Tara Merenda Nelson
Directing
Biography
Tara Merenda Nelson is a filmmaker, curator, programmer and lecturer working between the conceptual and perceptual realms with small gauge film and digital media. Her films, videos and installations have been exhibited nationally and internationally, including the Museum of Modern Art (NY and Miami), Mono No Aware (Brooklyn), The 8Fest (Canada), VideoEx (Switzerland) and the Sydney Underground Film Festival (AUS). She has taught digital media and film production courses at Montserrat, Ithaca College, Cornell University, University of Rochester and SUNY Brockport. Currently she is the Curator of Moving Image Collections at Visual Studies Workshop, where she teaches 16mm film production and oversees a collection of over 9,000 16mm films magnetic media titles. She holds an MFA in Film/Video from the Massachusetts College of Art and Design.
Known For
Doctor Wormhole suspects sinister simian, Harry Mann, of mishandling his favorite fruits. Hysterical Harry is comforted by nice Nurse Corndog, who suggests a more sensitive surgeon may have what it takes to put the curves back in his banana.
Fruit Hospital, Episode 2
Part 1 in the psychedelic Sci-Fi Soap Opera, Fruit Hospital
Fruit Hospital, Episode 1
“A portrait of my sister, pregnant.” (written by Tara Merenda Nelson)
Flying Fish
“Following a difficult surgery, I spent several days in the hospital and several weeks on narcotic painkillers. Snow is a chronicle of my experience struggling to understand what had happened to me and how my life had changed unexpectedly. Most of the footage was shot during my hospital stay and during my time under the influence of painkillers. It was hand processed and hand-scratched.” (written by Tara Merenda Nelson)
Snow
“The first house I bought was on 43rd Street in Pittsburgh. In this silent Super 8 triptych-projection, I documented the facade of each house on 43rd Street on 36 frames of film (center screen), while the oldest tree on the street﹘which was in my backyard﹘is shown in time-lapse over the course of several days (left and right screens). These films helped me locate myself along a continuum of time and space, relieving an anxiety of “ownership” with a sense of belonging.” (written by Tara Merenda Nelson)
43 street Treelapse
Featuring the Kugel Gips house in Wellfleet, MA, designed in 1970 by Cape Cod architect Charles Zehnder and restored by the Cape Cod Modern House Trust in 2009. This film was made during an artists' residency I had there in March 2010. The title is taken from the book "A Pattern Language: Towns-Buildings-Construction" by Christopher Alexander. This book is the second in a trilogy that sets forth a structured architectural philosophy of self-designed environments. This piece was shot on 16mm film using colored filters and single-frame exposures. The color was not manipulated in the digital edit. Each color corresponds to one of 5 notes in the Romanian B Minor scale.
A Pattern Language
A study in motion, perception, imagination and emotion, this film is ultimately a tribute to classic German cinema. It was shot with a macro lens in slow motion (64 fps) and is projected alternating between 18 and 5 frames per second throughout the piece.
Falling
The Boston Marathon as seen through the eyes of a non-runner.
MARATHON
A travel memoir on two projectors: one reel is black and white, the other color. The films are superimposed at the time of projection, and edited together during a live performance in which I use chinese fans as external shutters. By blocking the light of one projector with a fan, the image of the other shines through. The sound is played on a small electronic Buddhist "chant box", which is passed through the audience during the performance.
In China
“A self-portrait on my 38th birthday, which I spent alone in a stranger’s apartment. I searched for messages from the pictures on the walls. I sat in every chair. Anne died and I was getting older. Nothing else happens. Dedicated to Anne Charlotte Robertson.” (written by Tara Merenda Nelson)