Leah Gilliam (OLD TEMPLATE)

Employing footage from an obscure 8mm film trailer for Battle for the Planet of the Apes to highlight the unstable relationship between the real, historical past and the distant, imaginary future, this project revolves around a central question: Is alien-ness indeed the metaphor for the 20th Century as power relationships have been embodied within our subconscious? Is there a relationship between these forgotten formats and the discontinued political ideologies that they depict? Transferred from Super-8 and then processed using a combination of high-end digital and vintage analog processing techniques, Apeshit emphasizes the contradictory references found in both the original text and its adaptation. Serving up Battle for the Planet of the Apes as proof, Apeshit puts forth tolerance as an outmoded technology.
—Video Data Bank

Like so many before him (Cézanne, Turner, O’Keeffe, Brakhage), Saïto coaxes complex shapes and patterns from the natural environment, hills and skies rendered in electric hues of lilac, teal, and royal blue … Some of the tones recall late Warhol (especially the Electric Chairs series) … A major film from a singular artist, earthearthearth is a pulsing, painterly tour de force. – Michael Sicinski

Watching earthearthearth, I understand why early 20th-century painters had despaired when film was first invented. Once you feel color breathe like this, a canvas never looks the same. In earthearthearth, color is the real protagonist, nature its pale shadow. To put it plainly, there is only film. – Ela Bittencourt

It is as if we are watching a movie shot by some primeval witness to the beginning of the world. – Tony Pipolo

earthearthearth crystallizes into a multifaceted gem, shimmering with each light-encrusted frame. Like a constantly metamorphosing series of paintings, the film astonishes with its shifts of pigment, texture, and composition. – Ara Osterweil

Read a review of earthearthearth in Artforum.