Brick and Mortar International Video Art Festival in Greenfield: Really? That’s the Movie?

The scene is the ocean….a broad tableau of roiling sea, waves pitching up and back, and the sound is a rumbling indecipherable cacophony. That’s the movie. That’s it. It’s just one of dozens of “cutting edge video artworks from around the world,” which were shown last night in a series of interesting venues in downtown Greenfield.  It’s the third annual Brick and Mortar International Video Art Festival.

But come on…that’s the movie?

A highlight, to be fair, are the jerry-rigged venues used to screen the films. The top floor of Wilsons Deparment store, which was once hotel rooms. The cavernous empty interior of the First National Bank, soon to be renovated into three stories of theaters. An abandoned building down on Hope St. Cool places to set up projectors to be sure.

In one film, we watched a camera panning the seats of an old theater, focusing on the details in the walls, and panning up, up, and finally full frame of those lovely movie seats. A toddler came in during this movie, and kept saying ‘highter, and higher and higher and higher,’providing apt commentary for this ridiculous piece of video art.

None of the films had dialogue..oh, there was one that included snippets of an overheard conversation…that I got confused with the noise of people talking as they were walking into the venue.

And so…I can’t recommend that anyone will really enjoy seeing these cutting edge video artworks. Maybe you will come away amused, somewhat tickled. The guy who sat at the piano and never played a note, just looking at the sheet music, was mildly amusing. But do videos where people actually act cost too much? I mean, are these the very best that the curator, Christop Cox, can come up with?