Films of Place

Date: 17 April 2004 | Season: Gregory Markopoulos 2004 | Tags: ,

FILMS OF PLACE
Sat 17 April 2004, at 6.20pm
London National Film Theatre NFT2

Markopoulos created many impressions of buildings and places, making in-camera dissolves and superimpositions without any subsequent editing. Ming Green, a portrait of his humble apartment, painted the colour of the title, was made shortly before his departure from New York, while Sorrows was shot at the house in Switzerland built for Wagner by King Ludwig II. Gammelion is a measured and romantic portrayal of an Italian castle, extending seven minutes of photographed ‘film phrases’ with hundreds of fades in and out.

Gregory Markopoulos, Ming Green, USA, 1966, 7 min
Gregory Markopoulos, Gammelion, Italy, 1968, 54 min
Gregory Markopoulos, Sorrows, Switzerland, 1969, 6 min

The programme will be introduced by Robert Beavers, filmmaker and director of Temenos Inc.

Also Screening: Monday 19 April 2004, at 8.40pm, NFT2

PROGRAMME NOTES

The Illiac Passion

Date: 17 April 2004 | Season: Gregory Markopoulos 2004 | Tags: ,

THE ILLIAC PASSION
Sat 17 April 2004, at 8.40pm
London National Film Theatre NFT2

Throughout his life, Markopoulos remained closely connected to his family background, and ultimately saw the Greek landscape as the ideal setting for viewing his films. The Illiac Passion, one of his most highly acclaimed works, is a visionary interpretation of ‘Prometheus Bound’ starring mythical beings from the 60s underground including Andy Warhol, Jack Smith and Taylor Mead. The soundtrack of this contemporary re-imagining of the classical realm features a reading of Thoreau’s translation of the Aeschylus text and excerpts from Bartók. The preceding film, Bliss,is a brief study of a church on the island of Hydra.

Gregory Markopoulos, Bliss, Greece, 1967, 6 min
Gregory Markopoulos, The Illiac Passion, USA, 1967, 92 min

The programme will be introduced by Robert Beavers, filmmaker and director of Temenos Inc.

Also Screening: Tuesday 20 April 2004, at 6.20pm, NFT2

PROGRAMME NOTES

Portraiture

Date: 18 April 2004 | Season: Gregory Markopoulos 2004 | Tags: ,

PORTRAITURE
Sunday 18 April 2004, at 6.20pm
London National Film Theatre NFT2

Galaxie consists of thirty-three portraits of important figures from the art world, including painters, poets, critics, filmmakers, and choreographers. Each is shot with a single roll of 16mm film and though edited entirely in-camera, often comprises of many layers of dense superimposition. The subjects were invited to pose in their home, together with objects chosen by them as symbolic extensions of their personality. Saint Actaeon is a rhythmic portrait of historian and aesthete Sir Harold Acton, shot in the gardens of his family villa.

Gregory Markopoulos, Galaxie, USA, 1966, 92 min
Gregory Markopoulos, Saint Actaeon, Italy, 1971, 12 min

The programme will be introduced by Robert Beavers, filmmaker and director of Temenos Inc.

Also Screening: Wednesday 21 April 2004, at 6.20pm, NFT2

PROGRAMME NOTES

LUX Salon: State of the Union

Date: 23 June 2004 | Season: LUX Salon

LUX SALON: STATE OF THE UNION: BRUCE BAILLIE & LENKA CLAYTON
Wednesday 23 June 2004, at 7:30pm
London LUX

A US election year special. LUX is pleased to present a new print of Bruce Baillie’s legendary American travelogue Quixote, made coast-to-coast over a four year period. Baillie’s film is a lyrical, patchwork portrait of the margins of 60s America, from the supermarket aisles to the circus big top.

“Baillie’s trip is wedged between two generations of youthful nomads; the Beats (contemporaneous with Hollywood’s heydey of Western expansion) on one side, the hippy transhumances (and Easy Rider) on the other. That Quixote could be claimed, at different times, by each is a sign of its hinged position to two vastly different projects.” —Paul Arthur.

Lenka Clayton’s concept in Qaeda Quality Question Quickly Quickly Quiet was a simple one – take the 4,100 words from George W.Bush’s infamous “Axis of Evil” speech, and splice them together in alphabetical order. The result is powerful: a mesmerising snapshot of the posturing, rhetoric and obsessions dominating American politics in the aftermath of 11 September.

