Film Environments

EXPANDED CINEMA: FILM ENVIRONMENTS
Friday 24 September 2004, at 8pm
Dortmund PhoenixHalle

Four Square surrounds the audience with a quadrupled flicker film of solid colour frames. Light Music is an environmental double projection as musical composition, exploiting the properties of the optical film soundtrack. (What you see is what you hear.) Anthony McCall’s films are projected through a thin mist to give an apparently sculptural presence to a projected beam of light. In Doubling Back, two identical, moving sine-waveforms, create a fluid, organic volume of light for the spectator to observe or be immersed within.

Beverly & Tony Conrad, Four Square, 1971, 18 min, 4 screen environment
Lis Rhodes, Light Music, 1975, 25 min, 2 screen environment
Anthony McCall, Doubling Back, 2003, 30 min, 1 screen environment

William Raban

EXPANDED CINEMA: WILLIAM RABAN
Saturday 25 September 2004, at 3pm
Dortmund PhoenixHalle

William Raban’s multi-screen works are pure explorations of film material and technology, concerning the frame, the screen and the shutter. Through their visceral presence they transform structural theories into an intense audio-visual experience, whilst Take Measure physically breaks down the intangible space between projector and screen.

William Raban, Take Measure, 1973, c.2 min, film performance
William Raban, Surface Tension, 1974-75, 15 min, 2 screen performance
William Raban, Diagonal, 1973, 8 min, 3 screen film
William Raban, Wave Formations, 1978, 25 min, 3 screen performance

Giovanni Martedi

EXPANDED CINEMA: GIOVANNI MARTEDI
Saturday 25 September 2004, at 5pm
Dortmund PhoenixHalle

A partially improvised film & light performance incorporating three rarely seen works from the 1970s. Martedi rejects the camera as the primary source to create filmic imagery and his live appearances foreground the primacy of projection. M.D. et § is an event for projector, single 16mm frame, mirror and electric drill.

Giovanni Martedi, M.D. et §, 1978, c.4 min, projection performance
and other works by Giovanni Martedi

Long Film for Four Projectors

EXPANDED CINEMA: LONG FILM FOR FOUR PROJECTORS
Saturday 25 September 2004, at 8pm
Dortmund PhoenixHalle

Anthony McCall, Long Film for Four Projectors, 1974, 360 min, 4 projector environment
“An active field defined by four projected, flat, inter-penetrating blades of light that repeatedly sweep through their individual arcs of space and through one another. The six hour long film is in constant motion, composed of the shifting relationships between each of the four planes. If you are in the space, you are in the film, for you are surrounded by it.”

Doppelprojektionen

EXPANDED CINEMA: DOPPELPROJEKTIONEN
Sunday 26 September 2004, at 5pm
Dortmund PhoenixHalle

Wilhelm & Birgit Hein, Doppelprojektionen I-V, 1971-72, 50 min, 2 screen film
A formal experiment consisting of five movements in which the change of light fading between black and white is rhythmically varied into a complex succession of perceptual impulses. “Double projection offers the possibility of bringing movement out of the single frame, and of dissolving the solid frame of the image”.

Ten Years Alive on the Infinite Plain

EXPANDED CINEMA: TEN YEARS ALIVE ON THE INFINITE PLAIN
Sunday 26 September 2004, at 8pm
Dortmund PhoenixHalle

Tony Conrad, Ten Years Alive on the Infinite Plain, 1972, c.90 min, music performance in film loop environment
Tony Conrad and guest musicians will perform a minimal drone composition for violin, bass and his unique long string instrument. A live concert performance within a shifting, multi-projection environment of rapid, flicker film loops, originally presented at The Kitchen (New York) in 1972.

Nathaniel Dorsky European Tour

NATHANIEL DORSKY EUROPEAN TOUR
13 October—15 November 2004
European Tour

As an antidote to the frenetic pace and complexity of modern life, Nathaniel Dorsky’s films invite an an audience to connect at a precious level of intimacy, nourishing the mind and spirit. With films assembled in an almost selfless way, the viewer is given the freedom to express oneself more fully, rather than be consciously absorbed in the projections of another person. ‘In these films the audience is the central character and, hopefully, the screen your best friend.’

