Program cover for the Angel City Jazz Festival (Los Angeles), where the closing event was a sneak preview screening of "The Reach Of Resonance" at the historic Barnsdall Theater, preceded by a live musical interpretation of the film by experimental pianist Motoko Honda.

Since "The Reach Of Resonance" began as a film about guitar genius Nels Cline in 2002, it was an exciting coincidence that Nels was a recurring performer throughout the festival. Unfortunately Nels could not attend the sneak preview due to flying to Iceland that morning to perform with the Plastic Ono Band.

This special sneak preview took place on October 8th, 2010.

"Pianist and sound sculpturist Motoko Honda preluded the premiere of Steve Elkins’ frequently poetic documentary The Reach of Resonance (think Fast, Cheap and Out of Control with musical mavericks) by stating her confusion at being asked to compose a piece inspired by the film. 'I am mostly an improviser,' she said almost apologetically before sitting down for a furious and anarchic 20-minute tour de force in which she practically crawled inside the instrument. Mixing lyrical, almost George Winston-like etudes with a prepared technique I can only describe as 'flossing' -- slipping a fishing line around the piano strings and moving them back and forth rapidly to create a sound not unlike a methed-out bee swarm -- she beautifully refracted the film’s mind-bending investigations into the outer reaches of musical inspiration, or what composer Jon Rose, one of the film’s four subjects, tellingly labels 'sonic terrorism.'"

-Matthew Duerston, writing for StompBeast

On October 26, 2010, excerpts of "The Reach Of Resonance" screened at Yerba Buena Center For The Arts in San Francisco, California, as part of a Kronos Quartet concert.

One of the pieces Kronos performed that evening was Bob Ostertag's transcription of a San Francisco riot into a musical score, titled "All The Rage." A sequence in "The Reach Of Resonance" describes the history and composition of this piece in the midst of Ostertag's very diverse creative paths, and this concert marked the first time the piece had been performed in 15 years.

Steve Elkins in Kronos Quartet's music library the morning after the Yerba Buena concert, shortly before another interview with Kronos's David Harrington.

On October 26, 2010, excerpts from "The Reach Of Resonance" were screened at Northwestern University (Chicago) as part of a public conversation between composer John Luther Adams and Alex Ross, music critic for The New Yorker (and Pulitzer Prize finalist author of “The Rest Is Noise”).

http://www.therestisnoise.com

Official poster and program cover for Montreal's Festival International Du Film Sur L'Art, where "The Reach Of Resonance" premiered in March 2011.

Out of 225 international films participating in the festival, 10 awards were given. “The Reach Of Resonance” was honored with the award for “Best Film Essay."

As a result of the FIFA prize, “The Reach Of Resonance” will enjoy an international tour, including screenings at the Musée du Louvre in Paris, Tate Modern in London, Boston Museum of Fine Arts, Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec, Morgan Library and Museum in NYC, National Gallery of Washington DC, and elsewhere.

Steve Elkins in Montreal during the FIFA Film Festival.

From left to right: Pierre Hébert, Steve Elkins, and Elo Meunier after the screening of "The Reach Of Resonance" at the National Film Board of Canada. Pierre is an important figure in the history of animation, as he developed his own method of using a knife to scratch directly onto film negatives as the film is being pulled through a moving projector for a live audience. "The Reach Of Resonance" contains a sequence about Pierre's work with Bob Ostertag.

"The Reach Of Resonance" screened at the National Museum Of Fine Arts in Quebec City, Canada on April 16, 2011.

Excerpts of “The Reach Of Resonance” begin to be used in seminars at Harvard University (conducted by composer John Luther Adams and aurora researcher Dirk Lummerzheim) about the relationship between art, science, and creative processes.

The collaboration of Adams and Lummerzheim in translating the earth’s magnetic field measurements into music (in real time) is a beautiful illustration of how art and science can benefit from each other, which is explored in “The Reach Of Resonance.”

On Sunday, June 19th, 2011, the first exhibition of artwork inspired by “The Reach Of Resonance” was held at Origami Vinyl in Los Angeles, just prior to a screening of the film at the Echo Park Film Center. Over 20 pieces of original artwork were shown at this event, showcasing incredible diversity both in content and style. Other exhibitions of artwork inspired by the film are in the planning stages, each to take place in different geographical locations, showcasing local artists, as the film tours internationally. This will eventually lead to a grand exhibition of the accumulated works from all locations, as well as a book documenting the works.

