Commissions
Looking at a scene both as a whole and as a unique union of colors, shapes, textures and circumstances, video artist ACVilla focuses her camera on both impossibly large subjects as well as the nuances that define the dynamics and character of the fleeting yet eternal present moment.
NEW MEXICO: OUTSIDE IN is a 20 minute digital film that was created for the High Zero (virtual) Festival 2020. Through my approach of contextualizations, I bring concerns of the outside world inside my bubble that COVID-19 created. Layers of local and national news become part of a garden, meals, and the private living spaces that are, ideally, places to rejuvenate. I am grateful to musician Thollem for providing a soundtrack that accentuates these complexities.
FULL VERSION
TIN PLATE AND BELLS (BONNET/HESTIN/QUASS) was named after the track on the 2020 album Locked Down by Kyle Quass, Richard Bonnet and Olivier Hestin. In recognition of the COVID-19 sheltering-in-place mandate and following the theme of being ‘locked down’, I gathered footage from where I was staying at the time, in Northern NM near the Rio Grande River and Bureau of Land Management lands.
DIRE WARNING was created for Estamos Trio for their SITE Santa Fe (NM) 2018 Biennial performance. I used my approach of contextualizations to bring environmental concerns and beauties into our homes, our daily lives. TRAILER
CELEBRATION OF SILICON ALLEYS, a 10-minute piece, was created for the occasion of Gary Singh’s book release hosted virtually by Works/San José in San José, California, Dec. 2020. Because part of my history is linked with this city, I had old photos and memorabilia from my past that I could incorporate. A special bonus was having Thollem, musician/composer from San José and friend of the author, create the soundtrack.
Silicon Alleys: Selected Metro Silicon Alleys Columns, 2005-2020 by Gary Singh (Anti Man About Town Press, 2020)
NO DISTRACTIONS is a 3-screen video score, organized in 3 simultaneous movements, specifically envisioned for the Rova Saxophone Quartet on the occasion of their 40th anniversary in 2018. As I traveled throughout the U.S. in 2017, I gathered pieces specifically for this quartet: moments of color, texture, time, space and movement reconfigured and re-imagined through Rova’s sonic palette.
EVERYONE KNOWS THIS TO BE TRUE: Invited to participate in Thollem’s Technicolor Grey Zone, my work, Everyone Knows This To Be True was one of six pieces of films and video art by Martha Colburn, Tuia Cherici, Germaul Barnes, Peter Sparling and Allison Leigh Holt which was performed live by Thollem. Thollem has collaborated with these and other filmakers/video artists over the years, and brings our works together for this deeply engaging, rapturous performance. The piece was debuted at IceBox Space Project in Philadelphia in April 2018.