Festival ECRÃ
of Experimental and Art and Cinema
GHOSTTOWN
鬼鎮
Jon Cates
United States
2020
Film
Long
An experimental glitched Western that critiques myths and ideologies of the American West while reworking and disrupting familiar genres.
general information
edition
4th ECRÃ Festival
venues
online
duration in min
65
date and time
20-30 August
premiere
Rio de Janeiro Premiere
indicative classification
Free
conversation/chat
tags
trailer/teaser/excerpt
if available, see the complete work in the link below
Jon Cates
Jon Cates, a filmmaker and game designer, has taught at several international New Media and Media Art History programs, including the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Donau-Universität Krems, Austria, and NØ SCHOOL, France. In Chicago, Cates is the first full-time hire in the New Media College at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where he has been developing the curriculum for entry and teaching both studio and history classes in New Media Art since 2004. Cates is an experimental filmmaker, Glitch Artist, and Noise Musician whose work has been influential internationally. Cates is also the curator of the acclaimed Chicago New Media 1973-1992 exhibition and catalogue, which was a featured program of the Art Design Chicago program and was most recently featured at the Ars Electronica Festival in Linz, Austria.
more information
jonCates’ Ghosttown is an experimental film starring Siera Begaye, a Diné (Navajo) artist and actress and activist, who plays herself; and two fictional characters, a lone cowgirl making her way West through the American imagination, and an ancient Chinese deity, the Girl of the Golden Mountain, a warrior goddess dreamed up by Chinese immigrants who built the transcontinental railroad in the 19th century. Amy Beste, Curator of Conversations At The Edge, writes: “The cowgirl travels through a mind-bending ghost town, the Girl of the Golden Mountain embarks on a quest to collect the bones of those who believe in her, and Begaye charts a new course for the future. Ghosttown breaks the clichés of the Western genre with digital glitches, glitches, and noise, connecting yesterday’s traumas with today’s technologies.” Independent film curator Patrick Friel writes that "Ghosttown as a whole is a provocative and visually striking reimagining of the Western form, blending it with an inclusive and contemporary sensibility, a digital/'computer-centric' aesthetic." Art historian and scholar Hannah Higgins calls 鬼鎮 (Ghosttown) both "horrible and wonderful".