news and notes from Directors Lounge

Pripyat — the Uncanny of Modernity Thursday, 22 March...

Sun, 18 Mar 2012 19:24:00 -0400

Pripyat — the Uncanny of Modernity

Thursday, 22 March 2012
21:00
Z-Bar
Bergstr. 2
D-10115 Berlin-Mitte

U-Rosenthaler Platz

One year after the Fukushima disaster and 26 years after the explosion of the Chernobyl reactor, the discussion on civil nuclear energy has again reached the “normality” of planning for new power plants. Over the same time, Pripyat the destroyed young Sowjet city, now situated in Ukraine, has gained an eerie attraction. Firstly presented in Freiburg DE, the collected films allow a discussion of the human imagination triggered by nuclear energy and nuclear disasters beyond excited press news.

Artists list:
Hanne Adam + Thierry Buysse,
Klaus W. Eisenlohr,
Gair Dunlop,
Andrea Slavik,
Vanessa Renwick,
Anders Weberg,
Sarah Breen Lovett,
Nicky Larkin,
Julio Soto

More infos at:
http://www.richfilm.de/filmUpload/1-framesPripyat2012.html

[DL8] the contemporary media and film festival Feb 9-19. 2012 at...

Tue, 31 Jan 2012 12:15:54 -0500

[DL8] the contemporary media and film festival Feb 9-19. 2012

at Naherholung Sternchen, behind the Kino International

[DL8], The 8th Berlin International Directors Lounge, the festival for contemporary media and film, 2012, is hitting Berlin in a new vein and venue, this year making the up-and-comer insider tip Naherholung Sternchen its stomping ground.
The reason for the move will be clear to all once they hit the doors, literally a stone’s throw from the iconic Kino International near Alexanderplatz: the location, a one-time thespians’ hangout already steeped in its own history, has clearly been waiting for this moment. This place wants to be, and [DL8] is the ticket make it happen.

1001 nights at the cinema, all in eleven days, films like you forgot or maybe never knew they could be made, films that will change the colour of your eyes and thoughts… on-beat, offbeat and everything between.
Kenton Turk

Click through to stay updated, go here for the program

This tumblr is for archival purposes only, everything new will be posted here

dl screening: StadtRaum Film Double Feature • Klaus W. Eisenlohr...

Fri, 02 Dec 2011 10:44:00 -0500

dl screening:
StadtRaum
Film Double Feature
• Klaus W. Eisenlohr
Stadtrandzone Mitte 46 min, 16mm, sound
• Klaus W. Eisenlohr und Johann Zeitler
zwischen | stadt | raum 64 min, 3 channel (HD Version)

Monday, 5 Dec 2011
19:30  
Z-Bar 
Bergstr. 2
D-10115 Berlin-Mitte
U-Rosenthaler Platz

StadtRaum – Urban Space Double Feature

Two films, two film essays about public space. One is based on performances including public interventions on urban plazas in Hannover and the second film explores encounters in public space in Gropiusstadt, a modernist residential area in the South of Berlin. Both films bring forward issues of public space and urban development: Will public space disappear under the changes of globalization and the development of an electronic public sphere? Are there new meanings and new functions of urban public space that could reactivate public space also in urban areas outside of the historic center of cities? Do we still need public places, or urban community space in the larger metropolitan areas?
Both films developed from visual researches in the respective urban areas and may be best described as visual essays.

Klaus W. Eisenlohr is a lecturer at Photocentrum Kreuzberg and at Lexia International in Berlin. His media are photography, film and new media. Johann Zeitler mainly works with painting, performance and drawing. Both artist have collaborated on urban and film projects since 2003.

Links:
http://www.richfilm.de
http://www.richfilm.de/currentUpload
http://www.z-bar.de
http://www.directorslounge.net

Stadtrandzone Mitte:
http://www.richfilm.de/filmUpload/1-framesSRZM.html
zwischen | stadt | raum
http://www.richfilm.de/filmUpload/1-framesZSR.html

Directors Lounge Screening Steven BallTravelling Practice video...

