27. Barron Sherer

In honor of our Artopia party on February 10, Cultist proudly presents “100 Creatives,” where we feature Miami’s cultural superheroes in random order. Have suggestions for future profiles? Email cultist@miaminewtimes.com with the whos and whys.

27. Barron Sherer
Well-known film critics call Barron Sherer’s knowledge of film history “encyclopedic.” That may be because Barron Sherer got to toil around the film archives at the Lynn and Louis Wolfson II Florida Moving Archives as its archives curator and preservationist for 11 years. As a curator and preservationist, he researched moving images for Oscar-nominated films, including The Weather Underground and Milk. As all talented film junkies eventually do, Sherer decided to start

making his own celluloid works for posterity.

His contributions to the

annals of film history include Party Trick (1995), The Eden Project (2003), and Consumption Junction (2006). His works have shown at the Miami Beach Cinematheque and MOCA’s Optic Nerve.
Even

though he’s kept busy as an auteur, he still manages to put together

film workshops and exhibits. He teaches 16mm film collage techniques to

aspiring Kenneth Angers at film workshops and he recently curated the

film series “Searching for Security in an Insecure World” at the

Wolfsonian and co-programs a pop-up cinema event “Super 8 Night”

with artist Kevin Arrow at Bas Fisher Invitational and other venues.

Follow Barron Sherer on Twitter and Facebook.

1. List five things that inspire you.
-My sons-Manny Farber-Rose Hobart by Joseph Cornell-Sans Soleil by Chris Marker-Fight Fire by The Golliwogs 
2. What was your last big project?
I have been pleased with the response to my last few 16mm film installations. They led to new opportunities, screenings, and collaborations with other artists. It feels right showing in Miami now. It’s not so much like toiling in obscurity, doing this marginal thing anymore…A testament to the increasing interest of local institutions and audiences in moving image art is the fact there were tons of eyeballs on my Wall Street Neu! film at last Summer’s Optic Nerve program at the Museum of Contemporary Art in North Miami. The place was packed with patrons to see strong and diverse work by local artists. I had to rub my eyes.
3. What’s your next big project?
I am in the middle of another found-footage exploration and recontextualization (fancy talk for film loop). This project refines the techniques used in my last piece by involving heavy duty photochemical processing and the production of a 45 rpm record soundtrack. A contemporary experimental musician, who blows my mind, Graham Lambkin, is working with me on the sound and record production. The working title is Robert Wagner in Freak Outs and Fever Dreams and the 16mm film is based on a hard boiled and gently psychedelic detective film made for television in the mid 1960s. Also, local artist Nicole Martinez and I want to cook up a circuit bending and projector performance where live sound is created from the reaction of photoresistors to the light and dark of projected loops. Geeky fun.

4. Why do you do what you do?
My creative experience has always included the manipulation and presentation of moving image materials and there are impressions of my experience that I enjoy sharing. Where are these things that I’ve seen, created or shared going to take someone else? Films beget films. There’s something exciting about it.
5. What’s something you want Miami to know about you?
See answers 1- 4 and I have the singing voice of an angel.
What’s something you don’t want Miami to know about you?
I am the 440,428,035 viewer of the Justin Bieber video, “Baby” on YouTube.
The Creatives so far:

28. Brigid Baker
29. Daniel Fila
30. McLaine Oberhellmann
31. Fro Rojas
32. Annie Hollingsworth
33. Preston Allen
34. Cristina Molina
35. David Josef Tamargo
36. Jillian Mayer
37. Alfonso Vega
38. Natasha Lopez de Victoria
39. Aholsniffsglue

40. Heather Maloney
41. Jorge Rubiera
42. Elaine Lancaster
43. Nick Duckart
44. Danielle Estefan
45. John Dufresne
46. Monica Lopez de Victoria
47. Bill Bilowit
48. Alette Simmons-Jimenez
49. Tawnie Silva
50. Ginger Bardot
51. Jonathan David Kane
52. Naomi Fisher
53. Rocky Grimes
54. Teresa Barcelo
55. Paul Tei
56. Lee Materazzi