T.S.H. (2004)

6 min. 22 sec. on 16 mm b/w

Director/producer/editor: Jesse Lerner

Text: Kyn Taniya a.k.a. Luis Quintanilla (1924)

Voice-over: Juan José Gurrola

“T.S.H.” is a short experimental film based on the Estridentista poem by Luis Quintanilla (a.k.a. Kyn Taniya). The Estridentistas were a vanguard group similar to and influenced by the more familiar Dadaists and Futurists. The Estridentistas share with these other radical art movements the rejection of tradition–of Naturalism, Realism and Romanticism–in favor of estrangement and fragmentation. Like the Russian Constructivism that thrived in the early years of the Soviet Union , they saw their art as part of a larger project of sweeping social transformation, the building of a new, industrial, egalitarian society. As was the case with the A still from the film T.S.H. by Jesse LernerFuturists, the Estridentistas were fascinated by the machine age, movement, electricity and the industrial esthetic. They were based, however, in the pre-industrial towns of Xalapa (in the state of Veracruz ) and Puebla , far from the smokestacks and foundries of the European urban centers that inspired F. T. Marinetti and his cohorts. “T.S.H.” is an homage to a poorly-tuned radio, and finds transcendence, excitement and beauty in the ether.