Gerry Fialka is an American experimental filmmaker, curator, lecturer, interviewer, and writer. He lectures and leads workshops on experimental film, avant-garde music and art, subversive social media, James Joyce (Finnegans Wake), and Marshall McLuhan’s percepts. He was Frank Zappa’s archivist and production assistant for ten years. LA Weekly has described Fialka as a “cultural revolutionary”. (Wikipedia)
Fialka founded the PXL THIS festival to feature films made with the Fisher-Price PXL 2000 toy camera that debuted in 1987. The PXL2000 toy camera uses audio cassettes to record video and was adopted in the 1990s by experimental filmmakers. Established in 1991, the festival continues to draw attention to filmmaking outside the mainstream, and is being hybridized with digital media.
"PXL THIS is one of the longest-running film festivals in LA, the entertainment capital of the world. Celebrating "cinema povera" moving image art, it evokes Marcel Duchamp's axiom "Poor tools require better skills." Pixelators from across the globe hoick up inventive approaches to the unassuming throw-away of consumer culture. These low-tech hi-jinx films come through loud and clear by reframing a new cinema language. "If movies offer an escape from everyday life, Pixelvision is the Houdini of the film world." - SF Weekly
Fialka donated the PXL THIS archive including festival entries and other materials to UCSB's Performing Arts and Moving Image Archives where they can be preserved and made accessible to researchers.
Fialka has also donated his archive containing interviews and oral histories conducted by Fialka documenting music, film, art, comedy, media, and politics.
The collections are currently being processed and a finding guide is in preparation.
For more information on the collection or assistance in using the materials, please contact Special Research Collections staff at special@library.ucsb.edu.
