Location: Los Angeles
Website: mikestoltz.org
I make films, videos and sound dictated by process, directly working with the machine to explore the edges of space, time, memory and the element of surprise. I am currently a cooperative member at The Echo Park Film Center and a Teaching Associate at the California Institute of the Arts.
excerpts from UNDER THE ATMOSPHERE (2014, 16mm, 14:30)
Filmed on the Central Florida “Space Coast”, site of NASA’s launch pads. Dormant spacecraft, arcane text, activated landscape, and the surface of the image work towards a future-past shot reverse shot.
World Premiere at 2014 Toronto International Film Festival – Wavelengths Program
Excerpts from HALF HUMAN, HALF VAPOR (2015, 16mm, 12:00)
“A mystic’s sculpture garden amidst hurricane damage and property foreclosure.”
This project began out of a fascination with a giant sculpture of a dragon attached to a Central Florida mansion. The property had recently been left to rot, held in lien by a bank. Hurricanes washed away the sculpture. I learned about the artist who created this landmark, Lewis Vandercar (1913-1988), who began as a painter. His practice grew along with his notoriety for spell-casting and telepathy. Inspired by Vandercar’s interest in parallel possibility, I combined these images with text from local newspaper articles in a haunted-house film that both engages with and looks beyond the material world.
World Premiere at 2015 New York Film Festival – Projections Program
Lathe-cut soundtrack record to my 2015 film Half Human, Half Vapor.
These are longer cuts of the original tape music I made for the film.
Edition of 30
Excerpt from my film With Pluses and Minuses (2013, 16mm, 5:00)
“This morning the window blew its glass onto my face. Real morning with pluses and minuses (my symbols for truth).” – Watt
“…Stoltz shakes and dislocates audio and image with volume and pitch variations, editing the 16mm film in camera, varying the focus and the shot length of every frame, shifting background and foreground, turning and spinning the camera hand-held positions, and allowing sequences of black that punctuate the image’s algorithms. The filmmaker’s dance transforms abstraction into personal experience. He is an active agent of the surrounding world, and of the opportunities that open and close before us.” -Mónica Savirón, LUMIÈRE Fall 2013
World Premiere at 2013 New York Film Festival – Views from the Avant-Garde
