Directors Lounge Blog

directors lounge monthly screenings “Die Gegenwart ist...

Sun, 22 Nov 2009 19:08:00 -0500

directors lounge monthly screenings

“Die Gegenwart ist nicht die Wirklichkeit”
Present doesn’t Equal Reality

Heiko Daxl und Ingeborg Fülepp
Single Channel Video Works

Thursday, 26 Nov. 2009

21:00
Z-Bar Bergstraße 2

10115 Berlin-Mitte

——-

Present doesn’t Equal Reality

Cinema – Train – Travel – Knowledge – Memory – Perception, these are terms from descriptions of video films by Heiko Daxl and Ingeborg Fülepp. In a nutshell, one could say: it all concerns vision. How has human vision, or better saying visual perception, changed since the invention of cinema and the later developments of all the forthcoming image machines? There is a reason, this program starts with the film “Le Cinema – le Train”, where the filmmakers make the analogy between the views out of the train windows while travelling, as Victor Hugo was describing it (1837) and the experience of film: “The flowers on the edge of the fields are colour spots, or better saying red and white stripes; there are no dots any more, everything turns into stripes. Crop fields become yellow streaks, clover fields appear as long green braids…”

In the ways the two artist feed their “image machines” with texts, it becomes obvious they take vision, or ‘viewing’ as serious matter: there is the connection with opinions, conceptions, point of view and perceptions, all of which in German language have a root in seeing or viewing (Ansichten, Anschauungen, Standpunkte und Sichtweisen). The plurals are intentional here, as with Flusser, it is possible to say that the camera does not allow ideological thinking, as it is not compatible with a single point of view. The art practise of Daxl and Fülepp seems to follow those lines accordingly, as almost with every new video work they experiment with new perspectives; a practise that is not constrained to camera images but that expands to abstractions, compositing and generated imaging. The sources of those images originate in travels, quotes and observations, while they are being processed heavily in post-production. If they appear as simulacra, as simulated worlds, then in does not happen without a critical sometimes ironic distancing. Thus it becomes clear that there still is something else behind those images. Something possibly lost, or conversely, still to be achieved, and which cannot be shown otherwise. Still, with Heiko and Ingeborg, we keep staying very this-worldly: to say it with an adapted quote of Wittgenstein, ‘whereof one cannot portrait in an image, thereof one must not try to picture.’

Thus, the two artists leave us in ambivalence between fascinating image worlds and ironic distance, and the liberty of choices of which perspectives onto the world, which kinds of reality we take on from the films.

What is left to mention is that for their work both artist, who work both independently and together, mostly seek for collaborations with composers from New Music or Noise background, and thus see their works as collaborative sound-image compositions.

The artists will be present for Q&A and for socialising after the screening.
(Klaus W. Eisenlohr)

More infos and images:
http://www.richfilm.de/currentUpload/

Press Links:
http://www.directorslounge.net

http://www.z-bar.de

Artist Links:

media in motion berlin:
http://www.mediainmotion.de

Media-Scape - Zagreb / Novigrad (Cittánova):
http://www.mediascape.info

Strictly Berlin:
http://www.strictly-berlin.de

X-OP
http://www.x-op.eu

La Calle – la Habitación; Urban Research Selection Di 24.11.,...

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 21:03:48 -0500

La Calle – la Habitación; Urban Research Selection

Di 24.11., 19:30

Kommunales Kino Freiburg

Alter Wiehre Bahnhof

Urachstr. 40

79102 Freiburg im Breisgau

—-

La Calle – la Habitación (The Street – the Habitat)

Urban Research at Kommunales Kino Freiburg

The film program Urban Research comprises works of artists who explore urbanity in contemporary cities with experimental means. In recent times, a growing number of contemporary artists have come forward with personal and challenging views onto the changing urban environment. This selection of films brings together films from the realm of Latin lingua, mainly Latin America but also Portugal, Chicago and a Latin enclave in Vienna. The artists’ views reflect daily life and they “deturn” or shift perceptions towards the less ordinary. Some settings appear more common than expected – in certain ways, urban life has become internationally similar and the artists request the audience to read subtleties and notes in between lines.
Presented by Klaus W. Eisenlohr

More infos: http://www.richfilm.de/filmUpload/1-framesURkoki.html

Links: http://www.koki-freiburg.de/

The Carnival of Galleries On 11 November 2009, for the first...