Fri, 21 Oct 2011 18:36:00 -0400

Directors Lounge Screening

Steven Ball
Travelling Practice
video works
Thursday, 27 Oct. 2011
21:00
Z-Bar
Bergstraße 2
10115 Berlin-Mitte

Travelling Practice

Digital video works by Steven Ball 2003 – 2010. These works travel near and far, across physical and virtual space using material collected en route. Travel determines form, subject and object are fluid entities, digital experimentation becomes landscape study, hyperlocal excursion, and experimental documentary, as they explore and exhaust species of spaces and media.

Steven Ball has worked in film, video, sound and installation since the early 1980s. In the late 1980s he accidentally migrated to Melbourne, Australia. There he continued his practice making a number of film, video and sound and installation works, as well as being engaged in various curatorial, administrative, teaching and writing activities. Since returning to the UK he has worked predominantly with digital video, producing a series of works, which among other things, are particularly concerned with digital material processes and spatial representation.

Curated by Klaus W. Eisenlohr

Artist Links:

home: http://www.steven-ball.net

blog: http://directobjective.blogspot.com

videoblog: http://directlanguage2010.blogspot.com

Public Water: http://www.publicwater.net

More infos:

http://www.directorslounge.net

http://www.richfilm.de/currentUpload/

http://www.z-bar.de/Inhaltsseiten/kulturprogramm.html

Directors Lounge Screenings: Petra Lottje + Curtis Burz AUF...

Sun, 18 Sep 2011 09:54:00 -0400

Directors Lounge Screenings:

Petra Lottje + Curtis Burz
AUF DER SPUR
video works
Donnerstag, 29. Sept 2011
21:00
Z-Bar
Bergstraße 2
10115 Berlin-Mitte

Directors Lounge präsentiert ein Programm mit Petra Lottje und Curtis Burz. Beide Künstler, aus ganz unterschiedlichem Hintergrund, Bildende Kunst bei Petra Lottje und die dokumentarische Tradition europäischen Kinos bei Curtis Burz, befassen sich mit zwischenmenschlichen Beziehungen. Ob diese nun eigentlich „auf der Spur“ sind (on track) oder „abseits der Spur“ (off track) bleibt auch über die ambivalente Benutzung der Medien oder des Recordings bei beiden Künstlern offen, oder hängt davon ab, welchen Blickpunkt der Beobachter (Zuschauer) selbst einnehmen will.

‚Sprache bildet in zahlreichen Videos Petra Lottjes den Ansatzpunkt der Auseinandersetzung. Sie kombiniert Tonsequenzen aus unterschiedlichen Spielfilmen, verleiht ihnen körperlichen Ausdruck und setzt sie in neue Zusammenhänge. … Heute ist jeder Protagonist seines eigenen Films, doch wie eigen ist dieser Film wirklich? Und wie sehr sind wir selbst Medien kollektiver Stereotypen?’ (Susanne Husse, 2010)

In drei Episoden aus dem dokumentarischen Essay „Ich habe Dir nie erzählt, womit ich mein Geld verdiene“ (2011) erzählt Curtis Burz von Menschen, die sich scheinbar in der Mitte der Gesellschaft bewegen, aber doch nur „vom Rand“ aus zuschauen. Die Geschichten basieren auf Interviews, die der Regisseur in der Zeit 2008-2010 geführt hat.

(Kuratiert von Klaus W. Eisenlohr)

Links:

https://www.facebook.com/IchHabeDirNieErzaehltWomitIchMeinGeldVerdiene

http://www.lottje.de

pripyat — the uncanny of modernity SCREENING CHERNOBYL...