Artwork from this exhibition can be viewed here: http://www.steveelkins.net/Publications-and-Exhibitions/Exhibition-Of-Art-Inspired-By/17795762_6sk7qv


Origami Vinyl: http://www.origamiorigami.com/

"The Reach Of Resonance" screened at the Art Institute Of Los Angeles on Thursday, July 21st, 2011.

"The Reach Of Resonance" was reviewed in the August 2011 issue of WIRE Magazine (UK). The full review reads:

Focusing its attention on four mavericks of New Music - Miya Masaoka, John Luther Adams, Jon Rose and Bob Ostertag - this entertaining and thought-provoking debut from Steve Elkins sets out to find music in the unlikeliest of places, from giant cockroaches to geomagnetic storms in the Alaskan night sky, from the Dingo Fence in the Australian desert to panes of glass shattered in the 1991 gay and lesbian riots in San Francisco.

Masaoka is featured not for her outstanding koto playing but for her work with low voltage emissions from plants - either transcribed into conventional musical notation or even, in a bizarre reconstruction of a real Col War spy plot, used to derail a model train - and insects. In Ritual, she allows 13 Madagascan roaches to roam freely over her naked body, interrupting laser beams and triggering recordings of samples of their own hissing along the way. It's breathtaking stuff.

"Art and Science have lots to say to one another", says Adams (not to be confused with his Nixon In China namesake), who relocated to the wilds of Alaska in the mid-1970s. His sound and light environment at the University of Fairbanks, The Place Where You Go To Listen, translates data from the natural world - seismic measurements, solar wind activity and even the positions of the sun and moon in the sky - into a permanent installation that seeks to render the whole earth audible.

On the other side of the planet, Elkins follows violinist Jon Rose as he travels the length and breadth of Australia playing the thousands of miles of metal fences that cross the continent, and meeting plenty of colourful characters on the way, from gum leaf virtuoso Roseina Boston to The West Australian Chainsaw Orchestra, Dinky the singing dingo and Michael A. Green, who can hum and whistle two different melodies simultaneously (I kid you not). Rose's Heath Robinson-like bicycle-powered instruments, using everything including (literally) the kitchen sink, are hilarious, but things get serious when the Israeli Army shows up at Bil'in in Palestine and threatens him with stun grenades and tear gas when he tries to play the security fence there.

The political struggles of the real world are never far away, especially in Ostertag's work, whether sampling the voice of a young boy burying his murdered father in El Salvador (Sooner Or Later), manipulating actual footage of NATO bombing raids in Serbia (War Games) or transcribing pitched battles in San Francisco streets into the pitch battle of the string quartet All The Rage, played with customary panache by The Kronos Quartet.

To his credit, Elkins makes no attempt to tie up the stories of his featured musicians into one convenient meta-narrative (though footage of Kronos playing Music For 4 Fences links the Rose and Ostertag strands effectively), and leaves the jury out on whether art ought to get involved in politics or not. For Ostertag there is no doubt it should, while Adams cites the example of Claude Monet shuffling out into his garden at Giverny to paint waterlilies while the First World War raged barely a couple of hours away: "We'd all be so much poorer if he hadn't."

"The Reach Of Resonance" screened at UC Berkeley's Pacific Film Archive on Saturday, September 3rd, 2011. Featured artist Bob Ostertag joined me for Q&A after the screening.

David Marks took this photo of me just before the screening.

More info here: http://www.bampfa.berkeley.edu/film/FN19192

The U.S. east coast premiere of "The Reach Of Resonance" took place at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts on Wednesday, September 7th, with an encore screening on Friday, September 9th.

Sep. 7th info: http://www.mfa.org/programs/film/reach-resonance

Sep. 9th info: http://www.mfa.org/programs/film/reach-resonance-0

The European premiere of "The Reach Of Resonance" took place at the National Art Gallery in Sopot, Poland as part of the ARTLOOP Festival from September 16-18, 2011.