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 21:47:54 -0500

The Carnival of Galleries

On 11 November 2009, for the first time, the Kulturpalast Wedding International will be organizing an art procession as carnival parade: the Carnival of Galleries.

The Carnival of Galleries is a demonstration with the slogan:

art’s dilemma – self-inflicted
How artists help to redevelop the city and, after all, can no longer afford the expensive spaces. We take the procession seriously: The Carnival of Galleries is the exodus of artists from the city. Goodbye!

All Berlin galleries, projects rooms and artists are invited to support our demands with by artist or self-created floats to cross the border from Berlin-Mitte to Wedding. Showcase art, be loud, flaunt banners. And costumes.

The route of the demonstration leads from Brunnenstrasse over Badstrasse, Prinzenallee, and Soldiner Strasse right up to Freienwalder Strasse where a final rally with carnival speeches and participant’s messages will take place between Kulturpalast Wedding International and St. Elisabeth cemetery. Floats with a footprint of 90 x 215 cm (entrance width) will do a round of honour through the rooms of the Kulturpalast.

Subsequently, a costumed panel discussion will be held. Carnival celebrations complete the november Wednesday. In addition, music bands from Wedding will play.

Meeting point and arrangement of the floats is on 11 November 2009 at 11:11 am in Anklamer Strasse, between Strelitzer Strasse and Brunnenstrasse. Shortly afterwards, we turn into Brunnenstrasse.

You may attend with floats, passenger cars, bikes and vehicles of any kind. Banners and art are welcome.

We look forward to your participation. Dress warm!
Kulturpalast Wedding International

Urban Researchpresented by Klaus W. EisenlohrThursday, 05 Nov....

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 18:51:26 -0500

Urban Research
presented by Klaus W. Eisenlohr
Thursday, 05 Nov. 2009
20:00

Medienhaus Hannover e.V.
Schwarzer Bär 6
30449 Hannover

www.medienhaus-hannover.de
0511-441 440

Klaus W. Eisenlohr, artist and filmmaker in Berlin, former Cast & Cut fellow in Hannover, presents a selection of his curated program “Urban Research”. The selection comprises films from France, USA, Mexiko, Hungary, Finland, Germany, United Kingdom and Chile. Artists who explore the relations between built and social space use different forms of experimental and documentary film to express their concerns and views of public space in the city they live in, or in foreign countries. Different forms of close-up documentation or personal alienation to the places give ideas on how space is being used and transformed in contemporary cities. A multi-faceted show with both witty and subversive perspectives on urban architecture.

http://www.medienhaus-hannover.de
http://www.directorslounge.net
more infos and images:
http://www.richfilm.de/currentUpload/index.html

The Dream Of The Japanese Beauty

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 23:53:00 -0400

The Dream Of The Japanese Beauty, André Werner, 2009
Installation, overhead transparency, water, feather, vibrator, light, dimensions variable

A fairy at the fair

The Dream Of The Japanese Beauty will be shown as part of the opening of the c.a.r., the contemporary art Ruhr on Fri. Oct 30th.

directors lounge monthly screenings antipodean reactionsfilm...

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 20:26:00 -0400

directors lounge monthly screenings

antipodean reactions
film reports from the deep south

Chris Henschke and Donna Kendrigan

Thursday, 29 Oct. 2009
21:00

Z-Bar
Bergstraße 2
10115 Berlin-Mitte

Tonight, we will experience two very different aspects of Australian culture: Art meets science in the works of Chris Henschke and Donna Kendrigan, Australian artists from Melbourne. Donna recreated the first metereological cloud formation experiment in front of her camera. Chris inserted a lightbulb into the beams of a particle accelerator during his residency at the Australian Synchrotron, and documented the effects. The results of these experiments will be presented at the screening. However, Donna and Chris also have a very different interest. This will be shown in the second part of the night.