Sat, 17 Sep 2011 14:22:00 -0400

pripyat — the uncanny of modernity

SCREENING CHERNOBYL 25

Presented by Klaus W. Eisenlohr. The film program comprises films representing visions of the abandoned city of Pripyat by artists and documentary filmmakers, and imaginations of futures under the influence of “peaceful nuclear energy”.
Gair Dunlop confronts historical material about the glorious future that Dounreay Atomic Research Establishment would provide with his own camera footage, shot after the shut-down of the research power plant (Atom Town: Life After Technology). Now a ruin that still radiates, Dounreay does not attract nuclear tourists, unlike Chernobyl, which has become a popular destinations for photographers and other contemporary “explorers”. Julio Soto presents his imagination of cities after a climate or nuclear catastrophe in virtual images (Invisible Cities) just before he went to Pripyat himself in order to make a documentary about past and present inhabitants of the forbidden zone (Radiophobia). Vanessa Renwick in glorious pictures celebrates the good-bye to Trojan, a power-plant in the US that may be the equivalent to Brokdorf in Germany concerning the long-lasting local protests, but which was never going on-grid (Portrait #2: Trojan). And Thomas Bartels reflects in poetic pictures of 16mm film the mood of the year 1986, now almost a documentary of the mood in Germany under the influence of the clouds of Chernobyl (Zwischenlandung).

Chernobyl may have become the symbol for the crumbled future visions of modern prosperity made possible by peaceful nuclear energy, and for the apocalyptic imaginations of a modern catastrophe. However, it has also triggered an array of aspirations for adventures. Maybe less so the actual melted and broken reactor, shielded under a crumbling “sarcophagus” but the ghost town Pripyat, once a young modernist city, has become a collective iconographic symbol for the uncanny modernity that seems to attract people in many ways.

pripyat — the uncanny of modernity

Tuesday, 20 Sept 2011
19:30
Kommunales Kino Freiburg
Alter Wiehre Bahnhof
Urachstr. 40
79102 Freiburg im Breisgau

press links:

Program infos:
http://www.richfilm.de/filmUpload/1-framesPripyat.html
http://www.koki-freiburg.de/detail.php?fnr=3843

http://www.koki-freiburg.de/
http://www.directorslounge.net

directors lounge special screening Jakob...

Sat, 23 Jul 2011 20:36:00 -0400

directors lounge special screening

Jakob Kirchheim

schnitte—bilder—worte

film and video works
Thursday, 28 July 2011
21:00
Z-Bar
Bergstraße 2
10115 Berlin-Mitte

Prints–Images-Words

Jakob Kirchheim combines different art genres in very personal ways, genres that usually are not connected with each other. He creates films and paintings using linoleum prints. The seriality of printing initially made the artist experimenting with film. He has used a variety of animation methods without leading him to classic animation forms. The ways Jakob Kirchheim also includes words and maps then results in political meaningful references, and they partly remind of the styles of agitprop from the 1920’s, but also from the 60’s and 70’s. However, the artists likes to see them as media references rather than just bold political statements. These references seem to say, «Agitprop? Isn’t that pure poetry, anyways?» Already in 1987, Jakob Kirchheim conceived his first «Linolfilm», a stop motion film based on linoleum prints as a combination of words and images. Since then he further developed his film techniques using photographs, collage techniques and live footage, and he thus has produced over 20 experimental animation, poetry and documentary films.

Artist Link:
http://www.jakob-kirchheim.de/

Links:

More infos at http://richfilm.de/filmUpload/1-framesKirchheim.html

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

Directors Lounge Screening Michael Brynntrup meSelf, mySelf and...

Mon, 27 Jun 2011 07:40:00 -0400

Directors Lounge Screening

Michael Brynntrup

meSelf, mySelf and iSelf
film + video works

Thursday, 30 June 2011
21:00
Z-Bar
Bergstraße 2
10115 Berlin-Mitte

Michael Brynntrup is an artist and filmmaker who has been probing the limits of independent, personal and experimental film since the 80’s. Very early in his art career, he started off with Super-8 films, but soon experimented with multiple projections and collaborations with other artists. With „Jesus, der Film“ his collaboration took the form of a „cadavre exquis“, the joint product of a number of directors who only saw part of the work of their collegues, but who all were asked to have Brynntrup play the main character, Jesus. The resulting feature-long film became a legend, while little later, Brynntrup also became a well known director in the gay-and-lesbian cinema movement. His goal, however, was to never become monopolized by a certain scene, and thus, since his start, he has strived for a diversity of themes and genres in his work. Still, we can find the repeated and ongoing questions of the identity of the self, the questions, how the roles we play in society are being defined by gender and sexual orientation, and how the mirror of the other, and the mirror of death influences our lives. Last but not least, the artist adresses the question how much of an impact the mirror of media does have. (Curated by Klaus W. Eisenlohr)

