Paris/Berlin/Bratislava

The Rencontres Internationales Paris/Berlin are invited by the international festival Art Film, Slovakia, to present a seminar for slovakian art and film school' students.
www.artfilm.sk

Sunday 1st of July, 2006
From 10am to 1pm
at the Kursalon
Seminar is presented by Nathalie Hénon, co-director and co-curator of the Rencontres Internationales Paris/Berlin.


SCREENING PROGRAM:


Theodore TAGHOLM : Photographic Memory
Experimental video | dv | colour | 0:02:52
United Kingdom | 2001

The work is an analysis of the sublime act of perceiving. Based on a structuralist animation technique which enables the frame to evolve. The work encompasses the ambiguity of humans vision with two eyes, challenging the finality of the photograph. Photographic memory is primarily concerned with the objects and environs encountered in a day.The work is an analysis of the sublime act of perceiving. Based on a structuralist animation technique which enables the frame to evolve. The work encompasses the ambiguity of humans vision with two eyes, challenging the finality of the photograph. Photographic memory is primarily concerned with the objects and environs encountered in a day.
"I was born in 1978. I did a foundation in fine art at Chelsea School of Art and then did a BA honours degree in fine art at Middlesex University. I am a London based artist. My work is shown in a variety of contexts from traditional galleries to alternative spaces such as cinemas, shoping centres and 20 foot outdoor LCD screens. Having trained as a painter, the majority of my work relates to the structure of seeing and the meditative practice of life drawing. I developed the animation technique that I use over several years , it aims to enable the viewer to look at looking. My work includes video, painting, collage, photography and writing based works. I have completed several private painting commissions. I have also made video work for television programmes and night clubs."



Johanna DOMKE : Let the wind blow
Experimental video | dv | colour | 0:03:19
Germany, Costa Rica | 2003

On top of a windy hill, two motionless human figures overlook a valley with a teeming big city. One is standing up, the other sits on the ground, the distance between them too large to evoke a sense of togetherness. The clouds race across the sky, the night falls like a brick and thousands of lights gleam at once in the valley before dawn breaks, the sun flies up and a new day begins. All the while, the two figures remain absolutely still before the unfolding scenery. Only the wind blows in their clothes and their hair.
Johanna Domke is a german artist based in Copenhagen and Berlin. After studying Fine Art at the Muthesius Academy for Art and Design in Kiel, Johanna Domke went on to graduate studies at the Royal Art Academy in Copenhagen and the Malmö Art Academy, Sweden, where she got her MA in 2004. In 2003 she received the ZKM International Media Art Award, Audience Prize, for her single-channel piece "Let the wind blow" and the Brockmann Prize from the Stadtgalerie Kiel. 2004 she got the Edstranska Grant for Graduating Students and the Assistent Grant from the Swedish Arts Council. Johanna Domke`s work has been broadly shown in exhibitions, video festivals and art fairs in Europe and the US. She is represented by Gallery Art Agents in Hamburg.


Stephen ARTHUR : Tran Scan
Experimental video | dv | colour | 0:08:15
Canada | 2003

A new technique of telescopic travelling time-lapse cinematography creates a "flight" across Canada that thrills audiences and reveals Canada's geography like you've never it seen before. Tran Scan is an experiential trip never before captured on camera: a stunning cross-Canada journey, a cosmic zoom, a geography lesson, a secret ingredient. Tran Scan is a handmade film constructed frame by frame. No motion picture camera of any kind was used in the making of this film. Experimental animated documentary. A film without words. The telescope becomes a microscope... and a stethoscope. A new way of seeing. A celebration and a memorial. Reanimate your sensibilities. Rebalance your perspective. Tran Scan is like nothing else.
Stephen Arthur has a Master of Fine Arts degree in Film Production from the University of Southern California. Arthur directed the National Film Board of Canada production Transfigured, 1998, 35mm.


Patrick HEBRARD : Double Bind
Video art | dv | colour | 0:03:43
France | 2004

The shooting method and the double-bind editing highlight the way different kinds of pressure and forces play with a body within a space. When entitled Double-bind T-V, this video work can be shown as an installation for two TV screens placed side by side on a pedestal like a sculpture. This piece belongs to a series called "les vidéosculptures".
I launched three construction sites one after the other and they now co-exist on a two-way path linking video and sculpture: sculpture construction site, video construction site in which a body is physically faced with paradoxical ad nonsensical objects or spaces, videosculpture construction site where sculpture, space and video blend under the shape of carved images: actions that were initially videoprojected are now "performed" according to the shape of the sculpture-screens on which the videos are projected.