“Deep South” is a montage of shorts and features from the southern end of the Australian continent. A selection of degenerate yet distinctive moments in Australian film starting from 1906, paints an unashamedly unglamorous and unfamiliar portrait of Australia for the European audience - a new anti-touristic angle on Australia as opposed to the usual image of a fun and friendly holiday destination.

The artists are personally introducing the films and will be present for Q&A after the screening.

More infos at:

http://www.richfilm.de/filmUpload/1-framesHenschke.html

Artist’s Links:
www.topologies.com.au

Press Links:
Z-Bar - http://www.z-bar.de/
Directors Lounge

meet us at the contemporary art ruhr (C.A.R.), October 30th -...

Tue, 06 Oct 2009 14:47:00 -0400

meet us at the contemporary art ruhr (C.A.R.), October 30th - November 1st, 2009, Welterbe Zollverein XII, Essen

Directors Lounge proudly presents:Daniel Cockburn-...

Fri, 25 Sep 2009 17:30:00 -0400

Directors Lounge proudly presents:
Daniel Cockburn
- zerofunctional video work -

Z-Bar
Bergstraße 2
10115 Berlin-Mitte

Wednesday, 30 September 2009
21:00

Directors Lounge presents Canadian artist Daniel Cockburn, a current fellow at DAAD Berliner Künstlerprogramm. Daniel Cockburn often appears in his own films and also is the author of his screenplays. He is not playing himself, but he enacts the main character of his script. “I am interested in this blank face without emotions. It becomes a projection surface for anything that happens in the film, like the Kuleshov Effect”.

His films seem to exist in-between genres. Some of the emotional settings in his films possibly recall psychological mind-sets of science fiction novels of authors like Stanislaw Lem, without having any of the stage designs of Sci-fi films. They do not play in “future times”; however, they envision for example loops of recurring scenes as a maze without exit, or the editing of a film as something the protagonist of the film becomes aware of.

Another strategy of the filmmaker is appropriation. That is most visible in films made of “found footage”; but also in his camera films, he “steals” ideas from other texts, films or music. It thus may lead to interesting interpretations that in his latest project, “You Are Here” – a feature film that is starring actors and uses stage design again – finding and archiving material play a big role in the narration. A story that again imparts some claustrophobic suspense along with scepticism towards simple narratives.

A further border crossing may be Daniel’s involvement with performance art. Here, his interest in direct relations between written text, body and voice become even more apparent.

On Sept. 30, Daniel Cockburn will present at Z-Bar the short films in which he took more liberty and a thus more experimental stance than in some of his other films. And we will see one episode of his upcoming feature “You Are Here” as a preview. The filmmaker will be present at the screening for introduction and Q&A after the show.

(Klaus W. Eisenlohr)

More infos and details at: www.richfilm.de

Artist’s Links:
http://zerofunction.com/

Press Links:
Z-Bar - http://www.z-bar.de/

DL at the 06. BERLINER KUNSTSALON

Tue, 22 Sep 2009 08:21:43 -0400

Directors Lounge at the 06. BERLINER KUNSTSALON

Julia Murakami, The Japanese Guerilla Paparazzi, an ongoing public intervention, Jerusalem, Wailing Wall, May 2009

Beside “beflowered” by André Werner and Daniel Schubert, Directors Lounge will present some visual highlights from filmmaker and video-artist from all over the world. Just to mention the 1965 documentary “Peep Show” by J.X.Williams, an exploitation filmmaker with a storied past. “Peep Show”, a kind of spiritual vortex of sub rosa Americana surrounding the Kennedy assassination, tells a tangled tale of a rigged 1960 election, secret C.I.A. training camps in the Florida outback, sex stings in Mafia hotels and a little-known Mob plot to addict Frank Sinatra to heroin. Geddit?

