Website reconstruction / January 2023
abecedarian.net
The ABC Project is a 3-part film project by Chris Givens, created and filmed in New Orleans.
ABC Project is a triptych of simultaneous feature films that give a prismatic view into the interconnected lives of three distinct constellations of characters.
Different than a chronological trilogy, the plots of Films A, B, and C occur simultaneously from multiple viewpoints. Audiences can approach them in at least two ways: viewing them as stand-alone features, in any order, or viewing all three at the same time in a three-channel exhibition. In the exhibition format, a viewer takes a bird’s-eye view, wearing headphones to switch between audio tracks and turning their seat to shift viewpoints.
The multi-stranded plots of these “tapestry films” focus on the stitching together of lives—how moments “here” are bound to places and time “there.” Tales of desire, courage, and self-revelation intertwine with flows of awe that connect all things.
The project, led by Louisiana artist Christopher Givens, engages with current socio-economic issues such as housing along with perennial spiritual concerns such as belonging, self-realization, and right relation. A range of characters connect communities that emerge around education, incarceration, healing, art practices, tourism, and spiritual ritual. The films employ a sprawling cast and crew of locals, artists, and friends, and often set scenes in culturally significant areas that aren’t found in tourist guidebooks.
AS A TRIPTYCH,
each film presents exactly the same time period as the others, only from another perspective with different groupings of characters foregrounded. Each film inhabits different worlds and yet they are all linked together in a myriad of ways, with the intention that such a novel presentation of collective experience might be a celebration of difference and lead to wonder.
The films will be viewed in one of two ways: one at a time, in any order, or all at the same time in a condensed three-channel exhibition. The viewer can switch at any moment to another audio track and turn their seat to shift perspectives, seeing the same world and cinematic moment from an entirely different point of view.
Many structural choices in the plotting of the films are intended to create an experience that de-emphasizes individual perspective. We never really know what is going on with someone else; life and relationships are complex systems which the exhibition invites viewers to engage with in a new way.
⚜ ⚜ ⚜ ⚜ ⚜ ⚜ ⚜ ⚜ ⚜ ⚜ ⚜ ⚜ ⚜
OF NEW ORLEANS
Our project is locked in to the moment and place of its own making, created with people who call the city home. Those of us who live in New Orleans can count ourselves lucky to be amongst a very rich creative community which animates a deeply spiritual culture. It is a city with a rich, beloved, multifaceted culture that’s shared by a variety of overlapping communities and glimpsed in fragments by visitors.
This film project would not be possible without the supportive community it has found in New Orleans. It has been difficult to make such an ambitious film with very little money, but it would have been impossible to make it in another American city. The rituals, festivals, traditions, and music continually assert the power of the human spirit and teach people how to live and how to die in style.
Our stories take place in a city which feels the outside pressures of conformity and erasure. New Orleans is an endangered species among American cities: environmentally, socially, culturally, it lives on the edge and its future is always uncertain. The films circle around the search for meaning and becoming who one is, and explore how New Orleans opens these spiritual possibilities.
CONTEXTUAL FLOWS
RENÉ
You have some influence…
MS. FIELD
But who can tell what becomes of it.
The ABC Project has multiple strands of influence by artists who take novel approaches to their medium, including the Three Colors trilogy by Krzysztof Kieślowski, the multi-channel spatial films of Yang Fudong, the interconnected fictional universe of Roberto Bolaño, and the ensemble films of Robert Altman and Paul Thomas Anderson.
In practice, the work has been informed by tight-knit theater contexts, bare-bones productions, and close collaborative teams. Spiritually and philosophically, its concerns resonate with Jung, Grotowski, Tarkovsky, Malick, Camus, Gary Snyder, Whitman, Dostoevsky, Melville, and André Breton. Above all influences, music plays the most direct and consistent role in guiding its attitudes and rhythms.
*see also:
Biutiful by Iñárritu, Cold War by Pawlikowski, Blade Runner by Scott, Mirror by Tarkovsky, Persona by Bergman, Tokyo Story by Ozu, Bresson, Cassavetes, Limits of Control by Jarmusch, and The Dance of Reality / Endless Poetry by Jodorowsky.
Archived and reconstructed within christophergivens.com.
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