Philippe-Denis BEAUBOIS : Terminal Image1- The fall from Matavai
Video art | dv | colour | 0:01:30
Australia | 2004

In the Fall from Matavai, the action of falling (physically and symbolically) is explored. The work is seen as a release to forces outside our control. Each step, tainted by the passing of history, reflects oppositional forces against a dominant vision. The fall from Matavai explores the remnants of past hopes, and their grand ideals, which have long since been discredited by history. The fall, in this case, is the collapse of modernism, the dream of mass democratised housing gone wrong. The work also explores the recorded image as 'Terminal Vision' where physical event is destroyed in order to consolidate itself with the process of recording.
Born in Mauritius 1970 Has worked as video and performance artist in Australia and internationally for the past 11 years. He is a member of performance ensemble GravityFeed and has worked with. the Post Arrivalists and Gekidan Kaitaisha. His works have been screened / performed internationally in festivals and galleries such as; 1997: The Cleveland Festival of Performance Art as a featured Artist (USA). 1998: Bonn Videonale, (Germany) where he was awarded first prize. EMAF (Germany). Fimform (Germany). Dokumentar festival (Germany).1999: Arco Electronico (Spain). Artist Unlimited eV Bielefeld (Germany). 2000: Darklight film festival (Ireland). Canberra Contemporary Artspace (AUST). Center For Contemporary Photography, Melbourne (AUS). Linden Arts Center, Victoria (AUST). 2001: ZKM, received Special award for the Mediunkunst preis 2001 (Germany). 2002: Kunsthaus Zurich. 2003: Museum Ludwig Koeln (Germany). 2004: Transmediale (Germany). D Art04 Sydney Film Festival. (AUST).2005: Adelaide Film Festival (Aust), ParaSite Art Space (Hong-Kong).


SEMICONDUCTOR : Sound of Microclimate
Experimental video | dv | colour | 0:09:00
United Kingdom, France | 2004

"The Sound of Microclimates" reveals the sights and sounds of a series of unusual weather patterns in the Paris of today. Here, architecture has become interwoven with the natural processes of the geographical landscape. Set within the un-noticed moments in time, extreme microclimates are presented as the future in city accessories, revealing the unseen urban terrains of tomorrow. Like the temporary staged events at a World Expo these weather patterns hi-light public spaces and architecture within the City or Paris. They exist as a series of weather observations that animate the evolution of the inanimate urban condition. Each microclimatic intervention has its own audible frequencies, where the sound from each environment animates the movement and reveals each sites unique narrative.
Semiconductor are artists Ruth Jarman and Joseph Gerhardt who have been working together since 1996, producing short films, music, art installations and performances. Originally established as a music orientated collaboration, Semiconductor soon began to work on what has become their self titled Sound Films series, where relationships between audio and image have been consistently explored. They tackle the strucural relationships between music and architecture that transform soundscapes to landscapes and explore ideas of evolving landscapes that cross urban and rural boundaries. Finely crafted digital work is combined with analogue processes that tailor the randomness and errors within computer systems as co-conductor. Recently they have been exploring a variety of new environments through Artist residencies and site specific Artworks.


Jem FINER, Ansuman BISWAS : Zero Genie
Experimental video | dv | colour | 0:09:53
United Kingdom | 2002

