Erik Moskowitz | Amanda Trager
Screening of Cloud Cuckoo Land
Tuesday December 6th, 2011 at 7pm

Erik Moskowitz and Amanda Trager are collaborating artists based in Brooklyn. They have shown their work at institutions worldwide, in Paris, Canada, Beirut, Berlin, Athens and New York. They have received multiple residencies and awards including, most recently, a residency at the Headlands Center for the Arts and the Grand Prize for Short Film at the IndieLisboa Film Festival in Portugal.

Cloud Cuckoo Land (2008) is a multi-part installation that can also be shown as a single channel video, as it will be presented at Meridian. This short film that has been shown internationally but never on the West Coast, though the film was partly made in the Bay Area, during a residency at Montalvo Arts Center in Saratoga. The title of the piece is taken from the Aristophanes' play The Birds, which first put the possibility of progress (and the goal of Utopia) into doubt. The narrative encompasses a family's move to a contemporary, progressive commune in which the central character is confronted by her own intolerance and inability to let go of the conventions of individualized life. This subject is explored through a range of experimental film techniques. Layers of imagery provide a complex and sometimes jarring visual experience and the soundtrack of the film splits the viewer's attention as dialogue is sung accompanied by acoustic guitar. This gap between the visual and the aural provides an unprecedented filmic effect but it extends our perception to inquire into the nature of visual experience and to question our expectations of both film and life.

For more information about Erik Moskowitz | Amanda Trager check out their website: http://www.americantrance.com/