Links:

Michael Brynntrup
http://www.brynntrup.de/

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

More infos (Klaus W. Eisenlohr):
http://www.richfilm.de/currentUpload/index.html

Directors Lounge Screening FLEXFEST 2011 - SELECTED WORKS FROM...

Sat, 21 May 2011 06:33:00 -0400

Directors Lounge Screening

FLEXFEST 2011 -

SELECTED WORKS FROM THE FLORIDA EXPERIMENTAL FILM/VIDEO FESTIVAL 2011

presented by
Roger Beebe, artistic director of Flexfest

Thursday, 26 May 2011
21:00
Z-Bar
Bergstraße 2
10115 Berlin-Mitte

FLEX: the Florida Experimental Film and Video Festival presents a program of highlights from their 2011 biennial competitive festival. FLEX is interested in an expansive notion of experimental media. “Work may draw on documentary, animation, avant-garde, underground, or other traditions—or no traditions at all.“ As such the programming comprises a variety of mediums from 16mm direct animation to found video and from laconic place studies to experimental love poems.

Since its start in 2004, Flexfest has become one of the most important festivals for experimental media in USA, challenging us to rethink what ‘experimental’ means. Roger Beebe, who is the artistic director of Flexfest, and who is currently teaching a 5 week workshop at LaborBerlin, will present the program. He was already a guest at Directors Lounge in 2009 (Link). Roger Beebe will be available for Q&A.

The Florida Experimental Film/Video Festival presents both year-round programming and an annual festival (FLEXfest) in Gainesville, Florida. Showcasing a broad range of experimental media, FLEXfest alternates a biennial competitive festival with a biennial curated event. Past FLEX guests have included Craig Baldwin, Jim Trainor, Helga Fanderl, Deborah Stratman, Ben Russell, Robert Todd, Leighton Pierce, Naomi Uman, Bill Brown, Scott Stark, Jacqueline Goss, Johan Grimonprez, Vanessa Renwick, and many others.

Program:
Utopia, Part 3:The World’s Biggest Shopping Mall, Sam Green (13:09/HD/2009/USA)

Iron-Wood, Richard Tuohy (7:00/16mm/2009/Australia)

The Voyagers, Penny Lane (16:30/DV/Jun. 2010/USA)

Horizon Line, Katherin McInnis (1:00/HDV/USA)

Somewhere Only We Know, Jesse McLean (5:15/Video/2009/USA)

Tusslemuscle, Steve Cossman (5:00/16mm/Nov. 2009/USA)

Portrait #2: Trojan, Vanessa Renwick (5:00/35MM TO VIDEO/2006)

White House, Georg Koszulinski (8:00/DV/2009/USA)

Day/Night (Devil’s Milhopper), Andres E. Arocha (4:56/16mm/Apr. 2009/USA)

28.IV.81(Bedouin Sparks), Christopher Harris (2:49/16mm/Jan. 2009/USA)

Links:
http://flexfest.org

http://www.facebook.com/flexfest

http://www.directorslounge.net

http://www.z-bar.de

More program infos:
http://richfilm.de/filmUpload/1-framesFlexfest.html

directors lounge special screening alina skrzeszewska - songs...

Tue, 26 Apr 2011 18:11:00 -0400

directors lounge special screening

alina skrzeszewska -
songs from the nickel

Thursday, 28 April 2011
21:00

Z-Bar
Bergstr. 2
D-10115 Berlin-Mitte
U-Rosenthaler Platz

Alina Skrzeszewska created a colorful, sad and thoughtful film about the shadow sides of downtown Los Angeles, not without showing strains of hope. And there is music, songs by the protagonists starring in the film.

