O’er The Land by Deborah Stratman

LOMAA presents a timely screening of O’er The Land, Deborah Stratman’s free form documentary and personal examination of America’s 21st century zeitgeist.

This hour long event will precede the closing reception of Good Sport’s current exhibition, Matthew Purvis’ Trudeaupia, and take place in the rear of the gallery.
https://www.facebook.com/events/1156334047791943/

O’er The Land (Deborah Stratman, USA, 2009, 52 minutes)
presented on 16mm film

6pm start time
free admission
donations accepted

Synopsis:
A meditation on the milieu of elevated threat addressing national identity, gun culture, wilderness, consumption, patriotism and the possibility of personal transcendence. Of particular interest are the ways Americans have come to understand freedom and the increasingly technological reiterations of manifest destiny.

While channeling our national psyche, the film is interrupted by the story of Col. William Rankin who in 1959, was forced to eject from his F8U fighter jet at 48,000 feet without a pressure suit, only to get trapped for 45 minutes in the up and down drafts of a massive thunderstorm. Remarkably, he survived. Rankin’s story represents a non-material, metaphysical kind of freedom. He was vomited up by his own jet, that American icon of progress and strength, but violent purging does not necessarily lead to reassessment or redirection.

This film is concerned with the sudden, simple, thorough ways that events can separate us from the system of things, and place us in a kind of limbo. Like when we fall. Or cross a border. Or get shot. Or saved. The film forces together culturally acceptable icons of heroic national tradition with the suggestion of unacceptable historical consequences, so that seemingly benign locations become zones of moral angst. — Deborah Stratman

http://www.pythagorasfilm.com/oertheland.html

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Deborah Stratman is a Chicago-based artist and filmmaker interested in landscapes and systems. Much of her work points to the relationships between physical environments and human struggles for power and control that play out on the land. Recent projects have addressed freedom, expansionism, surveillance, sonic warfare, public speech, ghosts, sinkholes, levitation, propagation, orthoptera, raptors, comets and faith. She has exhibited internationally at venues including MoMA NY, Centre Pompidou, Hammer Museum, Mercer Union, Witte de With, the Whitney Biennial and festivals including Sundance, Viennale, CPH/DOX, Oberhausen, Ann Arbor, Full Frame, Rotterdam and Berlinale. Stratman is the recipient of Fulbright, Guggenheim and USA Collins fellowships, a Creative Capital grant and an Alpert Award. She lives in Chicago where she teaches at the University of Illinois.

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LOMAA wishes to acknowledge the London Arts Council for their ongoing support of our monthly film series, as well as Deborah Stratman, Benjamin R. Taylor & Guillaume Lafleur for their assistance in providing the film print. Additional thanks to the good folks at Good Sport Gallery for co-hosting this event.