The films are photographed, non-narrative and have none of the visual trickery we might associate with the ‘avant-garde’. Dorsky’s camera is drawn towards those transient moments of wonder that often pass unnoticed in daily life: the jewelled refraction of sunlight on water, reflections from windows and dappled shadows cast along the ground. His iridescent cinematography is arranged in carefully montaged phrases that remain entirely open to the viewer’s personal interpretation; no heavily coded meanings and subtexts are imposed through associations in the editing. The world floods through the lens, onto the screen and into our minds.

Dorsky approaches each film as though it is a song, weaving together lyrical statements in a rhythmic cadence. His work achieves a sensitive balance between humanity, nature and the ethereal, creating space for private reflection. The screenings in Autumn 2004 showcase his new film Threnody, ‘an offering to a friend who has died’, and will include readings from his recently published book Devotional Cinema (Tuumba Press, 2003).

Nathaniel Dorsky lives in San Francisco, where he makes a living as a professional ‘film doctor’, editing documentaries that often appear on American public television and the festival circuit. In 1967 he won an Emmy award for his photographic work on the CBS production Gaugin in Tahiti: Search for Paradise. He has been making personal films since 1964, and his works are in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art (New York), Pacific Film Archives (Berkeley), Image Forum (Tokyo) and Centre Georges Pompidou (Paris). It is widely acknowledged that the ‘most beautiful image’ sequence – a plastic bag floating in the wind – from the Oscar winning feature American Beauty was directly inspired by a similar shot from Dorsky’s film Variations.

Mark Webber

Nathaniel Dorsky: European Tour

13 October 2004, 8pm
Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, France
THRENODY, 2004, colour, silent, 20 mins
ALAYA, 1976-87, colour, silent, 28 mins
THE VISITATION, 2002, colour, silent, 18 mins

15 October 2004, 8pm
Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, France
VARIATIONS , 1992-98, colour, silent, 24 mins
ARBOR VITAE, 1999-2000, colour, silent, 28 mins
LOVE’S REFRAIN, 2000-01, colour, silent, 23 mins

21 October 2004, 6pm
Filmpodium, Zurich, Switzerland
THRENODY, 2004, colour, silent, 20 mins
ALAYA, 1976-87, colour, silent, 28 mins
THE VISITATION, 2002, colour, silent, 18 mins

31 October 2004, 4pm
London Film Festival, NFT, London, England
Devotional Cinema: A Lecture Screening
THRENODY, 2004, colour, silent, 20 mins
VARIATIONS , 1992-98, colour, silent, 24 mins
+ lecture and reading

SPECIAL EVENT: JEROME HILER
8 November 2004, 7pm
Lux Salon, London, England
An extremely rare screening of films presented by Jerome Hiler, including new and previously unseen works. 

9 November 2004, 6:30pm
Tate Modern, London, England
THE VISITATION, 2002, colour, silent, 18 mins
ALAYA, 1976-87, colour, silent, 28 mins
ARBOR VITAE, 1999-2000, colour, silent, 28 mins

11-15 November 2004
OpFilm, de Balie, Amsterdam, Netherlands
THRENODY, 2004, colour, silent, 20 mins
ALAYA, 1976-87, colour, silent, 28 mins
THE VISITATION, 2002, colour, silent, 18 mins

European tour co-ordinated by Mark Webber. With thanks to the London Film Festival, Philippe-Alain Michaud, Christophe Bichon, Stuart Comer, Hannes Schupbach, Erwin van ‘t Hart, Ben Cook, Josh Siegel, Nathaniel Dorsky and Jerome Hiler.

Valie Export

VALIE EXPORT
14—20 October 2004
London National Film Theatre NFT2

Valie Export is a filmmaker, multi-media and performance artist whose challenging work, which fundamentally explores the intersection between the human body and the technological media, has pushed the boundaries of feminism and the avant-garde. As an artist not confined to the gallery, she also made experimental short films and complex feature-length narratives.