Zero Genies Ansuman Biswas and Jem Finer piggybacked the Russian Cosmonaut training program in order to explore the possibilities of flight in time honoured mythical fashion - for 1000's of years shamanistic / religous practices have enabled humans to travel across the most far flung reaches of the universe.Within the belly of a Russian transport plane they explore archetypes of flight and carpet flying myth. On a shoe string budget, with mental discipline and Russian hospitality, they defy gravity and military industrial economics.
Jem Finer is an artist and musician working in diverse fields. A founder member of The Pogues, he wrote, toured and recorded until 1995 when he left the band to explore more experimental possibilities in sound, performance and vision. Recent and on going work includes Longplayer (www.longplayer.org), a 1000 year long composition which started to play on the 1st January 2000, the score for North Sea Circle, a film by Alexander Gorlizki and Richard Coldman in which he also acts, ghostones, a multi channel recording for Kiasma, Helsinki, performance and installation in zero gravity in collaboration with Ansuman Biswas and oz, a live visual and sonic reworking of the Wizard of Oz. Ansuman Biswas was born in Calcutta and now lives in London. He is active in a very wide variety of contexts including music, film, dance, installation and text-based theatre, working as a composer, director and performer. Recent art works include CAT, a comparative study of quantum physics and the Indian science of vipassana meditation. For this piece the artist was sealed, with nothing but drinking water, in a lightproof and soundproof box for ten days. This piece was followed by Self/Portrait, a live artwork using computers, video imagery, ECG machines and meditative practices to explore the links between emotions and physicality. Ansuman is currently making a new large-scale work, Array, inspired by meditation, radio astronomy and the search for extra-terrestrial intelligence. It consists of twelve bowls placed in a circle of 4,000 mile radius, centred on the Mariana Trench in the Pacific Ocean, transforming the planet earth into an eyeball.


Pascal LIEVRE : Abba Mao
Experimental video | dv | colour | 0:04:30
France | 2001

Pascal Liévre carries out a playback of a song, "Abba Mao", standing in front of a red background while painting his face the same red. Text by Mao Zedong (extract of quotes from the Little Red Book, chapter XXXII - Culture and art, 1966. Music by Abba (Money, money, money, Benny Anderson and Björn Ulvaeus, 1976, Polar Music International - Universal France).
Visual artist Pascal Lièvre works on different media and has been making videos since year 2000. Abba Mao is his second film. Pascal Lièvre works on the history of representation in painting and develops a reflection on how a story is told. He links different levels of language in painting as well as in videos and in certain installations, creating meeting places for these levels.


Dave GRIFFITH : Rogue State
Video art | dv | colour | 0:02:15
United Kingdom | 2003

In March 2003, after the bombardment of Baghdad, a list of vetoed UN resolutions were hand-inscribed onto DV tape using a magnetic quill. Reinterpreted by the digital apparatus, these marks revealed abstract, lawless sonic and visual explosions - a fluid display of synthetic aerial terror. The action alludes to the shared nature of entertainment and military technology in seeking perfect spectacle whilst shunning error or uncertainty. As compressed light and sound are unleashed in volatile glitches, the work intends to commemorate the abandonment of conventions in both the digital medium and international law.
Dave Griffith was born 1967 in Liverpool, and lives and works in Manchester. He is interested in locating physical or imaginary borders of media forms. His use of video and other materials often arises from laborious or unstable methods, and attempts a painterly approach to light and framing. In seeking out encounters between technology and traditional or abandoned knowledge, he intends to touch upon illusions of security and perfection that surround technologies, and to commemorate their redundant, temporary structures. Since 2001, Dave has exhibited internationally in galleries, artist-run spaces, microcinemas, and festivals, and has run the Pharmakon label for interdisciplinary video and sonic practice. In 2003 he published "CODEC/X", a DVD of new collaborative work from Manchester which toured internationally, and recently helped to develop the 'Purescreen' artist's video programme for Castlefield Gallery, Manchester. He teaches film and video at Manchester Metropolitan University.


Emmanuelle DE HERICOURT : Frankenstein extract in red girls
Experimental video | dv | colour 0:05:15
France, USA | 2001

This short video is based on the movie "Frankenstein" by James Whales (1931). A sound sequence has been kept at the crucial moment when the doctor Frankenstein gives life to his creature. The six actors involved in the original film have been replaced by six identical girls.
Having failed in her plans to become an astronomer, a writer or head of a company, Emmanuelle de Héricourt has started a blazing career in video arts and electronic musics. After living in Paris and Cologne, she has settled in New-York. A pleasant-sounding city name. Since then she has been working on various projects related to re-adapting and diverting pre-existent sources. She is currently collecting B movies and American singers' voices that she manipulates with delight.


