Barry Doupé: VERY BIG SHORTS

Join us at e-flux Screening Room on Thursday, March 30 at 7pm for VERY BIG SHORTS, a selectrospective of Barry Doupé’s short animated works, including a handful of Object Poems (2017), an anomalous live action work Life and People (2014), and excerpts from features The Colors that Combine to Make White are Important (2012), Ponytail (2008), and a preview of Distracted Blueberry (2019). This screening will be followed by a conversation between Barry Doupé and filmmaker Steve Reinke. 

The selectrospective is part of Barry Doupé: VERY BIG SHORTS and Distracted Blueberry, programmed by Steff Hui Ci Ling. A second part takes place on Saturday, April 1 at 5pm with the New York premiere of Distracted Blueberry.

The selectrospective serves as a kind of prologue to Saturday’s screening, by presenting motifs and formal experiments throughout earlier works that later culminated as scenes from the 273-minute durational id-whorl Distracted Blueberry.

“The selection was initially driven around my attachment to the simplicity and experimental playfulness that swirls among the psychosoup of Barry’s work. While putting this program together, the sphere, circle, or ball emerged as a  recurring companion who appears occasionally as specter, other times as protagonist through the arcs and sequences in these animations. The serenity and playfulness of VERY BIG SHORTS provide glimpses of Barry’s formal and poetic preoccupations with communication, sincerity, desire, sex (or simply the possibility of connection of any kind) in its apotheosis as Distracted Blueberry, which will be screened on Saturday, April 1 at e-flux Screening Room.”
—Steff Hui Ci Ling

Films

RED HOUSE (2022, 3 minutes)
An animation that playfully explores metamorphosis in relation to the stability and structure of housing. Created using an AMIGA computer console and Deluxe Paint IV software.

Distracted Blueberry (Excerpt, 2019, 4 minutes)
This scene draws from “Particle Vase,” a silent one-minute animation from the suite of Object Poems. 

WHATY (2012, 30 seconds)
Morphing portraiture in an early spring pallet. Created using an AMIGA. 

Bubble Boing (Object Poem) (2017, 8 minutes)
A red ball that is trying to find a comfortable place to sit menaces a surreal, static party scene. 

Vhery (2013, 30 seconds)
Nostalgic gestures and texture lines reminiscent of MS Paint shimmy-wriggle-transform giving depth to the desktop.

The Colors that Combine to Make White are Important (Excerpt, 2012, 8.5 minutes)
The Colors that Combine to Make White are Important explores the power structure within a failing Japanese glass factory. Two parallel storylines—one involving the investigation of a suspect employee, the other a stolen painting — converge in an exposition on gender and desire. Doupé’s computer-animated film has its characters rapidly evolve through three distinct acts, while subverting the dominant archetypes in the Japanese salaryman genre. The hierarchical relationship between boss and employees is undone to examine language, art, and expression.

Silent Symphony (Object Poem) (2017, 1.5 minutes)
A mellow traffic of muted granular shapes scurry across muted layers of colorful movement.

Ponytail (Excerpt, 2008, 3 minutes)
Ponytail follows several inflicted characters and recounts the ways in which they find resolve. A series of scenarios held together by an attraction to failure and its spectacle describe the characters’ malfunction—their inability to fulfill personal desire. Compelled by the consequences and rewards of their attempts they question their own trajectory. Ponytail presents a unique society of characters that employ elements of melodrama, performative monologue, and traditional narrative structure.

Thalé (2019, 5 minutes)
Doupé’s computer animation Thalé is named after the thale cress, arabidopsis thaliana, mouse-ear cress, or arabidopsis, which is a small flowering plant native to Eurasia and Africa. The title flora is a popular model organism in plant biology to understand the molecular biology of plant traits including flower development and light sensing. That is one pedagogical flower! The rotating fictional flowers in the animation incorporate geometric forms inspired by sex toys and imagination.

Life and People (2014, 5 minutes)
In this series of videos, Life and People restages common life situations to consider different forms of communication, language, and recitation. Completed during a one month Artist Residency at the Western Front, this work marks a shift for Doupé from computer animation to live action video.

Shikisou (with Yota Kobayashi, 2012, 12 minutes)
The Japanese word “shikisou” means a cyclical gradation of colors (“hue”) as well as “appearance” or “visible figure.” In addition to these definitions, metamorphosis is a key concept within shikisou. Shikisou refers to a cycle of seasons to measure time, but expresses the symbolism and emotional assignment that seasons often extend by portraying approaching figurative “sound events” associated with memories of each season. Even though it adheres to a profound principle, something determinative and grandiose like a genesis of rhythm and its resultant patterns, the pulsing orb seems to contain and express something less threatening than disorder and more poetic than a scientific axiom.

For more information, contact program@e-flux.com.

Accessibility              
–Two flights of stairs lead up to the building’s front entrance at 172 Classon Avenue.   
–For elevator access, please RSVP to program@e-flux.com. The building has a freight elevator which leads into the e-flux office space. Entrance to the elevator is nearest to 180 Classon Ave (a garage door). We have a ramp for the steps within the space.            
–e-flux has an ADA-compliant bathroom. There are no steps between the Screening Room and this bathroom.