At 8 PM on Friday, August 25, the Goose Island design studio Lost Arts will host a new screening project called Destroy Your Art, in which five local filmmakers will present new short films, then destroy the hard drives on which they were recorded immediately after screening them. Organized by the husband-and-wife team of local filmmaker Jack Newell and entrepreneur Rebecca Fons, Destroy Your Art represents a rebuke to the individualized nature through which people regard films today. “So much of the film industry is built around DVD, Blu-Ray, and video on demand,” Newell explains. “When you’re making films, you have to think about how many units can you sell and how well [the film] will last over repeat viewings. What we’re suggesting with this project is antithetical to how filmmakers work now.”
The organizers have yet to see any of the films they’re going to show at the end of the month. They plan to see them for the first time just before the audience does, when they test the projection for the event. Newell and Fons are excited not to know what they’ll be screening; they have faith in the participants to deliver interesting results. “We just want them to explore whatever story or genre they want to,” Fons says. “We’re hoping that [in doing so], they may be inspired to alter their approach in how they work.” Newell adds, “There’s no wrong answer to this. However they interpret the process is right. We’ve talked to all of the filmmakers about their ideas, and we’ve just nodded at whatever they’ve said.”
