The SLUDGE Film series offers an evening’s experiment of mashed up titles and topics from VSW’s 16mm collection, making new meaning from old formats and playing with our new tempos of media consumption.
SLUDGE takes its name from an extrasensory TikTok fad of simultaneously showing two or more unrelated videos on one screen – an extreme example of the evolution of our attention spans. By looking at films from the past in this exaggerated approach to media consumption, the educational, documentary, propaganda, and animated films of the 1940s-80s become rich texts for re-interpretation.
16mm film of the 20th century both reflected and influenced American cultural life, with many films produced to homogenize educational standards and national viewpoints, for better and worse. Film archives are left to reckon with this cultural heritage, confronting a varied field of broadcast values that, in 2024, feel strange and distant, yet foundational and familiar.
The VSW Film Archive contains over 5000 16mm films primarily originating from public and university libraries. VSW values this rare chunk of media and cultural history on behalf of the artists and researchers who find useful information and source material within.This series is curated and projected by Mary Lewandowski, VSW’s Collections Manager.
Suggested $10
The VSW Salon is made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts and by the ArtWorks program of the National Endowment for the Arts.