International Work
Haptic Spider: Non-Human Eye (2022)
Spider Festival, Ljubljana, Slovenia
Experimental Performance Art Recordings, Director, Director of Photography, Editor
Photo of interview with Smirna Kulenović, creator of Our Family Garden, using custom designed rainbow filter
“Experimental filmmaker Zack Sievers places us in a unique situation: to attend Spider Festival, to be immersed in it, but to look at all that is present there while at the same moment looking through different eyes – non-human eyes. Haptic Spider – Non-Human Eye, a film that will be made in-situ at Spider Festival, merges the arts of documentary filmmaking and archival videography with experimental cinematography practices designed to draw attention to the role of touch in image-making processes and the tactile, aesthetic qualities of cinematographic works (haptic cinematography). The documentary/archival dimension of "Haptic Spider" concerns the art of recording events, interviews, and performances during the 2022 Spider Festival. The haptic cinematography dimension concerns the experimental design and use of UV (ultraviolet) and IR (infrared) inspired filters during the recording process, for the purposes of creating and manipulating experimental depth of fields. What we are presented with is an unconventional record of the festival, an opening of a gaze to the performances that are both visible and invisible to the naked human eye. How we see is as relevant as how spiders see.” - Spider Festival
Videos forthcoming
director, camera, editing: Zack Sievers * production: Zack Sievers and Spider Festival * funded by: Villanova University, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Department of Philosophy
Photo of INSAN music performance using mobile spectral distortion (above)
Photo of Slovenian mountains using IR inspired filter (below)
Inventor On Earth / Izumitelj na zemlji (2021)
Live at Gibanica Festival, Ljubljana, Slovenia
Full Performance Videography, Cinematographer, Editor
“Inventor on Earth is the title of a poem by the avant-garde poet Anton Podbevšek, who was the first in Slovenia to fill the theatre hall with his poetry. He understood it as poetry that requires a theatrical stage for itself. The play Inventor on Earth returns this poetry to the stage, in order to revive his unique presence with a new stage language, realizing that poetry is not just about writing poems, but about a state of mind. At the same time, the performance marks the 120th anniversary of the poet’s birth, which is considered to be the beginning of the historical avant‑garde in Slovenia. By following the inner tensions of his poetry, he is trying to recreate on stage Podbevšek’s “cosmic anarchism”, which expresses the force of the endless expansion of the edge of the possible. If this force is manifested in the desire to liberate the potentials that are suppressed by the unjust order of human society, after crossing the horizon in outer space, the image of a man appears who is a prisoner of the universe itself. The performance was also selected for the competition program of the 54th Borštnik Meeting.” - Gibanica Festival
Performance by Directed by Bara Kolenc, 2021 | Text: Anton Podbevšek | Performers and co-creators: Andraž Jug, Leja Jurišić, Urban Kuntarič, Jelena Rusjan, Pavle Ravnohrib, Marina Džukljev | Dramaturgy: Miklavž Komelj | Sound design: Matevž Kolenc | Adaptation of the piano compositions by Marija Kogoj (Malenkosti): Matevž Kolenc and Sašo Vollmaier | Choreography: Bara Kolenc and performers | Costume design: Špela Ema Veble and Nina Jagodic | Production: Gibanica
The Sculptor (2020)
Chicago - Barcelona
3 minute Short Film, Cinematographer
The Sculptor is one of 7 short films created for 8 Horizontes, an experimental dance series produced by the women’s artist’s collective Las Zebras based in Barcelona, Spain. The Sculptor premiered in December 2020 at the FEMART Gallery in Barcelona, Spain in the exhibition entitled “Institucio Dins Meu” (“The Institution Within Me) that explores how female identity is stored in the body.
“A sculptor in a white space tries to sculpt an invisible sculpture of herself. Siena, the woman and the artist - two people in one body - struggles to define what she is doing, and who is she beyond her identities? Her search takes her to an inner world, a dreamy pink space where she discovers that she is more than the limitations of her name, her trajectory as an artist and gender.”
Created and Directed by Siena Hassett | Cinematography: Grace Pisula and Zack Sievers | Artistic Director: Sophie Kasser | Story Editor: Grace Pisula | Editor: Grace Pisula, Gold Point Studio | Original Music: James Abud | Special Thanks: Melissa Schlesinger & Positive Space Studios & Centro Moveo | Post Production Services provided by Gold Point Studio
Haptic Cinematography (2018)
Ljubljana - Philadelphia - Chicago - Los Angeles - Peoria
17 minute Short Experimental Art Film, Director, Director of Photography, Editor
Haptic Cinematography is a film that brings together artists and thinkers from a variety of disciplines (philosophy, performance art, psychoanalysis, dialectics) in order to show the development and emergence of a haptic identity/subject through haptic encounters with the discovery of their reflections in tactile, fluid mirror. Through touch, the subject acquires language as well as a newfound – albeit complicated – self-image. This film was produced for the interdisciplinary project “The Language of Touch: linguistic perspectives in haptic studies” (Bloomsbury) in conjunction with the Haptolinguistics research team at the University of Ljubljana, Slovenia, but also with additional teams of independent artist collaborators in Philadelphia, PA, Los Angeles, CA, Peoria, IL, and Chicago, IL. The film was screened as a vehicle for discussing touch and language in student-oriented workshop series and public art galleries held in Ljubljana, Hamburg, Philadelphia, New York, and Chicago.
Concepts/Inspiration: Mirt Komel, Bara Kolenc, Zack Sievers, Rachel Aumiller, Ana Jovanović, and Goran Vranešević | Starring: Bara Kolenc | With: Cory Kram, Kat Kurtz, Nikola Stojanović, and Shadia Ghantous | Lamella: Jure Lajovic | Piano: Milko Lazar | Trombone: Connor Przybyszewski | Bass and Electronics: Iaan Reynolds | Additional Music: Iaan Reynolds, Chris Thorton, and Meredith Haines.
Inventor on Earth / Izumitelj na zemlji (2018)
Ljubljana and Novo Mesto, Slovenia
1 minute Trailer, Cinematographer and Video Design
“Performance Inventor on Earth marks the 120th anniversary of the birth of Anton Podbevšek, whose poetry is associated with the beginning of the historical avant-garde movement in Slovenia. By tracing the internal tension of his poetry, the play seeks to stage Podbevšek's "cosmic anarchism", expressing the force of endless expansion of the edge of possibility. If this force in the title song manifests itself in the desire to liberate the potentials that are suppressed by the unjust regulation of human society, the image of a man who is a prisoner of the universe itself is sketched in cosmic space after overstepping the bounds of the horizon. What could give rise to the liberation from this captivity?”
- Miklavž Komelj (read more)
Photo of Leja Jurišić
Performance directed by Bara Kolenc, 2018 | Text: Anton Podbevšek | Performers and co-creators: Andraž Jug, Leja Jurišić, Urban Kuntarič, Ana Pandur, Pavle Ravnohrib, Sašo Vollmaier | Dramaturgy: Miklavž Komelj | Sound design: Matevž Kolenc | Adaptation of the piano compositions by Marija Kogoj (Malenkosti): Matevž Kolenc and Sašo Vollmaier | Set design: Marko Japelj | Choreography: Bara Kolenc and performers | Costume design: Špela Ema Veble and Nina Jagodic | Assistant director: Ana Laura Richter | Production: Anton Podbevšek Theatre