Sylvania

In Sylvania, we find ourselves in the interiors of the 1960s television series Bewitched, a space like an implanted memory now occupied by spirographic mandalas, a prowling alien (protector or intruder?), a naked woman (asleep or dead?). An unshaven figure who might be the video maker or his double looms like a cyborg in nebulous space. His movements make us wonder if he is an apprentice to the robot-like figure, or the puppet master of the scene, a paradox like the role of television itself – reflective, instructive and/or indoctrinating. – Mark MacElhatten Sylvania premiered at the 2005 New York Film Festival, Views of the Avant Garde and had its international premiere at the 2006 International Film Festival Rotterdam. In the next chapter of Bobby Abate’s mysterious lo-fi cyborg tale, we find ourselves roaming the set of a 1960’s evening newscast. The mysterious unearthly being has claimed a new test subject and is making use of the station’s control room in attempt to communicate and perhaps reunite with his unshaven counterpart.