CONTENTS

 
   about
   MICHAEL BETANCOURT NEWS
   movies: AESTHETICS
   movies: NEWS & REVIEWS
   movies: SHOWS & SCREENINGS
   random art notes
   random how-tos
   research: AVANT-GARDE MOVIES
   research: MOTION GRAPHICS
   research: VISUAL MUSIC
   theory: CRITICAL OBSERVATIONS
   theory: DIGITAL CAPITALISM
   theory: GLITCH & POSTDIGITAL
   theory: working notes

 

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Glitch Theory: Art and Semiotics by Michael Betancourt
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archives begin in 1996

  
Charles Recher (1950-2017)

story © Michael Betancourt | published September 30, 2017 | permalink | TwitThis Digg Facebook StumbleUpon  |  



random art notes

The Miami Rail is running a tribute. This is my contribution.

For the twenty years that I knew him, Charles was one of my best friends, but that doesnt mean Im not struggling to know what to say because how can you sum up someone like Charles? For the entire time I knew him he talked about the tribe. It was his idea of an extended family of like minds supporting each other. The many days we sat and talked about movies and art while drinking tea, looking at works in progress and hashing out how to make them better. His projection contraptions. The projector-head for Video Prophet when it was still a mess of tape and mock-up. All the black face when we were shooting TV. Curry. Very hot curry.

We were talking about his works as cinematic mantras, that each one was a way letting go, an expression of some human failing, exercised like so many dark spirits. Its always tempting to call his kind of work autobiographical, but alchemical always seemed a better way. Transformative. Visionary, perhaps. That was what made our conversations so interesting. His approach was so different than mine, playful and intuitive, looking for a perspective that wasnt necessarily visible.

I miss him.








 
 

 
 
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