The Nickel, the Eastern part of downtown used to be an isolated island in the urban grid of L.A.: historic but sordid former grand hotels; the number of homeless people surpasses the number of inhabitants multiple times; a network of christian missions and charity organisations are entangled in what is called the Skid Row; from 10 pm through 6:30 am you are allowed to sleep in the street (but then you have to move); there is a lack of over 12,000 beds for homeless shelter; on the other hand, a massive police presence and the reign of crack makes life in the street like a trip to hell. In this strange otherworldly urban zone, the old hotels seem to be islands in the stormy waters, and they are the cheapest places to live in town. Here, the artist Skrzeszewska rented a room for over one and half a year while shooting for her film. Those who live here, and whom we get to know in the film, have at least some kind of steady income, a job in the hotel, a veteran pension, or social welfare for the disabled. They were able to leave the state of homelessness or the circle of jail and drugs.

Thus, for Alina the hotels are a place of reflection, a retreat from the “war in the street” as Alina calls it. “In the street there is never time for thoughtfulness.” Therefore, she uses these odd spaces of retreat that the hotels are as spaces of reflection — and possibly projection — to discuss life and the society that creates those biographies missing any hope. The artist’s conditions for a talk in front of the camera was openness to have an earnest conversation. We see very little “false” acting in front of the camera, maybe because the artist does all the recording on her own, and it is this sincerity of a “one to one” talk and Alina’s honest interest in the story of her counterpart that makes her bridge the gap: A young European woman who studies at CalArts and the finally settled tramps. Some of them tell stories of their life, they never told before. We get to know there are many reasons to strand at the hotels of the Nickel. Some were dropped out by the society that fits only for the fittest, and they lost everything they had in the past. Others decided not to “play their game.” All of them still seem to be untouched by the epidemic that now spreads for 2 decades: crack.

In such a way, Alina Skrzeszewska also shows to us the poetry and wisdom of the underprivileged, all of which recorded by a camera that was inspired by Edward Hopper and the reading of Charles Bukowski, as Alina admitted to herself after she had finished the film. The positive notions of the film however derive from the examples of anarchistic renderings of their interests, like the illegal music studio in the hotel’s basement. It’s that very American idea of the self-made man that is still valid, and the roots of American pop culture based in the will of the poorest men to survive in dignity that are still showing, here.

A. Skrzeszewska, who was born in Wroclaw in Poland, and who lives and works somewhere in between Berlin, Los Angeles and Vienna, will be present at the screening at Z-Bar and will be available for Q&A.

In addition, Alina will present the short film “Notes from the Fields”, 10 mins, showing a day’s cycle on the crossing of 5th St. and Los Angeles St. in The Nickels.

Curated by Klaus W. Eisenlohr

More infos, German text and film stills:
http://www.richfilm.de/filmUpload/1-framesSkrzeszewska.html

Artist Link:
http://www.songsfromthenickel.com/
Press Links:
http://www.directorslounge.net
http://www.z-bar.de

Directors Lounge special screening: CHRISTINA MCPHEE The...

Wed, 13 Apr 2011 12:49:00 -0400

Directors Lounge special screening:

CHRISTINA MCPHEE The Delicate Landscape of Crisis
at REMISE/FREIES MUSEUM BERLIN April 15, 2011 9pm

A premier survey of California-based McPhee’s experimental films from 2002-2011

“Delicate structures arise in the transport of trauma”: Christina McPhee traces landscapes of crisis, performing video montage like drawings in a data-field. From earthquake landscapes in the California desert, to Ground Zero in New York, to the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, McPhee tracks the intimate topographies of environmental crisis in America.“ Sharon LIn Tay, film critic, London

The screening, curated by Klaus W. Eisenlohr of Director’s Lounge, Berlin, takes place next to, literally, the opening reception of Formal-Normal at Walden Kunstausstellungen, starting at 7pm.

Walden freies museum Potsdamer Strasse 91 Berlin

DL at the LAAA one not to miss: Directors Lounge hits LA,...

