location: Los Angeles, California
website: www.janiegeiser.com
profile:
Janie Geiser is an internationally recognized experimental filmmaker and visual/performance artist, whose work is known for its investigation of the emotional power of inanimate objects, its sense of mystery, and its strength of design. “Geiser shares with filmmakers such as Jan Svankmajer the rare ability to make children’s toys and seemingly innocent objects … resonate with the most unsettling, arcane, and adult fears. Better still, Geiser gives voice to the reaches of the unconscious, pointing to the abandoned splendor that exists prior to the rules of society and language.” (Holly Willis, Res, 2004)
One of the pioneers of the renaissance of American avant-garde object performance, Geiser creates innovative, hypnotic works that integrate a singular visual aesthetic, puppets, film/video and performing objects. Geiser’s performances have toured nationally and internationally, and her films have been screened at museums and festivals around the globe. Geiser has been recognized with an a Guggenheim Fellowship, as well as funding from the NEA, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Henson Foundation, Creative Capital, Jerome Foundation, the Center for Cultural Innovation the Durfee Foundation, and others.Geiser's installation, The Spiders' Wheels (parts 1-3) was exhibited as part of the 2006 COLA exhibition (City of Los Angeles Fellowships for Visual Artists). ,Geiser’s films have been screened at the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Guggenheim Museum, the Museum of Modern Art, Pacific Film Archives, the San Francisco Cinematheque, and at numerous festivals, including 5 New York Film Festivals, the Rotterdam International Film Festival, the Toronto Film Festival, San Francisco Film Festival, and the Hong Kong International Film Festival. She also designed puppets for Jessica Yu's documentary film Protagonist, which premiered in 2007. She was recognized in the LA Weekly’s 2006 State of the Arts as one of 100 significant Los Angeles Artists.
Geiser is a Co-Director of Automata, a Los Angeles nonprofit dedicated to the creation, presentation, and preservation of puppet and object performance, experimental film, pre-cinematic attractions, and other lost and neglected forms.
Ghost Algebra (girl, clouds, arrows), 2009
16mm Film still