J.X. Williams, Peep Show, 1965, © J.X. Williams Archive

We exhibit On by Aram Bartholl

Stunden Glas by Wolfgang Spahn

›TERRACOTTA WARRIOR‹ 2006 by Pablo Wendel »

courtesy brouwer-edition

And finally the hand-cut Japanese Guerilla Paparazzi by Julia Murakami will show up, the complete bunch of 1500, just to take a short break from their world tour before heading for India.

06. BERLINER KUNSTSALON September 22nd - 27th, 2009

Humboldt Umspannwerk
Kopenhagener Str. 58 / Sonnenburger Str. 73
10437 Berlin (Prenzlauer Berg)

via www.richfilm.de Directors Lounge Screenings at Z-BarAlice...

Sat, 15 Aug 2009 06:31:52 -0400

via www.richfilm.de

Directors Lounge Screenings at Z-Bar

Alice and the Possible Cities
conceptual film tales
by Lemeh42

Short video works by the Italian artist group Lemeh42, aka Michele Santini & Lorenza Paolini.

Thursday, 20 August 2009
21:00
Z-Bar
Bergstraße 2
10115 Berlin-Mitte
Doors: € 5/ conc. € 4

Artist Link: http://lemeh42.indivia.net/

Lemeh42, a couple and art group from Senigallia, Italy, are presenting their work on video at Directors Lounge at Z-Bar. The program consists of charming, witty and divers short films. From “Alice in Wonderland” to “Study on Human Form and Humanity #01”, the range of touched genres in video and film history is amazingly wide. What makes the work specifically fresh and enjoyable, yet, is the tension between straight, conceptual thinking and a fairy-tale-like romanticism that relates to childhood experiences and fantasies. “Our childhood is like the fundamental years in our lives in which we have prepared everything and now we are using all that material to create our stories.” The work seems to fluctuate between the two concepts, which - as Michele admits - reflect their different characters, Michele being the rational conceptual part and Lorenza the romantic-melancholic one. Still, the two concepts always mix, as all their work is collaborative in different ways, in sometimes surprising ways, thus giving all of the video work both a dreamlike atmosphere and a stringent structure, plus, and in addition, a spicy taste of fine humour or irony. In these ways, the couple likes to make statements on our “reality”. Just, as they state, “we have matured our own point of view of reality and its inhabitants.”

Another element bringing the different pieces together is the collaboration with the musician Marco Scattolini (www.myspace.com/marcoscattolini), whose music for the films is largely based on piano compositions with additional arrangements of electronic or natural instruments.

Michele Santini/ Lemeh42 will be present at the screening, he will tell us about the collaboration with Lorenza Paolini, and of course, be available for Q&A.
(Klaus W. Eisenlohr)

Continue reading: http://www.richfilm.de/filmUpload/1-framesLemeh42.html

Roger Beebe * New Maps of the New World *film and video...

Sun, 12 Jul 2009 19:12:00 -0400

Roger Beebe

* New Maps of the New World *
film and video work
Friday, 17 July 2009
21:00 Uhr
Z-Bar
Bergstraße 2
10115 Berlin-Mitte

New Maps of the New World

Artist Roger Beebe, who also has a background in critical theory, works closely with the cinematographic image, using super-8, 16mm film and video. He accomplishes in his pictures intrinsic beauty and the specific intensity of its medium, small-gauge film. “The formal quality is not enough for me,” he states though; and there, the title of the screening programme comes into being: “New Maps of the New World”. With his program, the filmmaker Beebe presents a much broader sense of “mapping” than in the geographic implications of the word: the layout of structures, certain relations, and an attempt to draw them out without giving ready-made conclusions.

Such a cinematic drawing-out in Roger’s terms may be the “mapping” of spatial designs of strip malls (“Strip Mall Trilogy”), which shape big parts of Americans rural and urban landscape. Or, the visual relations between a well-known land mark on the Californian Coast, Morro Bay and a nearby power plant (“rock/ hard place”). The dance film “A Woman, A Mirror” lays out another, different kind of mapping: it is based on a research on female pilots in the U.S. Air Force in the 40’s and a reflection on gendered technologies, or, technologies of gender. Dance movements addressing the camera in female air force flight formation recall the historical fact that gender rolls were quickly re-established in the old-fashioned division of male and female labour after the war.