Johan GRIMONPREZ : Looking for Alfred
Film expérimental | 16mm | colour | 0:10:00
Belgium | 2005

What's your favorite Hitchcock film? Obsessed with de/reconstructing our corrupted visions of media, celebrity and appearance, Johan Grimonprez assembled a bewildering gaggle of Hitchcock lookalikes, staggering in girth and exacting in attitude, in a quest to find the most accurate specimen. The extent of such an endeavour is matched only by its fiendish yet stylish plot - recording them both in and out of character - whilst the would-be dopplegangers replay a selection of the trademark cameo appearances that Hitch made in his own flicks. The result could be seen as a dethroning of the Master of Suspense or as a celebration of iconography. Just don't take a shower before you see it!
Praised by the London and the New York Times as "an eccentric rollercoaster ride through history," Johan Grimonprez' film Dial H-I-S-T-O-R-Y (1997), -an exploration into the annals of airplane hijacking, garnered 'best director' awards at the San Fransisco Film Festival and Images Toronto. Since its acclaimed premiere at Centre Georges Pompidou (Paris) and Documenta X (Kassel), the film has toured worldwide. The DVD, accompanied by contributions from Don Delillo and Slavoj Zizek, is released by Other Cinema (San Francisco), and in distribution with Facets/Multimedia (Chicago) and Imageforum (Tokyo). Johan Grimonprez is currently a faculty member at the School Of Visual Arts (New York). Acquisitioned by Trio NBC Universal (New York), Arte TV (Germany/France), and Channel 4 (UK), his productions traveled the main festival circuit from Telluride, Tokyo to Berlin. Curatorial projects were host at major exhibitions and museums worldwide such as the Whitney Museum (New York) and Tate Modern (London); and amongst numerous collections they reside at the Centre Georges Pompidou (Paris), the Kanazawa Art Museum (Japan), and the Nationalgallerie (Berlin). He is published with Hatje/Cantz (Germany) and spends his time between New York and Brussels. In collaboration with Anna Sanders Films, (Paris), his production company Zap-O-Matik, is currently launching "Looking For Alfred" (2006), a journey into the world of doppelgangers, starring Ron Burrage, professional Hitchcock look-alike. A first chapter premiered at the Photographer's Gallery (London) and the Palais Des Beaux-Arts (Brussels). Acclaimed by the London Times, a.o., it won first price for the International Media Award 2005 (SWR / ZKM). A forthcoming project "ZUNK®" retraces the history of Happy Endings. Selected for the Rotterdam Cinemart 2003, "Zunk®" is now being developed at the Maurits Binger Film Institute (Amsterdam) with support of the Flemish Filmfund (VAF, Brussels).


HANGOVER LTD : Remake
Experimental fiction | dv | colour | 0:19:20
Germany | 2004

Four women, each looking for what she is missing or escaping from what she has. A night in a bar, the four women, a man, vodka and music. Remake is the latest award-winning film by the Berlin-based filmmaker group Hangover Ltd. Featuring the artists themselves as the films' characters, they achieve a high degree of artificiality by reenacting scenes from John Cassavetes' Faces and relating them to their own lives. The result is an atmospheric and condensed miniature vacillating between hysteria and self-mockery with a boundless pleasure in performance.
Hangover Ltd. - a cooperative of female filmmakers in Berlin - are Christine Groß, Sophie Huber, Ute Schall and Tatjana Turanski. All are comparably responsible for the idea, the conception and the realization. The collective aims at a cinematic debate about the conditions of female self-exploitation. Samples for the productions of Hangover Ltd. are often well-known films - like Cassavetes' Faces for Remake or Fassbinder for Petra. For their productions the four women direct, shoot and and act together.


Reynold REYNOLDS, Patrick JOLLEY : Burn
Experimental fiction | 35mm, dv | colour | 0:10:00
USA, Ireland | 2002

Burn is a narrative collage peopled with devils, angels and allegorical creatures. A house burns from the inside while its occupants focus on the emotional issues of their lives. An architecture of insecurity where the inhabitants serve life sentences with no remission while the impending disaster is ignored.
Burn is the third film Reynold Reynolds and Patrick Jolley have made together. Their second ? The Drowning Room? received an honorable mention at Sundance 2000, won an award at SXSW 2000 and played many major festivals as well as being shown on the Sundance Channel and Canal +. Their first ?Seven Days til Sunday? won an award at SXSW in 1999 as well as playing at other major festivals (Sundance, LA film fest. etc..). Together they have shown their art work in major museums and galleries around the world. Reynold Reynolds is a filmmaker living in New York and Patrick Jolley is an artist living in Ireland.