Baltic Analog Lab and festival Skaņu Mežs invite you to an analog film screening, video and live-coded music performances by the August artists-in-residence: Tara Natalia (CAN), Piibe Kolka (EST) and Omar Mashaal (AUS).

Tara Natalia is a filmmaker and producer from Ontario, Canada. Her artistic practice explores nostalgia, sorrow, and fantasy through a mix of experimental analog film processes and digital moviemaking. During her residency she has continued exploring analog experimental processes while working on her project ‘For the Sake of Memory’, a film dramatization of her great-grandfather’s memoir. Tara’s great-grandfather was a Latvian patriot who was forced to flee the country in the 1940s during the Russian occupation.

Tara and her writing partner, Alex Hanson, will begin with a screening of their recent collaboration, ‘This Is My Face’, which utilizes a blend of digital filmmaking and Super 8mm to explore the emotional reality of their young protagonist as she struggles to conceal severe acne. They will then screen an excerpt from their current work in progress, ‘For the Sake of Memory’, using footage they’ve collected and shot during their time in Latvia, while Alex performs a reading that will eventually be used as a voiceover.

Piibe Kolka works primarily with moving image, sound and performance. Her source materials are often gathered, documented, found and then turned into more imaginary, abstract or evocative renderings. She is interested in bodily experiences and works with movement either in live performance, spatial happenings or as captured on cameras. During her residency at BAL she has worked with the archive of early video images from the 1970s New York City art scene, filmed by Andy Männik, one of the founders of The Kitchen art space, and looked for a way to relate to them through live performance and capturing images and sounds on magnetic tapes herself.

Omar Mashaal is an Egyptian/American/Australian artist who blends live-coded music with analog synthesis to explore the tension between automation and signal noise. He animates code and desktop computers, crafting soundscapes where the precision of algorithms meets the raw, unpredictable textures of analog systems. During his residency Omar has worked with the potential of Erica Synths gear and Gamechanger Audio.

The event will take place in the Baltic Analog Lab 2nd-floor residence rooms, Lienes iela 19a.

Event language: English.
Free admission, drinks for donation.

Baltic Analog Lab Residency is supported by the Latvian State Culture Capital Foundation.