprising elements of the natural world and the mystical, exploring what she calls “realms of dreams and psychic impressions.”

Video and filmmaker Phil Hastings, whose films include animation and narrative and experimental modes, and draw on his background in sculpture and interests in science. His video documentation of the sexual cannibalism of the praying mantis was licensed for the National Geographic television show Animal Taboos.

Documentary and experimental video artist, and a producer and director for the Termite TV Collective, Meg Knowles.

Media artist Carl Lee, whose films, videos, and installations include personal explorations of the environment and environmental changes over time.

Film and video artist Tammy McGovern, whose artwork has also included interactive installations, and experimental web environments.

Brian Milbrand, a multidisciplinary artist whose work incorporates film, live performance, audio, and painting. Milbrand started out to be a scientist, but then as a sophomore at UB he took a basic film course and “it ruined my life,” he says somewhat facetiously.

Mistretta is a filmmaker and painter who was born in Palermo, Sicily, and immigrated to the United States with his family as a child. His longstanding interest in political activism led him to produce a series of documentaries on the Women in Black peace network in Buffalo and New York City, whereupon he was awarded a Fulbright fellowship to continue his research and documentation of this subject in Rome and other places in Europe.

Sergio Nieto was born in Bogotá, Colombia, and is currently a gradate student in media arts at UB. He has used various media to describe his vision of contemporary urban life and experience, based largely on his growing up in Bogotá, one of the biggest cities in South America. His work explores disparities between public and private spaces, individuality and collectivity, nature and industry, and spirituality and pragmatism.

J.T. Rinker composes acoustic and electronic music, and works in a variety of media such as film, video, and robotic arts.

The sculpture and paintings of Mark Tollner are inspired by his lifelong love of the outdoors, his explorations of area rivers, lakes, and woods, and fishing and hunting activities. His most recent work has also been inspired by a developing interest in military history.

Media artist Sang Jun Yoo, whose work explores subconscious interactions between human subjects and their surroundings.

In addition, the Clean Air Coalition will display photos related to its programs and efforts fighting polluters and promoting environmental health in Tonawanda and on the West Side of Buffalo.

The Hi-Temp exhibit runs from 7 p.m. to about 10:30 on Friday, August 8.