Something To Touch That Is Not Corruption Or Ashes or Dust
︎︎︎Excerpt
STROBING/FLICKER WARNING
2020, 16mm, 6:45
Fences, zooms, blastbeats and oscillators search for possibility or perforation as walls close in. Attempting to break free from patterns and spirals as bodies become contained.
"Mike Stoltz’s Something to Touch That Is Not Ashes or Corruption or Dust is my favorite film that I never got to show in Light Field’s 2020 program. It starts abstractly, with black and white shapes and modulated distortions of static and sound. Palm trees whiz by. A symmetry of bars and barbed wire form a fenced-in perspective. The grid of a windowpane zooms out so fast it aches. Patterns close in, torqueing around the bend. In the final moments of the film, the screen fills—a full, flickering square, fishing between the dark and the light. Watching it in isolation, the taut claustrophobia in my chest opens up so that feeling rushes in, vast and perplexing. Something to Touch helps me stay present in this moment of opacity and sickness. I breathe to the soundtrack, I let myself wonder: how long are we to be contained? Is this how we escape? Could this be our death?"
-Trisha Low, Art in America
Screenings:
2022 Experiments in Cinema
2021 Slamdance Festival
2021 European Media Arts Festival
2020 Exis Festival
2020 Ann Arbor Film Festival
2020 Iowa City Documentary Festival
2020 Milwaukee Underground Film Festival
2020 Onion City Film Festival
2020 Light Field Festival
Fences, zooms, blastbeats and oscillators search for possibility or perforation as walls close in. Attempting to break free from patterns and spirals as bodies become contained.
"Mike Stoltz’s Something to Touch That Is Not Ashes or Corruption or Dust is my favorite film that I never got to show in Light Field’s 2020 program. It starts abstractly, with black and white shapes and modulated distortions of static and sound. Palm trees whiz by. A symmetry of bars and barbed wire form a fenced-in perspective. The grid of a windowpane zooms out so fast it aches. Patterns close in, torqueing around the bend. In the final moments of the film, the screen fills—a full, flickering square, fishing between the dark and the light. Watching it in isolation, the taut claustrophobia in my chest opens up so that feeling rushes in, vast and perplexing. Something to Touch helps me stay present in this moment of opacity and sickness. I breathe to the soundtrack, I let myself wonder: how long are we to be contained? Is this how we escape? Could this be our death?"
-Trisha Low, Art in America
Screenings:
2022 Experiments in Cinema
2021 Slamdance Festival
2021 European Media Arts Festival
2020 Exis Festival
2020 Ann Arbor Film Festival
2020 Iowa City Documentary Festival
2020 Milwaukee Underground Film Festival
2020 Onion City Film Festival
2020 Light Field Festival