Looking at the whole program and at the other films, one may alter the title of the screening program to the question: “Which New World do we come from, which new world are we headed, and, can anybody possibly try to draw a map?” The poetic language of Roger Warren Beebe’s films thus is gratifying in visual and intellectual terms, and may give inspirations to draw our own pattern maps. The artist will be available for Q&A and later social gathering at the bar of Z-Bar.

Artist’s Links:
http://www.clas.ufl.edu/users/rogerbb/

Links:
Flexfest - http://www.flexfest.org/
Z-Bar - http://www.z-bar.de/
More program infos:
http://richfilm.de/filmUpload/1-framesRogerBeebe.html

Members of the audience who are keeping an eye on the Urban Research program at Directors Lounge possibly have already seen a couple of Roger’s films at the festival. And, as a curator and festival director (Flex Fest), he is very interested in the theme of urban mapping. We can possibly look forward to seeing part of that at the upcoming Directors Lounge in February 2010.

(curated by Klaus W. Eisenlohr)

filme aus dem urban research programm bei: urban sho(r)ts — die...

Fri, 26 Jun 2009 08:55:00 -0400

filme aus dem urban research programm bei:

urban sho(r)ts — die lange filmnacht

video screening

Samstag, 27.06.2009
23.00 bis 3.00 Uhr
Passage Kino
Karl-Marx-Straße 131
12043 Berlin-Neukölln

Auszug aus dem Programm:
Im Zentrum der 48 STUNDEN NEUKÖLLN 2009 steht das Verhältnis Stadt-Natur-Mensch. Entsprechend bildete der Aspekt Urbanität einen wesentlichen Ansatzpunkt für die Zusammenstellung der diesjährigen langen Filmnacht. Von hier aus entwickelte sich ein gut dreistündiges Programm aus narrativen, experimentellen und dokumentarischen Kurzfilmen. Die Auswahl erfolgte, sowohl aus eingesandten Beiträgen, als auch aus einem Fundus von interfilm Berlin und dem Urban Research Programm.

Urban Research Contributions:
Thorsten Fleisch, Julie Meyer, Karola Schlegelmilch, Aline Helmcke, Klaus W. Eisenlohr

Links:
http://www.48-stunden-neukoelln.de/2009/de/ortinfo.html?p=291
Komplettes Programm (PDF 432KB)

Urban Research 2009

Directors Lounge at Z-Barcordially invites you:Barbara Rosenthal...

Fri, 19 Jun 2009 08:19:00 -0400

Directors Lounge at Z-Bar
cordially invites you:
Barbara Rosenthal – 33 existential videos
Thursday, 25 June 2009
21:00 Uhr

Z-Bar

BERG STR 2
~~Gartenstraße 2~~

10115 Berlin-Mitte

Barbara Rosenthal
humorous conceptual poetry-and.performance shorts
Including World Premiere of “Dead Heat”

Barbara Rosenthal’s work, on one hand many-fold and widespread over media such as performance, artists’ books, photography, installations and video, on the other hand shows continued commitment in her field and consistency over several decades. If you need proof that art can be genuinely political, even if the artist does not calling themself a “political activist”, or possibly even moreso because they do not, then look at Rosenthal’s work. The collection of her video work over 30 years, a part of which will be presented at Directors Lounge, may possibly be best compared with a witty book of aphorisms. It’s altogether irresistible, it’s thoughtful, and it’s funny, absurd, and at the same time, serious, absolutely. And that’s what she wants to be taken for.

More infos:
http://www.richfilm.de/filmUpload/1-framesBarbaraR.html

Artist’s Links:
http://www.emedialoft.org/artistspages/barbararosenthal.htm
http://the-artists.org/artist/Barbara-Rosenthal

Downloads:

German Press Release

English Press Release

Full Play List

Press Release:

meet us at the c.a.r. 09

Mon, 01 Jun 2009 19:37:00 -0400

the contemporary art ruhr 09

5th - 7th of June, at the Zollverein World Cultural Heritage Site

Once again we participate in the c.a.r., the contemporary art ruhr at the Zollverein World Cultural Heritage Site, formerly known as the “most beautiful coal mine in the world” – and now the best-known industrial monument and centre of the creative economy in the Ruhr Area.