Photos from the event: http://candelafilms.wordpress.com/2011/09/20/artloop-2011-sopot-poland/

Steve Elkins' interview with Przemysław Gulda during the festival was published by Polish contemporary art magazine "Notes Na 6 Tygodni" in October 2011. An excerpt can be read here: http://www.steveelkins.net/Interviews/Interviews-Steve-Elkins/19201459_XHGFGr#1497017111_b67NRVj

For more info: http://artloop.pl/

On September 29th, 2011, “Reach Of Resonance” director Steve Elkins spoke on a "living history" panel at San Francisco’s GLBT History Museum, during a special program to mark the 20th anniversary of the AB101 riot which was transcribed into the musical piece “All The Rage” for Kronos Quartet by Bob Ostertag. The event featured a new documentary short by Elkins about the riot, and a panel including composer Bob Ostertag, and protest organizers and participants offering inside stories. Admission: $5.00.

Photos and a writeup on the event (including videos of the audience's powerful discussion about their memories of the riot) can be viewed here: http://candelafilms.wordpress.com/2011/10/03/the-ab101-veto-riot-remebered-glbt-history-museum-san-francisco/

An audience member wrote an articulate and impassioned response to the event, which can be read here: http://www.autostraddle.com/twenty-years-ago-today-in-gay-history-the-ab101-veto-riots-112443/

A matinee screening of "The Reach Of Resonance" took place on October 16th, 2011 at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts.

On November 15th, 2011, "The Reach Of Resonance" screened in Lisbon, Portugal as an official selection of the Temps D'Images International Film Festival.

“The Reach Of Resonance” was one of the three films from the festival to be honored with an award; specifically the Temps D’Image Film For Art Award “for a film which reflects the importance of arts in human society in the most original way.”

A press release about the awards (translated from Portuguese) can be read here: http://bit.ly/u8FJGV

Temps D'Images asked me to issue a statement regarding my relationship to my material. I responded with the following:

"To make a documentary about music is an inherently problematic idea: it requires taking non-verbal communication (music) and representing it through images and verbal explanation or analysis. There is a great distance between these distinct languages and the journey is difficult to survive without losing something essential in the translation.

Although the musicians in my film talk at great length about their work, as director I used the tool of cinema to make a heartbeat audible in the space between their words, in the seemingly irreconcilable gaps between the interests of one artist and another, in these margins where one person’s signal becomes another person’s noise.

As the poet Octavio Paz once put it: “Poetry is the crack, the space between one word and another.” As a film artist, I put a these spaces under a microscope, to reveal new connections between familiar dots, and map new routes between orphaned constellations. I can only hope this journey will trigger deeper questions about why vibrations moving through the air (music) could so profoundly affect brains, bodies, culture, and the paths we take to engage with life."

“Reach Of Resonance” artist Bob Ostertag is a professor of several of the students attacked with chemical weapons by UC Davis campus police on November 18th, 2011 during their peaceful protest over tuition hikes. Their intent was also to express solidarity with the Occupy movement and to protest the November 10th police response to Occupy Cal, where protesters had been beaten with batons.

Ostertag's interview on ABC News about the events can be viewed here: http://www.news10.net/video/default.aspx?bctid=1286526960001

He has also written a passionate and articulate article in defense of the students and contextualizing the horrific implications of what this event reveals about the current relationship between law enforcement and civil rights in the United States. The article is here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bob-ostertag/uc-davis-protest_b_1103039.html

“The Reach of Resonance” was an official selection of the “Docs For Sale” component of the International Documentary Film Festival of Amsterdam. This leading European marketplace for creative documentaries took place in Amsterdam from November 18th – 25th, 2011.

"The Reach Of Resonance" screened in Lebanon as an official selection of the Beirut International Documentary Film Festival on December 20th, 2011.

Films from Tunisia, Iran, Egypt, India, China, Serbia, Syria, Palestine, Bangladesh and other places around the world were showcased at this 10th anniversary of the festival.

On January 18, 2012, "The Reach Of Resonance" screened at CERN's Large Hadron Collider in Meyrin, Switzerland. Q&A between myself, producer David G. Marks and CERN physicists followed the screening.

An article about my next documentary film, part of which I was shooting at CERN, was published in CERN’s newsletter “ALICE Matters," and can be read here: http://alicematters.web.cern.ch/steveelkins

The Large Hadron Collider is the largest machine ever built and the World Wide Web was created to process its data. It's a 17 mile long microscope which is searching for extra dimensions, the "God particle," anti-matter, and forces akin to those that took place in the first trillionth of a millisecond after the Big Bang at incredibly small sizes on the order of a tenth of a thousandth of a trillionth of a millimeter.

