True Fictions was the result of a year-long media art project created by film maker audio-visual artist Christopher Thomas Allen in collaboration with a range of film and musical talents that was commissioned by EMPAC, The Experimental Media and Performing Arts Centre based in the town of Troy, New York, USA in 2006. This was the first fully commissioned, feature-length live cinema work by Allen and the studio. It is a epic work that fused documentary filmmaking, music and motion graphics to co-create a story about history, myth and truth which cuts across all nationalities and cultures.

The project explored the themes of truth and myth through the collection and collaboration with a multitude of American and Native American voices. It involved the gathering of many hours of video and sound interviews, extensive traveling and research across the state of New York. It spawned an highly original folk-electronica musical score that was co-created through a unique collaboration between 25 musicians and vocal artists from New York city. Each track was created through a process of musical “exquisite corpse” where each musician was invited to add and respond to the last. These sessions where carefully recorded and filmed using IR cameras which were them mixed with live IR cameras on stage focused on live musican’s performing parts live. This blurred what was “real” and not real, recored and live on stage.

These audio-visual tracks where then edited and arrange around a series of narratives and conversations.The live performance sampled and rearranged these musical and video samples, fusing them with the documentary interviews using multiple Pioneer DVD turntables and VDMX software. This important live cinema work is a ground breaking fusion of experimental documentary film narratives, original audio-visual music into a collective but unified story about stories.

For a more detailed background about the development, production, post-production and touring of this project please visit its blog:

http://www.avfolklore.blogspot.com

Live performers:

Music & Spoken Word release:

The co-created music from this project has been released as a limited addition double vinyl record on NLS Records and is availble to buy via our shop or Bandcamp page.

Musical Contributors:

PROJECT CREDITS:

Special thanks to:

The Seneca-Iroquois National Museum, Salamanca
The Ronathahonni Cultural Center, Cornwall Island, Ontario
Nichols Meat Processing, Altamont, NY
David Lublin & Ray Cutler at VIDVOX
Kathleen Forde, Jason Steven Murphy, and all the staff at EMPAC

TRUE FICTIONS is an EMPAC Commission supported by The Jaffe Fund for Experimental Media & Performing Arts NY

For more video excerpts from the project please visit:

http://vimeo.com/channels/truefictions

International Touring:

EMPAC, The Armour, Troy, New York, USA, September, 2007
Urban Screens Festival, The Great Hall, Manchester, UK, October, 2007
Teatro degli Arcimboldi, Milano, Italy, November, 2007
ZEMOS98 Festival, Seville, Spain, March, 2008
onedotzero festival, IMAX Cinema, BFI Southbank, London, November, 2008
Loop FestivalBrighton Pavilion, Brighton, July, 2009
TRANS Festival, Waterfront, Captalist Arts, Belfast, July, 2009
Mirowave Festival, Rotuda3, HITEC, Hong-Kong, November, 2009
Hackney Film Festival, The Others, London, September 2010
Freeform Festival, Warsaw, Poland, October, 2010
ON_OFF FestivalItau Cultral, Sao Paulo, brazil, June 2011

Press:

TIMEOUT, HK