We present Julia Murakami (details of her 1000 Japanese Guerilla Paparazzi trying to capture a snapshot of a rising son in the fortune cookie industry above), beflowered, a google-map-based, interactive net project by André Werner and Daniel Schubert (screenshots below). Ongoing screenings feature assorted highlights from this year´s 5th Berlin International Directors Lounge, the latest edition of One Minute (Vol. 3), curated by Kerry Baldry and video artists represented by the participating galleries.

the c.a.r. as seen through the eye of beflowered

See you at the roses

One Minute at the c.a.r. 09

Mon, 01 Jun 2009 19:29:00 -0400

One Minute Volume 3, curated by Kerry Baldry will be screened during
the c.a.r., the contemporary art ruhr at the Zollverein World Cultural Heritage Site.

Still taken from Nick Jordan’s How The Air Feels

The third in this series is again a stunning collection of artists moving images from all styles and genres, all constrained by a time limit of one minute. The list of artists include several regulars of Directors Lounge, participating with new pieces.

Upside Down World by Marty St. James

Augury by Louisa Minkin

Biljana by Martin Pickles

Locus by Eva Rudlinger

Memo Mori (Extract) by Emily Richardson

Sad by Gordon Dawson

How the air feels to birds by Nick Jordan

Fire-ground by Richrd Touhy

Duet by Alex Pearl

Fellow Traveller by Hollington & Kyprianou

White body by Kayla Parker

Susan printing Wollstonecraft by Katherine Meynell

The Crossroads by Gary Peploe

Box by Rose Butler

The end of the road by Leister / Harris

Untitled by Kerry Baldry

Retro disk chunter by Stuart Pound

Mercury by Samantha Clark

Coot? by Tansy Spinks

Striking Images by Tony Hill

Over Magnetic Island by Steven Ball

Place de la Histoire by Virginia Hilyard

Epic Drag by Dave Griffiths

Verge nocturne by Stuart Moore and Kayla Parker

Landschaft schnell by Daniela Butsch

Dance by Alex Pearl

Arctic Echo by Eva Rudlinger

Honey by Nynke Deinema

A Short History of the Wheel by Tony Hill

16 base by Claire Morales

Detail and Construction by Nicolas Herbert

Robb Loop by Martin Pickles

over The Borough island by Steven Ball

Life by Alex Pearl

Typesetting by Katherine Meynell

G24 - 24G by Matthew Rowe

Oh no, not you again! by Stuart Pound

Dancing Practise Sao Paulo by Tina Keane

Towards a Disarmament by Hollington & Kyprianou

BZ06 by Mark Wigan

Pictura

Mon, 01 Jun 2009 19:27:00 -0400

Directors Lounge Berlin at Pictura in Dordrecht

PICTURA, one of the oldest artist organizations in Holland has her own Directors Lounge, which in fact, was inspired by Directors Lounge Berlin. A visit of the director of PICTURA, Jeanne van der Horst at Directors Lounge 2009 in Berlin gave the inspiration for a visit and presentation in Dordrecht.

On this occasion, and in the tradition of Directors Lounge both in Berlin and Dordrecht, the curator Klaus W. Eisenlohr put together a program with an emphasis in his field of attention, Urban Research. The selection was drawn from the main program of Directors Lounge, from his own program Urban Research, and from the program of Rattapallax, New York. Directors Lounge, which had its fifth anniversary this year, has actually become quite influenced by the theme of Urban Research, which is part of the program for now 3 years. On the other hand, Directors Lounge’s mission, to be an open platform and to bring together media arts, video installation and experimental film, genres, which have been well established in arts but separated for decades will be well presented through this exhibition and screening at PICTURA.

more here

Directors Lounge presents:º¨¨º dagie brundert - summer in the...