Fri, 08 Apr 2011 12:30:00 -0400

DL at the LAAA

one not to miss: Directors Lounge hits LA, opening reception April 9th 6-9pm

We are screening assorted highlights at the prestigious Los Angeles Art Association (LAAA) as part of NOT A CAR, a special all-media, cross-cultural exhibition featuring the highlights from our partners, the C.A.R. art fair in Essen, Germany, alongside original contemporary artworks by Los Angeles artists debuting at Gallery 825 on April 9, 2011. Exhibit runs through April 29, 2011.

pictured: some frames from

Eine Geisha wird gefilmt, a geisha being filmed by André Werner , 1993, 2 min 50 s

Directors Lounge special screening:CHRISTINA MCPHEEThe Delicate...

Sat, 02 Apr 2011 19:56:44 -0400

Directors Lounge special screening:

CHRISTINA MCPHEE
The Delicate Landscape of Crisis
at REMISE
FREIES MUSEUM BERLIN
April 15, 2011

A premier survey of California-based McPhee’s experimental films from 2002-2011 will screen at 21:00 , 15 April , 2011 at Freies Museum, Potsdamer Strasse 91 Berlin http://www.freies-museum.com/
Curated by Klaus W. Eisenlohr of Director’s Lounge, Berlin.

“Delicate structures arise in the transport of trauma”: Christina McPhee traces landscapes of crisis, performing video montage like drawings in a data-field. From earthquake landscapes in the California desert, to Ground Zero in New York, to the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, McPhee tracks the intimate topographies of environmental crisis in America. McPhee (b. 1954 Los Angeles) is a visual and media artist whose films have shown most recently at Art Cologne OpenSpace with Vernissage.tv; Director’s Lounge, Berlin; Cinéphèmère at the Tuileries for FIAC, Paris; San Francisco Cinematheque, and ISEA, Belfast. Christina McPhee is represented by Silverman Gallery, San Francisco

“ McPhee…imbues documentary realism with subjective evocation to such an extent that the project effectively displaces the importance of the documentary imag°òs indexicality… Still photographs, composited images and video clips of the landscape, environment and vernacular shrines allow the viewer to piece together the relationship between geological instability and psychological trauma…. ”
Sharon LIn Tay, film critic, London (Studies in Documentary Film 2008)

http://www.directorslounge.net
http://www.freies-museum.com/
http://www.richfilm.de/currentUpload/index.html

with support from Walden http://www.galerie-walden.de/
and Galerie Suomesta http://www.suomestagalleria.net/

Directors Lounge Screening at Z-Bar Thursday, 24 March 2011Seppo...

Mon, 21 Mar 2011 09:35:00 -0400

Directors Lounge Screening at Z-Bar

Thursday, 24 March 2011

Seppo Renvall
Times, Songs and Material
16mm films and video

21:00
Z-Bar
Bergstraße 2
10115 Berlin-Mitte

“Never very good technical quality“, "no sharp image“, "no tripod“, "everything kind of shaky“, "mainly things that are not interesting“, "no story“, "no one idea“ - when reading these quotes from Seppo Renvall on his own films, one could think he is practising some kind of anti-aesthetic. However, Seppo Renvall does not want to cause offence or a scandal. Rather, his "negativity“ is set against the grand gestures that predominate media, and the superlatives "most“, "best“ and "highest“ required by the art scene. Theodor Adorno uses the term "negativity“ in conjunction with resistance and connected with a countenance that does not allow reconciliation with the power, or the "wrong“ social situation. Since then, times have changed and this society may not any more require a "life in alert“ (Walter Benjamin) but now urges a life in agitation. Seppo’s negativity seems to be more gentle, and seems to function more as a shield or as subversion against that constant state of arousal the media and the art world expect from the arts and the artists.

"If something interesting is happening, I possibly decide to shoot in the opposite direction“, and often he finds something more subtle, more telling than the spectacle ahead. His sympathy goes to the little things in life, or maybe I should say: empathy. His films thus carry his empathy to the small situations in daily life. As a consequence, part of his work is made of home movies showing scenes with friends, family life, children and travel, shot and shown on 16mm.