Bruce Baillie, Quixote, USA, 1964-67, 16mm, b/w & colour, sound,
Lenka Clayton, Qaeda Quality Question Quickly Quickly Quiet, Germany, 2003, video, colour, sound, 18 min


Expanded Cinema: Film als Spektakel, Ereignis und Performance

Date: 10 September 2004 | Season: Expanded Cinema 2004 | Tags: ,

EXPANDED CINEMA: FILM ALS SPEKTAKEL, EREIGNIS UND PERFORMANCE
10 – 26 September 2004
Dortmund PhoenixHalle

From the 10th to the 26th of September hartware medien kunst verein in conjunction with medien_kunst_netz dortmund present the festival Expanded Cinema: Film als Spektakel, Ereignis und Performance (Expanded Cinema: Film as Spectacle, Event and Performance). The programme has been conceived by Mark Webber and is a survey of Expanded Cinema encompassing historical works from the 1960s to the present day. Many of the artist-filmmakers will appear in person and will be available for discussion with the audience after the performances.

»Expanded Cinema« is the term used to describe works that do not conform to the traditional single-screen cinema format. Expanded cinema is not a movement; it is a style of presentation that can be used for films or performances made for a wide variety of aesthetic, personal and political reasons. The only common link between them is that they do not adhere to the »standard« mode of presentation of a single, continuous film projected onto a screen in front of an audience. Projectors are often placed in the room with the audience (not hidden away in a booth at the back) and become part of the overall, participatory event.

The programme stresses the unique, ephemeral and temporal qualities of a finite film or performance that has a beginning, middle and end, and is, by its nature, a shared experience for the assembled audience. There will be no secondary documentation, re-interpretations, installations or static loops, each piece happens once only at a designated time. It presents only film-based, »living works« in their original formats, including multi-screen projections, film performances and expanded cinema events. There will be no use of video or digital technology, but the influence these works have had on the development of new media and gallery installations will be clearly evident.

10-12 September 2004
Participating Artists: Valie Export (Austria), Christian Lebrat (France), Werner Nekes, Jurgen Reble & Thomas Köner (Germany) Malcolm Le Grice, Guy Sherwin (UK), Sandra Gibson & Luis Recoder, Bruce McClure (USA). Plus Films By: Joost Rekveld (Netherlands), Gill Eatherley (UK), Morgan Fisher, Paul Sharits (USA).

17-19 September 2004
Participating Artists: Maria Klonaris & Katerina Thomadaki (Greece/France). Plus Films By: Fred Drummond, Gill Eatherley, Sally Potter, William Raban, James Scott, Chris Welsby (UK), Storm de Hirsch, Claes Oldenburg, Barbara Rubin, Carolee Schneemann, Paul Sharits, Andy Warhol (USA).

24-26 September 2004
Participating Artists: Giovanni Martedi (Italy/France), Anthony McCall (UK), Wilhelm Hein (Germany), William Raban (UK), Tony Conrad (USA). Plus Films By: Birgit Hein (Germany), Lis Rhodes (UK), Beverly Conrad (USA).

Presented by harware medien kunst verein & medien_kunst_netz dortmund
Curator: Mark Webber
Coordination & Press: Katrin Mundt
Technican: Uwe Gorski
Venue: Phoenixhalle, Hichofenstraße / Ecke Rombergstraße, Dortmund-Hörder, Germany.

In cooperation with dortmund-projet, LEG – landesentwicklungsgesellschaft NRW, Kulturbüro Stadt Dortmund.

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Expanded Cinema: First Weekend

Date: 10 September 2004 | Season: Expanded Cinema 2004 | Tags: ,

EXPANDED CINEMA: FILM ALS SPEKTAKEL, EREIGNIS UND PERFORMANCE
10 – 12 September 2004 (First Weekend)
Dortmund PhoenixHalle

The opening weekend is characterised by a diverse range of works that investigate the properties and use of colour in film and projected light, often using abstract imagery. The season will commence with an early two-screen film by Werner Nekes projected outside the gallery into the surrounding environment. Filmmaker and theorist Malcolm Le Grice will show a selection of his colour field films for up to eight projectors and Jurgen Reble will perform Alchemie (1992), using a mixture of chemical substances to irreversibly transform the composition of a film loop in real time.

Saturday features three young New York artists that recently participated in the Whitney Biennial. The afternoon begins with collaborative works for Super-8 and 16mm by Luis Recoder & Sandra Gibson present and later Bruce McClure performs with four specially adapted projectors. There will also be multi-screen films by Gill Eatherley, Joost Rekveld and Paul Sharits, and a performance by Christian Lebrat.

On Sunday afternoon, Werner Nekes will give a lecture/demonstration that illustrates pre-cinematic precedents of expanded cinema, followed by a special programme in which the screen is not only illuminated, but activated. Valie Export, Malcolm Le Grice, Werner Nekes and Guy Sherwin will present live performances of seminal film actions from the 60s & 70s in a programme that also features Morgan Fisher’s Projection Instructions (1976), which invites the projectionist to get in on the act.

Participating Artists: Valie Export (Austria), Christian Lebrat (France), Werner Nekes, Jurgen Reble & Thomas Köner (Germany) Malcolm Le Grice, Guy Sherwin (UK), Sandra Gibson & Luis Recoder, Bruce McClure (USA).

