FLEX Performances- CINEPLOSION/Nugent/Justice

The idea of “CINEPLOSION” has morphed a bit over time, and the latest real-life occurrence occurred at the Palomino Pool Hall patio in Gainesville, FL on Thursday, 17, 2011. I had been penciled in for the gig, but backed out just a few weeks before due to a case of the “practicalities.” Well by golly if I didn’t get a little queeze in the gut; you know, the kind like maybe you took a wrong turn somewhere or missed your exit? Yes, I’d learned this lesson before-- as a Minnesotan might say, “if the road’s plowed, drive it.” So recant, I did, and was off to Florida with a sigh of relief.

It was a super swell drive. I left Hot Springs at about 8pm, a bit past the 10am I’d planned, and made it just past Birmingham, Alabama for my first stint. Took a snooze in the far corner of a Wal/Mart parking lot from 4:30-10am, then booked it to Gainesville.

I got into town just a bit late for Phil Solomon’s show (reviewed in past post), then got to meet the whole FLEX crew and the next day a chill day before the show.

Wow, what a rare pleasure to have ample time to prepare. I sorta felt obligated to pull out all the stops with the gear, just ‘cause I’d traveled a long way and kinda wanted to bust out my best. Problem is, my getup it all hardware-- plugs and gadgets; do-dads and googliematts. Taming and patience required. So I got there at 2pm, and started projecting at 11pm-- successfully mobilizing 80% of my technological availabilities. 80 percent?! Whaaa-wooooo! A new record..!



Gainesville native, Andrew Downs was my DJ, and it proved to be the perfect combo. His setup is all cassette audio tapes, and mine is all cassette video tapes, so we managed a complete audio and visual analog tape set. Thumbs up to Andrew Downs, and for FLEX and Palomino crews for hooking this one !



Next up for live projects was Patrick Nugent, who’s “Merry-Go-Round” premiered at the IndieGrits festival in Nugent’s home-base of Columbia, South Carolina. Wizard gizzards, did FLEX find a diamond in this one! The installation consists of a large painted screen, cosmically cobwebbed precisely to coordinate with fragmented, mutating images on the projection. The resulting installation is a repressed adolescent boy’s neurological mind meltdown, as sex advice and protocol electrocute the third eye..


Patrick Nugent bowling at FLEX.

The third performance of the festival provided the perfect swam song to the weekend. Festival organizer, Amanda Justice, came armed with a backpack of VHS tapes and a killer naturally-birthed VJ name. Yes, I can attest the local thrift outlets professionally scoured, and tape pirates best move on to the next town for holy grail “Swayze Dancing” tapes or other such finds. Those gems are in the hands of Justice, waiting to whirl with the whizz and click of a rewind, pause and play.



Somewhere along the line I mentioned that it was pretty unusual to have two VHS VJ’s in one room, and heard in response, “Oh... I just thought that’s how it was ALWAYS done.” And at first I was baffled but then a little charmed. To know that “Bohiemias” still exit were a competent, art-going patron can be tricked into believing VHS-mixing is a standard, practical art form. Ah, it just melts my big ‘ol analog heart.

Photo credits: FLEX/Jessie White

Reviewed by d.anderson 2011