Sidewalk screenings

While patrons of the 14th Annual Indie Memphis Film Festival passed through Overton Square over the weekend, they were greeted by abstract video installations, musical performances and psychedelic DJ mash-ups.

Local artist and musician Natalie Hoffmann curated the weekend-long outdoor art exhibit, calling it "one bright spot surrounded by all of that dark abandoned space."

The outdoor video installations were screened in the recently closed Yosemite Sam's on Cooper and Madison, and in the empty Crescent building across the street.

Hoffmann said that organizers of the film festival secured the abandoned space for the video installations.

"Erik Jambor, from Indie Memphis, made all of the connections for getting permission and access, and I just followed up with everyone he introduced me to," she said. "I think the owners of the buildings saw it as a positive thing, so it wasn't too hard to convince them."

Senior sculpture major Carly Greenwell said her 90-second video, which she described as an interpretation of a recurring dream she has, took three weeks to create.

"The installation explored both external and internal identities and read like a dream in a non-narrative form," she said.  

Greenwell's short film aired each evening of the weekend alongside work by Hoffmann and local artist Adam Farmer.

Local musician Michael Peery performed a guitar-driven performance entitled "Hail Gloria" on the second floor of Yosemite Sam's on Thursday night while Farmer performed as DJ Culf Ghost on Saturday night.

In addition to the outdoor art, there was an art space on the second floor of Playhouse on the Square, which included an amalgamation of three short films by University of Memphis art professor Coriana Close.

Her video series, "And So On…," featured shorts that have been shown in other galleries around the country, including the Jones Hall Alumni Gallery on campus.         

Titled "39 Venus," Close's first short film featured footage from Salvador Dali's performance at the 1939 World's Fair. Her second short, "Horizon," explored the tragedies of the Horizon oil spill by overlapping video of oil damage and images of jellyfish. "Oriana," the final short, was dedicated to her grandmother, and images of sunrises and sunsets were edited together to form a moving tapestry of video.  

Close said she thought her audience enjoyed the screening.

"People were really interested in the different uses of experimental video," he said. "Everyone seemed engaged and excited about what we were doing to push the boundaries of video art."

 Hoffmann said that she considered her first experience as a curator to be a success.

 "It wasn't at all the way I imagined it. In a lot of ways, it was better than the picture I had in my head of how everything would turn out," she said.