BRATTLEBORO — The nonprofit arts venue Epsilon Spires will host two events on the evening of Friday, Sept. 2, during downtown's monthly Gallery Walk. Starting at 5 p.m., there will be an opening celebration for “Mundane Monsters,” a multimedia exhibit by Danish artist Kristoffer Ørum, followed at 8 p.m. by an outdoor screening of two early documentaries about skateboarding and surfing as part of the Backlot Cinema Series.
Ørum, whose work has been shown extensively throughout Denmark and internationally, uses a combination of digital and physical media to create humorous and wildly inventive takes on the modern relationship between nature and culture.
In “Mundane Monsters,” Ørum transforms the gallery at Epsilon Spires into a walk-through multimedia experience with video projections, 3D printed sculptures, wireless transmissions, two-dimensional works, and an augmented reality component that allows visitors to view the exhibit through the cameras on their phones, where they will see Ørum's monsters inhabiting the space.
“It's rare to have the opportunity to interact with the cutting-edge technology Kristoffer Ørum uses in a gallery setting,” Jamie Mohr, executive director of Epsilon Spires, said in a news release. “The Danish Arts Foundation has generously invested in bringing 'Mundane Monsters' to Epsilon Spires, and we are thrilled to welcome Kristoffer and his innovative work to Brattleboro.”
After the gallery opening, visitors are invited to watch movies under the stars in the lot behind Epsilon Spires. The program opens with the short 1966 documentary The Devil's Toy, which uses tongue-in-cheek narration to explore the burgeoning skateboarding scene in Montreal, where “the devil's toy” is described as a “dreaded disease that needed only pavement in order to multiply and proliferate.”
This celebration of youthful rebellion follows a group of young teens as they skate their way through the city in gorgeous black-and-white depictions of freedom and experimentation, using skateboarding as a metaphor for challenging conformity and intolerance.
The evening culminates with the 1972 Australian surfing documentary Morning of the Earth, shown in a fully restored 4K version that took three years to complete. The editing techniques and cinematography used in the film underscore the spiritual nature of surfing in the early 1970s, which Arthur O'Brien describes in Senses of Cinema as “a beautiful-looking, calm-natured generation of surfers, who were totally tuned into their natural environment with an almost pastoral, idyllic zeal: contemplative, relaxed and peaceful.”
He adds that within the group of surfers followed in the documentary “there was an emphasis on personal freedom, nomadic 'questing,' a romantic connection to the elements, and hedonism.”
The gallery opening is free to the public. Tickets for the screening afterwards are $12 each and are available in advance at epsilonspires.org, with a pay-what-you-can option available for those experiencing financial hardship.
Audience members are encouraged to bring blankets, chairs, and whatever else they would like for a cozy evening under the stars. Drinks, refreshments, and bathrooms will be available throughout the evening. In the event of rain, the film will be screened indoors in the sanctuary of Epsilon Spires.