Her expanded cinema and performance pieces of the 1960s (often with the participation Peter Weibel, with whom she collaborated on her first two features) gained attention not only in the underground art scene, but also in national television and newspapers. In the wake of the Viennese Actionism movement, Export’s ‘Female Actionism’ was a radical protest that aimed to realign society’s attitude to women and redress the historical portrayal of the female body in art. In the performance, Tapp und Tast Kino (Touch Cinema), Export critiqued the voyeurism of cinema by appearing in the streets of Vienna wearing a box covered by curtains through which the public were invited to feel her naked chest.

Export initially took an extreme and provocative stance to resist the traditional modes of female representation and gain an independence of thought and expression. Sexually explicit and physically jarring, the early short films can be difficult viewing – in Mann & Frau & Animal she is seen masturbating and menstruating and in … Remote … Remote … she uses a knife to push back the cuticles of her fingertips until they bleed, before immersing them in milk. Not for the squeamish or puritanical viewer.

Having first exploded sexual and cultural taboos, Export focussed on the responsibility of the individual in the social environment. With the more conventional features she made in the 1970s and 80s, narrative filmmaking is used as a vehicle to explore ideas evident in her visual art within a more accessible format. Export integrates the language of commercial cinema with quotations from her videotapes, performances and photographic works, which often appear as discreet sections or in dialogue with the plot.

Working with the moving image, Export uses time and space to scrutinise the different layers between reality and the illusion of reality. Her analysis of corruption and the media reached an acute point in the mid-80s, when the plot of The Practice of Love was based on a contemporary arms dealing scandal that was played out in the Austrian press whilst the film was being made.

Export’s work is transgressive and political: an art intended to provoke social change. Concerned with identity, conscience and communication, it was central to the powerful feminist discourse that developed in the 1960s and 70s and is just as relevant today. This season at the NFT, and a major exhibition at Camden Arts Centre, is a vital opportunity to survey the work of one of the most original and influential figures of contemporary art. —Mark Webber

Valie Export NFT season curated by Mark Webber. With thanks to Ian White.

The Valie Export exhibition at Camden Arts Centre runs from 10 September—31 October 2004. 

Invisible Adversaries

INVISIBLE ADVERSARIES
Thursday 14 October 2004, at 8:40pm
London National Film Theatre NFT2

Anna is a photographer who becomes increasingly obsessed with morbid subject matter as she undergoes a psychological breakdown. Convinced that the world is being taken over by the Hyksos – an invisible enemy that appear as immaculate duplicates of human beings – she endures a series of surreal and delusional episodes. Invisible Adversaries investigates the control and influence the media exerts on our lives, whilst also critiquing dysfunctional relationships, bourgeois society and global politics. Export’s first feature is a tour-de-force that integrates her visual work in photography, performance and installation art with elements of a science fiction narrative.

Valie Export, Invisible Adversaries (Unsichtbare Gegner), Austria, 1976, 104 mins
with Susanne Widl and Peter Weibel

Also screening: Tuesday 19 October 2004, at 6:20pm

Menschenfrauen

MENSCHENFRAUEN
Friday 15 October 2004, at 6:20pm
London National Film Theatre NFT2

Through the interrelated story of four women and their relationships with philanderer Franz, Menschenfrauen (literally translated as ‘Human Women’) explores the women’s place in a man’s world and the double standards that are perpetuated by society. Whilst the film has a strong narrative drive, it is laced with formal and visual experimentation, and the dark humour does little to diminish the harsh feminist stance. Elisabeth, a self-sacrificing mother, is betrayed by an unappreciative son and abusive partner. Anna and Petra, both pregnant by Franz, turn to each other for affection and support, whilst Gertrude is driven to take more decisive action.

Valie Export, Menschenfrauen, Austria, 1980, 100 mins
with Renée Felden, Maria Martina and Susanne Widl

Also screening: Tuesday 19 October 2004, at 8:40pm