Welcome to my corner of Aurora! I have piles of DVDs and I am always looking for a wonderful film and video to include in an upcoming program. This portion of the Aurora website will highlight member's videos. Every month I will select a video from our library or submissions and give it an online show. If you are not an Aurora member already, become one now! Past artists have included: Aaron Valdez,Michael Brims and Chris Pickett.
This month's featured artist is Kelly Sears and her short "The Drift."
A mysterious disappearance on a 1960s space journey launches the counter-culture revolution, the government blocks contraband radio broadcasts, and American fervor for conquering space results in tragic ends. Psychedelic Rock, wayward space transmission, happenings, scientific research, the space race, high hopes, failed dreams, and bodily levitation all come together in the story of The Drift.The Drift uses frame-by-frame techniques to weave an absurd fable about our country's unflinching frontierism and the desire to push too far, too fast. Images dug out of thrift store bookshelves and flea market bins are animated to create an alternate take on what really happened behind the face of ground control, the space program, and the American psyche.
Kelly Sears is an animator and filmmaker living in Houston, TX. She is a 2009-2011 fellow at the Core Program at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. She received a B.A. from Hampshire College and a M.FA. from the University of California, San Diego. Her work has been shown at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Hammer Museum, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego, Anthology Film Archives, RedCat Theater, Sundance Film Festival, American Film Institute Festival, Cinevegas and in galleries and film festivals internationally. Sears' collage animations are created from collected and discarded periodicals, books, and encyclopedias. These pictures, culled from the last 100 years of popular American imagery, offer a way to visually and critically reflect on our own history to uncover the ideological foundations that we live with today. She often is found at thrift store and flea markets looking for images for animations.