dir. Paige Sarlin, Video, Color, Sound, 30 minutes
A meditation on the transformations of perception produced by loss, Paige Sarlin’s [six years] marks an anniversary of the filmmaker and musician Tony Conrad’s death on April 9th, 2016, with an assemblage of documentary images and sounds created in the apartment in Buffalo, NY where Sarlin and Conrad lived together.
On the night Tony died, Paige played cello to him for hours as his breathing slowed and changed. [six years] contains excerpts from that audio recorded at Hospice Buffalo and explores the capacity of video to function as a holding space for grief that is metaphoric and quite literal.
This video is meant to be watched while holding a balloon. Supplied by the filmmaker, this prosthetic provides access to the deaf and hard of hearing. It also amplifies the absence and presence of amplified drone, breath, and cello. To feel … hold balloon.
This video contains amplified drone & audio recorded at Buffalo Hospice in Cheektowaga, NY on April 9, 2016 (the day that Tony Conrad died).
TO FEEL… HOLD BALLOON
CREDITS:
Cello: Paige Sarlin
Breath: Tony Conrad
Editing: Paige Sarlin
The demolition of the Millard Fillmore Hospital Building was taped by Paige
Sarlin and Tony Conrad on October 3, 2015.
All other images filmed and edited by Paige Sarlin between April and July 2022.
Support Dog: Tillie Olsen Conrad
Audio Mixing: Paige Sarlin & David Grubbs
ACCESS INFORMATION:
Balloons must be provided for the audience for theatrical screenings.
Contact p.sarlin@gmail.com for specially printed balloons.
The first section of the film is open-captioned.
Audio description is available via audio file and/or braille transcript.
AUDIO DESCRIPTION of OPENING:
[Image Description]: A living room with three dirty windows. One red futon. One grey loveseat where a medium-sized black dog is sprawled with four paws visible and head in profile. A coffee table. Three stacks of books. Nine plastic toucans on the window sill. A dozen have dead plants. Bright-white sunlight fills the windows while sharp shadows cut across the dusty surfaces.
[middle-aged female voice with an american accent]
The images in this video were recorded at 1290 Delaware Avenue, Buffalo, NY, in the apartment where I lived with Tony Conrad until his death on April 9th, 2016 at Hospice Buffalo.
On the day Tony died, I played cello to him for hours as his breathing slowed.
This soundtrack includes excerpts from that audio along with two duets we recorded in our home.
On the sixth anniversary of Tony’s death, I began filming in my living room. I placed the camera in the spot where we had taped the demolition of a hospital building years earlier…
Visual Description:
A white balloon appears in front of a clouded window that frames
an expanse of grey sky above an urban skyline
The camera is jostled and
two white arms appear from off-screen to take hold of the ballon and write with a black marker:
“This video contains amplified drone”
A cut to a white balloon with new black text handwritten on it
“and
Audio recorded at Hospice Buffalo Hospice.”
A hand turns the balloon to reveal more white blank space and writes:
To feel … hold balloon.
Hands try to hold the balloon still
And then retract, taking the balloon off-screen
A row of modern buildings, a parking lot and a few green trees become visible through the dirt-glazed window.
black text appears at the center of the frame
[middle-aged female voice with an american accent]
The images in this video were recorded at 1290 Delaware Avenue, Buffalo, NY, in the apartment where I lived with Tony Conrad until his death on April 9th, 2016 at Buffalo Hospice.
On the day Tony died, I played cello to him for hours as his breathing slowed.
This soundtrack includes excerpts from that audio along with two duets we recorded in our home.
On the sixth anniversary of Tony’s death, I began filming in my living room. I placed the camera in the spot where we had taped the demolition of a hospital building years earlier… ]
The image becomes darker, then brighter, and brighter again as the camera exposure is changed until the screen finally goes grey-white.
Swirling grey-white dust fills the screen — and slowly edges of light from a dim sunrise appears and disappears into the roiling cloud and air.
[a single cello note is bowed tentatively and increases in volume, punctuated by very soft breathing]
the grey dust begins to settle very slowly and reveals a muted scene of a partially demolished building begins fills the left side of the screen — surrounded by a large parking lot where water sprays on the wreckage and workman appear dwarfed by the trucks and heaps of beams and rubble. A single tree covered in dust stands on the edge of the work site — and an urban skyline of low houses lines the upper third of the frame — as grey clouds stretch length-wise obscuring a dim sunrise.
[Image Description]: A living room with three dirty windows. One red futon. One grey loveseat where a medium-sized black dog is sprawled with four paws visible and head in profile. A coffee table. Three stacks of books. Nine plastic toucans on the window sill. A dozen have dead plants. Bright-white sunlight fills the windows while sharp shadows cut across the dusty surfaces.
Paige Sarlin 