Manipulated image, decontextualized sound, spontaneous art...oh my!

Gather round, film farts, art aficionados and music maniacs, all! Tomorrow night, Peter Mettler will be dishing out an eight-hour treat at the Berkeley Church. The director, who is being honoured by this year's TIFF Canadian Retrospective, will be presenting Elsewhere, an evening of improvised audio-visual adventure.

With a slew of musical, tech and visual cronies in tow, the Canadian director of Gambling, Gods and LSD fame will be embarking on an "an uncharted live cinema journey through a multitude of interesting places and states." Hold on to them panties, dearly beloved, this is gonna be fun...

A grab-bag of audio treats and assorted eye candy will combine to create a one-time-only sensory mindtrip. Mettler has been known to have up to seven video inputs going at once, the sources of which run the gamut of visual stimuli. Bank instructional tapes, Joe Next Door's experimental videos, classic films, documentaries from the world over, Mettler's own footage, sports tapes...anything's fair game. The idea is to decontextualize Art, as well as everyday ho-hum imagery, and challenge our notions of entertainment. In doing so, Mettler hopes to reprogram the ways in which we engage with media and with each other.

In a recent interview with VJ Book, Mettler dubbed his approach "teledivinitry".

"It's to do with sensing or divining currents of meaning through the use of technology. Live mixing is a bit like going into a technological trance, letting things unfold and emerge while reacting to the things which are coming at you. I record the mixes on tape, because there's no way I can keep track of all that's happening. In reviewing it, I can start to see the imbedded narratives and surprising juxtapositions," he explains. "There is a logic within that is much different than anything the rational structuring mind would have come up with. I find that exercising associative perception can give you a finer appreciation of the relationship between things."

Musicians coming to put in their $0.02 are (in order of appearance, starting at 10pm):

-Evergreen Gamelan Club Ensemble of Toronto, an eight-piece outfit that perform a gamelan (a collection of bronze and wooden instruments indigenous to Indonesia).
-Martin Schutz of Switzerland, a master of both the acoustic and electric cello.
-Murcof aka Terrestre of Mexico, creator of classical-electronic music hybrids.
-Marc Weiser of Germany, the minimal techno third of audio-visual project Rechenzentrum.
-Telefunk Sound System, a local electronic live PA act.
-Adam Marshall, a homegrown dance music hero.
-Tom Kuo aka Task, local purveyor of organic, intelligent techno.

Yikes. With the Motor/Kim Simko/Junior Sanchez posse at Return to New York, Ghislain Poirier at the Drake, Peter Mettler and friends at the Berkeley Church and other random TIFF fete-ness, what's a girl to do?

Suck it up and vroom-vroom til 6am, I suppose.

Sigh. Yes, it's a tough life, 'tis.

What: Elsewhere
When: Friday, September 15, 10pm to 6am
Where: The Berkeley Church (315 Queen Street E)
Cost: $25 advance, $35 at the door. Available at Pages Bookstore, Soundscapes, Seekers Books, Shanti Baba, Rotate This, Play De Record.