Plus Films By: Joost Rekveld (Netherlands), Gill Eatherley (UK), Morgan Fisher, Paul Sharits (USA).


Opening Night

Date: 10 September 2004 | Season: Expanded Cinema 2004 | Tags: ,

EXPANDED CINEMA: OPENING NIGHT
Friday 10 September 2004, at 8pm
Dortmund PhoenixHalle

Werner Nekes, Schnitte für ABABA, 1967, 11 min, mobile projection
A metrically edited film which animates nature and buildings through rapid changes in light. According to its original instructions, the film will projected outdoors onto the surrounding environment.

Malcolm Le Grice, Matrix, 1973, 18 min, 6 projector performance
Malcolm Le Grice, Blue Field Duration, 1972, 8 min, 2 screen film
Malcolm Le Grice, Threshold, 1972, 17 min, 3 projector performance
Malcolm Le Grice, Horror Film I, 1971, c.15 min, 3 projectors & live performance
As one of the core members of the London Film-Makers’ Co-operative, Le Grice established the idea that printing processing and projection were essential creative elements of filmmaking. His colour field films of the early 70s use rich, dynamic hues, which complement and contrast each other as the projectors are moved in predetermined sequences, creating constantly varied, durational ‘screen structures’.

Jürgen Reble & Thomas Köner, Alchemie, 1992, c.60 min, alchemical sound & film performance
By directly applying chemicals to the emulsion of a prepared film loop, Reble progressively decomposes and modifies the image, whilst Köner creates an electronic, aural counterpart using ambient sound. As the performance progresses, the elements are transformed into an abstract, iridescent unity.

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Ride the Light

Date: 11 September 2004 | Season: Expanded Cinema 2004 | Tags: ,

EXPANDED CINEMA: RIDE THE LIGHT
Saturday 11 September 2004, at 3pm
Dortmund PhoenixHalle

Recoder & Gibson, Ride the Light, 2004, c.60 min, multi-projection performance
Working individually and in collaboration as presstapes, Luis Recoder and Sandra Gibson explore the canvas of the filmstrip with the medium of light, manipulating both exposure and projection. For part of this performance, a regular power switch will be used to manually flicker, strobe, and flash forth a unique cinematic phenomenon.

Recoder & Gibson, Fourfold, 2001-04, c.7 min, 4 projector performance
Recoder & Gibson, Color Test, 2003, 5 min, 3 projector performance
Recoder & Gibson, Override, 2004, c.9 min, 2 projector performance
Recoder & Gibson, Ribbon, 2003, 6 min, 4 projector performance
Recoder & Gibson, Alignments for Linea, 2002-04, c.19 min, 2 projector performance

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Multi-Screen Films

Date: 11 September 2004 | Season: Expanded Cinema 2004 | Tags: ,

EXPANDED CINEMA: MULTI-SCREEN FILMS
Saturday 11 September 2004, at 5pm
Dortmund PhoenixHalle

Abstract colour films for 2 or 3 adjacent projectors. Liminal Minimal is a performance for mobile projectors using red, green and blue colour signals. #5 and Hand Grenade are both 3-screen action paintings produced by trails of light. In Dream Displacement, Sharits manipulates strips of single-frame colour fields, creating a soporific, cinematic meditation.

Christian Lebrat, Liminal Minimal, 1977, c.19 min, 2 screen performance
Joost Rekveld, #5 (Variation 1), 1994, 6 min, 3 screen film
Gill Eatherley, Hand Grenade, 1971, 6 min, 3 screen film
Paul Sharits, Dream Displacement, 1976, 24 min, 2 screen film

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Crib & Sift

Date: 11 September 2004 | Season: Expanded Cinema 2004 | Tags: ,

EXPANDED CINEMA: CRIB & SIFT
Saturday 11 September 2004, at 8pm
Dortmund PhoenixHalle

Bruce McClure, Crib & Sift, 2001-04, c.90 min, projection performance with adapted projectors
Bruce McClure’s light performances are constructed on the screen using 2 or 4 specially modified projectors.  His work “activates cinematic potential, omitting the artistic error of the camera eye, favouring the fugitive chiaroscuro in the automatic theatre of the brain’s emulsion. The programme will manifest the projector as the primary utensil in an enfilade of scotopic visions requisitioned and apportioned according to its rotary on-off swing.”

Bruce McClure, Crossfades, 2003, 13 min, 3 projector performance
Bruce McClure, Circle Jerks, 2002, 16 min, 4 projector performance
Bruce McClure, Presepio, 2003, 16 min, 4 projector performance
Bruce McClure, You Know My Methods, 2003, 15 min, 2 projector performance
Bruce McClure, Double Incident, 2004. 15 min, 4 projector performance

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