Catalogue > At random

Shot at the World’s Largest Truckstop in Walcott, Iowa, the film contemplates the interiors of a Midwestern highway rest stop, creating an essayistic portrait of a familiar site of travel and transience. With fixed attention toward the ideological overtones pressed to the surface in the objects for sale, Travel Stop examines how identity is called upon, regressed, emptied, overburdened, or parceled when traversing the non-places along the US interstate. “ That the world of things can open itself to reveal a secret life ” indeed to reveal a set of actions and hence a narrativity and history outside the given field of perceptionis a constant daydream that the miniature presents. This is the daydream of the microscope: the daydream of life inside life, of significance multiplied infinitely within significance.

Mike Gibisser is a filmmaker and artist interested in navigating the indefinite lines between essay, narrative, experimental, and documentary work, often drawing together disparate subjects or time periods. In the past 10 years, he has completed two narrative features (Finally, Lillian and Dan and World of Facts), a feature film essay (The Day of Two Noons), as well as several experimental and non-fiction shorts. He has presented work at numerous galleries and festivals around the world, including the International Oberhausen Film Festival, the Harvard Film Archive, Tony Wight Gallery, Block Cinema, the AFI Film Festival, the Images Film Festival, the European Media Arts Festival, threewalls gallery, and the New York Film Festival. His work has been featured in Artforum, Variety, and Cinemascope, amongst other publications. He currently teaches at the University of Iowa and runs the Headroom Screening Series dedicated to bringing filmmakers to local audiences to present challenging and experimental new work.