It generates a magnetic field more than 100,000 times stronger than the Earth’s and temperature necessary for the LHC’s superconducting magnets to operate is the coldest extended region that we know of in the universe - even colder than outer space. The magnets contain 1,200 tons of superconducting filaments much smaller than a human hair which, if unwrapped, would be long enough to encircle the orbit of Mars. The vacuum inside the proton-containing tubes, a 10 trillionth of an atmosphere, is the most complete vacuum over the largest region ever produced. The LHC uses an amount of electricity required for a small city such as nearby Geneva. The LHC’s $9 billion price tag also makes it the most expensive machine ever built.

"The Reach Of Resonance" screened at the Le Fresnoy – Studio National des Arts Contemporains in Tourcoing, France on January 28th and 29th, 2012.


http://www.lefresnoy.net/

“The Reach Of Resonance” screened at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art in Israel on February 4th, 2012 as an official selection of the EPOS International Film Festival.

Additional info: http://www.filmart.co.il/en/movies/reach-resonance

EPOS International Film Festival: http://www.filmart.co.il/en

"The Reach Of Resonance" screened at the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C. on March 15th and 16th, 2012 as an official selection of the DC Environmental Film Festival.

More info here: http://www.dcenvironmentalfilmfest.org/films/show/758

"The Reach Of Resonance" screened at the If You Say So Festival in Bydgoszcz, Poland on March 22nd, 2012.

More info here: http://www.wetmusic.pl/projekty-realizowane/if-you-say-so.html

A study of some of my artistic endeavors, including music, photography, and writing, was the focus of a seminar for graduate students at Cal State Long Beach on April 10th. "The Reach Of Resonance" was screened in its entirety prior to discussion with the students about their work.

Starting on April 16th, 2012, The Earth Day Network partnered with Candela Films to promote “The Reach Of Resonance” globally as a part of their “Arts For The Earth” program, which aims to broaden and diversify both the arts and environmental awareness.

For more info about the Earth Day Network and “Arts For The Earth,” visit: http://www.earthday.org/

One of the artists in “The Reach Of Resonance,” Glenn Weyant, has been turning the U.S. / Mexico border wall into a giant musical instrument for people on both sides of the border. Glenn's work was filmed for “One Day On Earth,” in which people in every country on the planet were asked to document the world around them on the same day.

On April 22, 2012 (Earth Day), the film became the first in history to be screened in every country in the world on the same day, with screening locations ranging from the United Nations General Assembly Hall in New York, to Afghanistan, to a football field in Belize, to CERN's Large Hadron Collider.

The incredible trailer can be viewed here: http://vimeo.com/37157765

More on Glenn Weyant's work at: http://www.sonicanta.com

Science Magazine wrote a glowing review of "The Reach Of Resonance" in its April 27, 2012 issue. The following is a sample from the review:

“Have you ever heard Earth’s magnetic field as melody or listened to a plant as part of a musical ensemble? What would an urban riot sound like if transcribed for string quartet? Can a piece of music be defined by geographic rather than chronologic length? Through its examination of the role of environment in the creation of music, and the deeper exploration of the environments created by these sounds, the film achieves its goal of finding meaning in music beyond mere aesthetic pleasure.”

The New Jersey Institute of Technology will be screening "The Reach Of Resonance" in 2012, hosted by David Rothenberg who makes music with birds and whales (see diagram).


http://www.davidrothenberg.net/

"The Reach Of Resonance" screened in London, Oxford, and Milton Keynes UK as an official selection of the OXDOX International Film Festival, which took place from April 27th to May 25th.

Excerpts from “The Reach Of Resonance” were presented at the Huntington Library in San Marino, California on May 6th, 2012, in a presentation called “Art Off The Radar," alongside the work of other selected sculptors, photographers, painters, filmmakers, soundscape composers, and musicians.

Some photographs from the event are here: http://candelafilms.wordpress.com/2012/05/07/the-reach-of-resonance-at-the-huntington-library-museum-2/


http://www.huntington.org/

"The Reach Of Resonance" screened at University of California Davis on May 10th, 2012 with featured Reach of Resonance artist Bob Ostertag and myself in attendance for Q&A.

