What is live cinema?

Performing together since 2001, Potter-Belmar Labs is one part new media art, one part DJ and VJ performance, and one part experimental cinema.

The duo carries the audience through an improvised collage experience in sound and image. They build as they go, weaving field recordings with threads sampled from pop culture and their own rich sound and image compositions. From deeply ambient textures to moments of turbulence, concrete imagery gives way to abstraction, and themes emerge and recede. The results may recall a vivid dream, a visual symphony, or an abstract opera.

Compositions

The Four Things (2012)
two-screen performance
aether, tiny movement, geometry, path

I Am Curious (Remix) (2010)
two-screen remixing of
Vilgot Schoman's I Am Curious films

Mystery of Time (2010)
time and psychedelia

Fortune (2008)
fortune-telling through audience-participatory live cinema

Improvised Cinema (2007)
installation performance at The Lab for Installation and Performance Art, NYC

Pandora's Unicycle (2006)
a retelling of the ancient story of Pandora

settings + characters (2005)
eleven video shorts for screening, installation, and performance

Past Performances

Aurora Picture Show, Houston TX
LA Filmforum, Los Angeles CA
Other Cinema, San Francisco CA
San Antonio Museum of Art, San Antonio TX
Chicago Filmmakers, Chicago IL
Live Cinema Summit, Columbia College, Chicago IL
Art Shanty, Medicine Lake MN
Art of This, Minneapolis MN
Art Outside, Rockdale TX
SPACES, Cleveland OH
Squeaky Wheel, Buffalo NY
McDonough Museum of Art, Youngstown OH
Manipulated Image, Santa Fe NM
SXSW-i, Austin
Sala Diaz, San Antonio
New Media Caucus, Los Angeles
Say Sí, San Antonio
Aurora Picture Show, Houston
Southwest School of Art and Craft, San Antonio
Antimatter Film Festival, Victoria BC
Bearded Child Film Fest, Minneapolis
EyeWash, Brooklyn NY
Materials and Applications, Los Angeles
21 Grand, Oakland
Central Cinema, Seattle
2 Gyrlz at Rotture, Portland OR
DIVA, Eugene
Other Cinema, San Francisco
Echo Park Film Center, Los Angeles
7 Dudley Cinema, Venice Beach
Basement Films, Albuquerque
RAIR, Roswell NM
Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery, Lincoln NE
St. Cloud State University, Minnesota
The Lab for Installation and Performance Art, NYC
SuperHappyFunLand, Houston
Sound Art Space, Laredo TX
Synthetic Zero, New York NY
Salon Mijangos, San Antonio TX
Duderstadt Center, U of Michigan, Ann Arbor MI
Allied Media Conference, Bowling Green OH
Gallery 555, Detroit MI
The Wizard Lounge, Hickory NC
FIRST PRIZE WINNERS!@Unreal Tournament,
University of Tennesee, Knoxville TN
Midwest Tour 2005
Version05, Chicago IL
City Club Cinema, Minneapolis MN
OneTen Gallery, Madison WI
Darling Hall, Milwaukee WI
SmartShop, Kalamazoo MI
Roeper Academy, Birmingham MI
43rd Ann Arbor Film Festival
FIRST PRIZE WINNERS!@Sync'05, Ann Arbor MI
Soap Factory, Minneapolis MN
FIRST PRIZE WINNERS!
@Metrospace, East Lansing MI
, UnReal Tournament
Detroit Art Space, Detroit MI
Dreamland Theater, Ypsilanti MI
Sensorium, Ypsilanti MI
Firefly Club, Ann Arbor MI