Tue, 21 Apr 2009 17:48:03 -0400

Directors Lounge presents:
º*¨¨*º dagie brundert - summer in the polyverse º*¨¨*º

Thursday, 23 April 2009
21:00 Uhr

SCALA

Friedrichstraße 112b
(2nd floor - please note the change of location! Same building but different entrance!)
10117 Berlin

Personal show by filmmaker Dagie Brundert,
experimental film and video,
curated by Klaus W. Eisenlohr;
with later songs of singer-songwriter
Jo Knox
—-

Summer in the polyverse
Super-8 films by Dagie Brundert

Dagie Brundert is presenting herself in bright, cheerful and philosophical ways, with a touch of irony that never feels bitter. “I am a hippie” she tells, and indeed, her films remind of the free spirited attitude of the Beatniks, who blended Buddha, Anarchism and an adolescent reach for freedom with the contemplation of everyday life. What is important? Nothing but the small things found or happening. With her filmmaker’s perspective and the micro-stories she is creating within, they become related to Everything and All, the “universe”. And as every super-8 film of her becomes a sunny univers, the evening will give us a glimpse of the summer in polyverse.
(Klaus W. Eisenlohr, more infos)

After the screening:
Jo Knox (Berlin), who contributed her song “Meshell” to Dagie’s brand new film “704” about the Los Angeles bus no. 704, will unpack her guitar, play, and sing.
http://www.myspace.com/jolately

*********************
www.dagiebrundert.de

www.wabisabisuper8.com

www.bandsonboats.com

www.canexit.com

*********************

Directors Lounge
http://www.directorslounge.net
http://www.richfilm.de

Impressions from Circus Minimus on catonbed, Photographie Jan...

Tue, 07 Apr 2009 11:30:10 -0400

Impressions from Circus Minimus on catonbed, Photographie Jan Sobottka

Thorsten Fleisch | 26th Mar|Scala 9pm Personal show by film and...

Sun, 22 Mar 2009 10:10:00 -0400

Thorsten Fleisch | 26th Mar|Scala 9pm

Personal show by film and videomaker Thorsten Fleisch

followed by a music performance of his band
Malende

On first sight, his films are very abstract and conceptual. Thorsten Fleisch is working directly with materiality, which can be as analogue and direct as skin impressions or crystals growing on the surface of film surface (16mm), or as digitally generic as a reciprocal math formula that creates 4-dimensional forms, inter-cut with 3 dimensional space and finally shown on the 2-dimensional space of video screen. Material in that sense could also be the electric discharges and their traces on photographic paper. Thus following his workflow, it becomes evident, the author is working with a hybrid combination of analogue and digital image processing. However, and as he tells me, the analogue, or better saying material processes are allowing him to also use chance operations and mistakes (like a light flair on film stock) during the working procedures, whereas with code (or programming) a mistake will just result in a script-error, which has to be eliminated scrupulously instead of being able to be integrated in the creative process.

Just by reviewing the titles of his work, such as “Blutrausch” (blood rush), “Videohaut“ (video skin) “Friendly Fire”, “Kosmos” (cosmos) and “Gestalt” we may realize, on the other hand, that something more is going on with and within the artist’s working process. Without any pathos and drama in his making of, Thorsten Fleisch is lingering (or, shall we say loitering?) on existential and creational themes: light through the literally on film grown minerals are producing a pictorial cosmos, or the blood drawn from his own body is creating a (maybe delirious) rush of images. Trying to put it into a nutshell, one could say, body, creation and space are the themes of his work.

By taking an even closer look, one may also discover that the filmmaker is focusing onto a third yet to mention aspect: It is the sensuality in images that triggers his interest both in his own and in the work of others. One may call it old-school, it sometimes takes as much as a couple of years for its execution, and it may be similar to the meticulously composing and editing of the early Stan Brakhage (classic avant-garde filmmaker who combined all kinds of lens and lens-less effects with camera images to visual compositions), but it is that quality of painstakingly controlling the composing and composition towards pictorial expression that creates the quality of his films. What is new and contemporary in his work, Thorsten Fleisch uses any kind of hybrid techniques, thus challenging the meaning of the “expression of material.”

