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Celestinorosapaildo

Some Manitobans curse the winter with every ounce of their souls. For others, it’s the brightest and most creative part of their year.
   
"Manitoba’s winter is part of the reason why I love living here," says Winnipeg filmmaker and visual artist Irene Bindi. "It’s my favourite part of the year and I certainly don’t see it as all gloom."
   
For that matter, it’s also her most productive time of year — and perhaps the most inspirational, as well. In partnership with fellow artist Doreen Girard, this has resulted in Winter Night: Night-based projections from Winnipeg, Manitoba, a presentation of film "performances" sonically accompanied by local musicians Aston Coles and Julia Ryckman (This Hisses), respectively.
   
Taking place tomorrow night at The Black Lodge Studio, the program may paradoxically offer means of counteracting seasonal despair. Indeed, it may even help one appreciate the somber beauty of the coldest time of year.
   
"I’d say the films are pretty enchanting, actually," says Girard of the winter-influenced lineup of seven film performances, of which she is responsible for five. "There’s something darkly satisfying in watching things die around you and stay silent for a while."
   
There is, Bindi says, "the undeniable beauty" of the season. "It’s like being in some sort of dream world, with the bright expanse of it stretching out above and around you at all times."
   
That particular dimension may find expression through the very nature of the film performances themselves, which feature both found and original footage, animation, slide projectors, a hand-built magic lantern, tape loops and original music composed by Ryckman specifically for the occasion.
   
"The two pieces I’m performing are non-narrative and utilize an ‘expanded cinema’ element — that is, the light, the projector, drum kit and room space play a physical role in what makes up the experience of the film," Bindi explains. Thanks to a kick shutter system created by Coles, her bass drum is connected to her projector’s power, allowing the artist to control it live and create moments of both blackness and a flicker effect.
   
"What the viewer follows is not a narrative progression but rather, a time-based immersion," Bindi says. "Rather than accompaniment to these films, the sound is to be understood as an integral, physical part of them." (When they’re not collaborating on film performances, Bindi and Coles make noise music together as part of both Blind Squab and The Double Hook.)
   
Girard’s musical partnership was also integral to her end result. "In the pieces I collaborate with her on, the narrative is completely driven by Julia," Girard says. "I make the images based around that."
   
And then, of course, there was winter’s definitive hand in things.
   
"When you’re faced with a set of circumstances that combines abject despair, a dark, soft, sparkly landscape and having sort of an enforced lockdown, it’s impossible not to feel infected by that," Girard says.
   
"My activity in the winter definitely strays towards the cerebral, whether I like it or not."
   
Winter Night takes place Fri., Jan. 27 at 7:30p.m. at The Black Lodge Studio, 305 - 100 Arthur St. The event is sponsored by Mentoring Artists for Women’s Art (MAWA).