"The Reach Of Resonance" screened at the UC Irvine Contemporary Arts Center in Orange County, California on May 16th, 2012.


http://www.uci.edu/galleries/cac/

"The Reach Of Resonance" screened at The Ultimate Picture Palace in Oxford, England on May 19th.

“The Reach Of Resonance” screened at the University of Social Sciences and Humanities in Warsaw, Poland on May 19th, 2012.


http://www.swps.pl/english/

"The Reach Of Resonance" screened at the Mal Seh'n Kino Cinema in Frankfurt, Germany on June 27th, 2012. More info here: http://www.malsehnkino.de/index.php?section=preview

It was an honor to receive a standing ovation from the packed theater. Audience members expressed reactions of “hope” and invigoration. It has been exciting to see how “The Reach Of Resonance” has continued to communicate across languages and cultures.

Thanks to Bernd Herzogenrath for working so hard to translate the film into German. You can take a look at Bernd's book on the music of John Luther Adams here: http://www.amazon.com/The-Farthest-Place-Music-Luther/dp/1555537634

"The Reach Of Resonance" screened on July 1st, 3rd, and 6th, 2012 in the Czech Republic as an official selection of the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, one of the largest film festivals in central and eastern Europe, and one of the oldest in the world (begun in 1946).


http://www.kviff.com/en/news/

“The Reach Of Resonance” screened at Seattle's Northwest Film Forum on July 2nd and 3rd.


http://www.nwfilmforum.org/

My 25-page feature article for the summer 2012 issue of Cadence Magazine, titled "Where Aural Maps Collide", was released on July 1st, 2012. In addition to transcriptions of interviews I conducted with musicians all over Australia doing things you probably never knew were possible, I explore the idea that: "Creative music is the sound of our struggles against the limitations of our bodies, our technology, our language, and our geography. It is the imprint we leave on our social confines. It can transport us to a height where we look down and see how impotent such fences really are. At that altitude, those on all sides of fences may experience music as a celebration that we 'own' nothing, but share much."

You can read a sample of the article for free at Cadence's website: http://www.cadencejazzmagazine.com/

On July 29th, 2012, "The Reach Of Resonance" screened at the historic Grauman's Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood, site of the first Hollywood premiere in 1922 and home of the American Cinematheque and Los Angeles Filmforum.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grauman%27s_Egyptian_Theatre

On August 7, 2012, "The Reach Of Resonance" returned to Washington DC with a screening at Bloombars, followed by Q&A with fence musician Jon Rose and myself via Skype (from Australia and Los Angeles respectively).

Run by a volunteer group of artists and community leaders who believe strongly in the power of the arts to improve the community, Bloombars programs include Monday morning poetry sharing for kids, enabling them to start their school day inspired by reading and hearing poetry from other kids as far away as Brazil and Bangalore via teleconference, a Hip Hop Education Literacy Program (H.E.L.P.) that allows students to explore international social justice themes through the innovative analysis of inspired Hip Hop lyrics, and a Sunrise Cinema (from 2am to 6am) where community members can sober up to international cinema until the morning metro starts, rather than drive home drunk.


http://www.bloombars.com

Santa brought “The Reach Of Resonance” to El Paso, Texas on August 31st, 2012, with a screening at Glasbox.

"The Reach Of Resonance" screened at the "Noise - Geräusch - Bruit" Conference: Media and Cultures of Unstructured Sound in Erlangen, Germany on September 18, 2012.

A glowing full page review of "The Reach Of Resonance" was published in the September / October 2012 issue of Film Comment, right in between articles on two film makers I admire: David Lynch and Chris Marker.

In addition to reminisces on a ukulele lesson, coining the phrase "cockroach lap dances", and the observation that "I now completely understood why Dylan going electric was such a dick move", the reviewer reports that: "Elkins shows with a subtle, essayistic style how avoidance of 'consensus music' allows for deeper forms of affinity...these artists plumb a sensus communis not deranged by narcissism, nationalism, or profit motive...[which] returns music to its origins as a mode of understanding the natural and cosmic."

On October 25 and 26th, 2012, "The Reach Of Resonance" screened at Postmutart Fest, held at Nitra Gallery in Slovakia.

For more info: http://nitrianskagaleria.sk/o-nas/nitrianska-galeria/?lang=en

"The Reach Of Resonance" screened at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music on November 28th, 2012.