I prefer old-school and handcraftship to cold calculated superficiality, it makes me read the work on different levels while at the same time enjoying its pure sensations. In fact, Thorsten Fleisch’s work has been screened widely in galleries and on festivals including Directors Lounge.

Thorsten Fleisch will be present and available for Q&A after the screening.
Following the screening, the band … will give play …

program starts at 9 pm
doors open 8 pm

See you at the Scala, Friedrich Str. 112 A, 1st floor

Directors Lounge • contemporary art and media

placebokatz: hair-e in collaboration with directors lounge...

Sat, 21 Mar 2009 11:39:00 -0400

placebokatz:

hair-e in collaboration with directors lounge present:

proud flesh

film by jenny graf sheppared and chiara giovando

Sunday, 22 March 2009 / doors: 7pm/ screening: 8pm.

Proud Flesh
Two young filmmakers, Jenny Gräf Sheppard and Chiara Giovando, from Baltimore, Maryland collaborated on “Proud Flesh”, a film shot in the Badlands of South Dakota located in the American West. The film will be presented by Jenny Gräf Sheppard in person, who like her colleague, also is a musician. She will play on Saturday March 21, the night before the screening, at Kuntstraum Richard Sorge Berlin.

“Proud flesh” in medical terms is the wild and excessive flesh that is growing, if, in a deep wound, the skin tissue is so damaged it cannot cover the wound by growing back fast enough. It mostly happens, when skin tensions caused by body movements prevent the tissue from closing and healing. (A reason why doctors nowadays tend to stitch the smallest skin cuts.)

The film starts with a gunshot and the movements of an older woman, who is wounded on her upper leg, struggling to walk through a landscape of the West until she finds a small town. Violence, guns, blood and loneliness, all are ingredients of the common genre Western, however, and without breaking the settings of original, historical backdrops, place and costumes, carefully collected from local sources, the film sets out into a totally different direction than the adaptations of Hollywood Western drama we know of. Neither is it a funny parody of that genre.

Rather, the (mostly) silent human interactions in the movie are staged in more abstract, ritual ways invoking reflections on the symbolism of the characters instead of the psychology of drama. The title “Study of Ritual and Time” and with it the work of Maya Deren, early avant-garde filmmaker may come to mind. Like Deren, by using female main characters and abstracted acting, and unlike Deren, who later travelled to Africa for ritual studies, the filmmakers successfully try to have their own take onto American myths by setting the film into the historical time of their own homeland, and how it can be cinematically revoked, today. “What are the things that we see in our story as American women and how do we want to tell it?” says Chiara (“Into the West” by Brent McCabe, LINK) and Jenny adds: “I’ve always been interested in picturing women in that condition (of the John Ford Western, KWE), and an older woman that position Š picturing older women in the traditional young, male role.”

The wounded, Native American Indian-looking woman in the film, after encountering different situations of near death, ritual and alienation, will finally find her alter ego in an older female home-settler. By doing so, it seems, the two authors try to reach out back into time in order to heal what has been the deepest wound of the proud American move for freedom and individual independency, while “the Frontier” was pushed towards the West.

Another filmmaker may come into mind, a German director, whom the two authors may possibly not know of: Ulrike Ottinger. With abstract acting and ritual, or dream-like scenes of European and Asian tales, she made her mark in German contemporary film history. Like her, the makers of “Proud Flesh” are able to balance the abstract ritual-like acting on a high and light-spirited level, throughout their debut film altogether: It is fun and surprising to watch.

The evening at GDK will be the German premiere and Jenny Graf Sheppard will be present for Q&A after the screening.
(Klaus W. Eisenlohr / Directors Lounge, March 2009)

GDK Galerie der Künste
Potsdamer Straße 98
D-10785 Berlin

Bus: M29 /M48 /M85 bis Potsdamer Brücke

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