Biography
Marianna Ellenberg is a video artist and professor living and working in Brooklyn, New York. Ellenberg’s work spans from abstract Super8mm animations, to video installation, sound work and color photography. Ellenberg’s films and videos have been shown widely, in such venues as The N.Y. Underground Film Festival (2007), The Collectif Jeune Cinéma (2003), LA Freewaves (2006), and The Dallas Video Festival (2007). Her installation work in sound and video has been presented at the Brooklyn Lyceum, Monkeytown, Issue Project Room and the PDX Installation Show (Portland, OR).
For the past six years, Ellenberg has worked as an Editor and Asisstant Editor on various productions, from PBS documentaries to award winning short films. As an independent curator, Ellenberg has organized screenings and performances for Monkeytown (NYC), Ocularis (NYC), Overtones Gallery (Los Angeles), Orchard Gallery (NYC), The Horse Hospital (London), and Galleria SC in Zagreb. Ellenberg currently teaches Film/Video at Montclair State University in NJ and Pratt Institute and has previously taught Film Studies at Suny Purchase College in New York State.
ART STATEMENT
Ellenberg’s video practice centers around research into the contemporary body-psyche, through an investigation of the aesthetics and poetics of medical discourse. In her moving image based work, saturated color and soft focus photography integrate tones of melancholia, euphoria and sublimated desire. In her single channel videos and sound loops, psychological terminology and the bodily split apart into momentary glimpses of abstract melancholia and imaginary pleasure.
Ellenberg’s color photography and film work spans from visceral, investigations of bodily ephemera, (Cut Snip Ooze, 16mm, 2003) to sensual parodies and restagings of pharmaceutical television and internet advertisements. In her video “The Psychotrophic Alphabet” (2004) and sound piece, “Wettings” (2006) medical terminology and health questionnaires are twisted into a space between diagnosis, psychosis and the unconscious. Psychotropic advertising discourse is the textual base for absurdist word play and magical hypnosis in Ellenberg’s hypperreal text animations (Anxious TV’s, 2005) and voice over work.
Ellenberg's practice has often included collaborations with electro-acoustic composers (James Fei, Dymaxion) in order to create live video performances drawing from the strategies of noise music, visual hypnotherapy and psychoacoustic techniques. Currently, she is working on a new series of photographs “Fun Tack and Other Fragments” as well as a 16mm film installation, addressing the fluid gap between cyber discourse and physical touch.
Biography
Marianna Ellenberg is a video artist and professor living and working in Brooklyn, New York. Ellenberg’s work spans from abstract Super8mm animations, to video installation, sound work and color photography. Ellenberg’s films and videos have been shown widely, in such venues as The N.Y. Underground Film Festival (2007), The Collectif Jeune Cinéma (2003), LA Freewaves (2006), and The Dallas Video Festival (2007). Her installation work in sound and video has been presented at the Brooklyn Lyceum, Monkeytown, Issue Project Room and the PDX Installation Show (Portland, OR).
For the past six years, Ellenberg has worked as an Editor and Asisstant Editor on various productions, from PBS documentaries to award winning short films. As an independent curator, Ellenberg has organized screenings and performances for Monkeytown (NYC), Ocularis (NYC), Overtones Gallery (Los Angeles), Orchard Gallery (NYC), The Horse Hospital (London), and Galleria SC in Zagreb. Ellenberg currently teaches Film/Video at Montclair State University in NJ and Pratt Institute and has previously taught Film Studies at Suny Purchase College in New York State.
ART STATEMENT
Ellenberg’s video practice centers around research into the contemporary body-psyche, through an investigation of the aesthetics and poetics of medical discourse. In her moving image based work, saturated color and soft focus photography integrate tones of melancholia, euphoria and sublimated desire. In her single channel videos and sound loops, psychological terminology and the bodily split apart into momentary glimpses of abstract melancholia and imaginary pleasure.
Ellenberg’s color photography and film work spans from visceral, investigations of bodily ephemera, (Cut Snip Ooze, 16mm, 2003) to sensual parodies and restagings of pharmaceutical television and internet advertisements. In her video “The Psychotrophic Alphabet” (2004) and sound piece, “Wettings” (2006) medical terminology and health questionnaires are twisted into a space between diagnosis, psychosis and the unconscious. Psychotropic advertising discourse is the textual base for absurdist word play and magical hypnosis in Ellenberg’s hypperreal text animations (Anxious TV’s, 2005) and voice over work.
Ellenberg's practice has often included collaborations with electro-acoustic composers (James Fei, Dymaxion) in order to create live video performances drawing from the strategies of noise music, visual hypnotherapy and psychoacoustic techniques. Currently, she is working on a new series of photographs “Fun Tack and Other Fragments” as well as a 16mm film installation, addressing the fluid gap between cyber discourse and physical touch.
