Bill Brown: Time is the Enemy

Image: Bill Brown, Life on the Mississippi (still), 2018. Courtesy of the artist.

Join us at e-flux Screening Room on Thursday, September 11 for “Time is the Enemy,” a screening of works by Bill Brown, followed by a Q&A with the filmmaker.

Since 1994, Brown’s film practice has honed in on back alleys, abandoned public works projects, and dusty interstates, among other liminal spaces. Equal parts reverie and requiem, this selection of films sees Brown interrogating the social fascination with crash sites, contemplating the conditions of amnesia, and charting pathways against that particular combination of nostalgia and ennui often ascribed to small-town American existence. Always genuine, astute, and with a tasteful dose of wistfulness, Brown’s wandering camera captures a nation caught in its infinite project of attempting to make sense of itself, to itself.

Films

Hub City (1997, 14 minutes)A private detective investigates three weather reports from his hometown of Lubbock, Texas. An essay film about tornadoes, mystery lights, Buddy Holly, and the scene of the crime.

Buffalo Common (2001, 23 minutes)A road trip through North Dakota between the end of a Cold War and the beginning of an oil boom.

Life on the Mississippi (2018, 28 minutes)An essay film about a river and the limits of knowing it. With Mark Twain’s "Life On The Mississippi" as a road map, Brown travels from Memphis, Tennessee to New Orleans and considers ways that river pilots, paddlers, historical re-enactors, and civil engineers attempt to know the river through modeling, measurement, and simulation. Along the way, Brown attempts to survey the river and the landscapes and land uses along its banks as a visible expression of economic transition, political polarization, and environmental change.

Roswell (1994, 20 minutes)Why did a UFO crash in Roswell, New Mexico of all places? In 1994, Brown set out on a road trip to explore the 1947 incident.

Bill Brown is a filmmaker interested in the ways landscape is interpreted, appropriated, and reconfigured according to history, memory, and desire. Brown’s films have screened at venues around the world, including Rotterdam Film Festival, London Film Festival, Sundance Film Festival, and Lincoln Center. He is the recipient of grants from Creative Capital and the Rockefeller Foundation. Brown is also the co-founder of Cosmic Rays Film Festival, an annual showcase of experimental and first-person films in Chapel Hill, NC. He currently lives in Marseille, France.

For more information, please contact [email protected].

Accessibility–Two flights of stairs lead up to the building’s front entrance at 172 Classon Avenue.–For elevator access, please RSVP to [email protected]. The building has a freight elevator which leads into the e-flux office space. Entrance to the elevator is nearest to 180 Classon Ave (a garage door). We have a ramp for the steps within the space.–e-flux has an ADA-compliant bathroom. There are no steps between the event space and this bathroom.

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