Manuel DeLanda: ISM ISM
Edited by John Klacsmann, Andrew Lampert
Designed by Jason Fulford
ISBN 780989531191
Paperback, 6 x 9 in. / 150 pgs / 250 color
Published by J&L Books and Anthology Film Archives
Economically downtrodden New York City in the 1970s was like the end of the world—but only if you chose to see it that way. For young artists running amok in the collapsing capitol, the possibilities seemed endless. Manuel DeLanda, a Mexican transplant enrolled at the School of Visual Arts, saw the overcrowded sidewalks and decrepit subway stations as blank canvases for inspired mayhem.
Recognized today as a philosopher, professor, and author (of War in the Age of Intelligent Machines and A Thousand Years of Nonlinear History, among other titles), DeLanda initially came to prominence as one of the premier experimental filmmakers of his generation. Fueled by the gonzo humor and graphic audacity of Frank Zappa and ZAP Comix, DeLanda’s fevered productions were among the most deliriously innovative movies of the punk era. While films like Raw Nerves: A Lacanian Thriller and Incontinence: A Diarrhetic Flow of Obvious Mismatches are certified underground classics, DeLanda’s visually striking, virtually unknown graffiti work (signed with the tag “ISM ISM”) has long remained more urban legend than legendary.
ISM ISM presents a comprehensive overview of DeLanda’s ephemeral street collages with a colorful frame-by-frame breakdown of a Super 8 short film completed in 1979 in order to document his sweetly subversive activities. Extensive still images, an expansive interview, and copious contextual materials combine to illustrate the story of DeLanda’s aesthetic attack on 23rd Street, including his friendly competition with fellow artist-taggers Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat.
Buy the book here
Wednesday, April 25, 2018
7:30pm
Book Release Screening at Anthology Film Archives
32 Second Avenue, New York City
Nine short films by Manuel DeLanda
Delanda in person at screening!
SALIVA DILDO – PREMATURE EJACULATORS (1976, 2 min, 16mm-to-digital. Digitized with support from the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. Special thanks to M. Henry Jones.)
A recently rediscovered fragment from an early film, featuring regular DeLanda collaborator M. Henry Jones navigating time-warped NYC sidewalks.
ISM ISM (1979, 8 min, Super 8mm-to-16mm. Preserved with support from the National Film Preservation Foundation and the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.)
“ISM ISM documents my graffiti activities in New York. The film was originally made as a class project for P. Adams Sitney. It has the form of a manifesto against the orthopedic power of language.” –Manuel DeLanda
ANONYMOUS MULTITUDES (2015, 8 min, digital)
DeLanda takes on the NYC masses, deforming faces and stretching moving figures in strange and disorienting ways.
HARMFUL OR FATAL IF SWALLOWED (1982, 14 min, Super 8mm-to-16mm-to digital. Digitized by Anthology Film Archives with support from the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.)
A dynamic and demented city symphony, HARMFUL takes the extreme techniques of DeLanda’s earlier films and unleashes them on the businessmen and denizens of NYC. Outlandish and truly unforgettable, this film premiered in a slightly neutered version at the 1982 New York Film Festival, where it elicited many loud hisses and boos. Anthology’s new digital restoration features the recently rediscovered original edit.
THE SUPER 8 SHOW: BEYOND HOME MOVIES (1981, 7-min excerpt, U-Matic videotape-to-digital. Produced by John Sanborn and Kit Fitzgerald for WNET/New York.)
Manuel DeLanda discusses his Super 8mm filmmaking in this rare video interview originally produced for WNET in connection with J. Hoberman’s 1981 Anthology screening series, “Home Made Movies: 20 Years of American 8mm and Super-8 films.”
FRACTURED LANDSCAPES (2014, 12 min, digital)
Through digital layering and animating masks DeLanda creates a dissonant kaleidoscopic urban symphony, bending, mirroring, and distorting New York’s unique architectural surroundings.
JUDGEMENT DAY (1983, 8 min, Super 8mm-to-16mm. Preserved with support from the National Film Preservation Foundation and the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.)
Cockroaches meet their maker in the first installment of DeLanda’s incomplete “Jerry Falwell trilogy.”
ELECTRIC ARTHROPODS (2017, 3 min, digital. Theatrical premiere!)
DeLanda revisits the horror of insects in macro, electrically colorized among animated particle backgrounds.
TWISTED FLESH (2018, 3 min, digital. Theatrical premiere!)
A “battle” between complex image processing and pornography. Will porno always win?
Total running time: ca. 70 min.