The themes of his other films are quite divers but still connected with daily life, even if they seem to embrace the spectacle, like "Nonstoppampam“. In this (in original) 3-channel work, an array of gunshots is fired in rapid succession. We possibly need to know the fact that these people shoot with a real gun for the first time in their life in order to see, what S. Renvall was mainly interested in: the awes, the hesitation, the threat and the surprise on the recoil forces reflected on their faces “Exotique” and “Yötähteni” talk about spaces of in-between, between light and shadow, night and day, unconscious and waking. Combined with the music of Aslak Christianson and others, many of these films, mostly edited on video, become songs, rhapsodies of life and a strong subversion of the mirror, which the TV screen seems to be for us.

Seppo Renvall will be present for Q&A.

Curated by Klaus W. Eisenlohr
With support from Suomesta Galerie, Berlin

More infos at:

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

http://www.z-bar.de/
http://open.fixc.fi/public.php?nid_send=271&uid_send=15
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Suomesta-galerie/117934471569793

Programme:

16mm

Home Movies 4 2:00

Home Movies 1-3 7:00

Private Area 3:49

Video

The Price Of Our Liberty 08:09

Warm Front 5:24

Iris And Nalle 2:53

Planet Earth Encyclopedia 6:13

Dancing Shortly 1:13

Exotique 09:57

Dancing Shortly II 2:45

Drum Zymphony 21:15

Nonstop PamPam 4:20

Yötähteni 2:30

Directors Lounge Screening at Z-BarSaturday, 08 Jan...

Tue, 04 Jan 2011 19:31:00 -0500

Directors Lounge Screening at Z-Bar
Saturday, 08 Jan 2011
21:00
Relations and Abstractions
Films by
Max Hattler

Z-Bar
Bergstraße 2
10115 Berlin-Mitte

Max Hattler surprises his audience with the gripping force of his abstracted images, combined with sounds he often composes for his own films. The German media artist and animator lives in London and has made a real leap into the media art and festival scene since he graduated from the Royal College of Art in 2005. A programme of his films was already presented at Directors Lounge 2010, and we are happy to present his new programme this month, prior to our festival in February.

In Germany, animation is not being considered as a proper art field, and similar to graphic arts it is often seen as “angewandte Kunst” i.e. craftsmanship or applied arts, mostly feeding the film industry. The field of animation can be quite broad, from animations from pencil drawings, paper-cut-outs, stop-motion, 3D animation, Flash animation and live generated computer graphics. Max Hattler seems to embrace them all, and his work could be seen as happy eclecticism, as post-modern art practice. In Aanaatt (2008) he is using stop-motion animation, Drift (2007) is a combination of close-up photography of skin combined with compositing and Flash animation, Heaven and Hell (2010) are computer generated graphic animation loops, Everything Turns (2004) has been drawn directly into the computer, and Ladyscraper: Cheese Burgers (2011) looks like it was made with live VJ tools.

Looking closer into Max’s work, however, we realize that his art is in no way about eclecticism or appropriation. The artist does make his mark with genuine image composition, and even if his use of different media tools is astonishingly varied, there is something common in most of his films, a kind of surplus, or plenitude that can be almost overwhelming. Animation, this tedious and time-consuming technique (also true in the digital age) usually leads to reduction (unless it is made by big teams and studios such as Pixar) often resulting in a kind of artistic beauty of scarcity. Not with Max Hattler, though! Even if animation techniques lead him to quite abstracted forms, they are not abstract. And the reduced, abstracted forms become symbols again, which often multiply, break apart in smaller image units, still animated, and again accumulate, congregate to larger units, to super-structures. Amazingly, this often happens with a chuckle, a political twist or black humour.

We are very much looking forward to this film night with Max Hattler, who will be available for Q&A after the show.

(curated by Klaus W. Eisenlohr)

Artist Link:
http://www.maxhattler.com/
http://www.facebook.com/maxhattler.artistpage

More infos:
http://richfilm.de

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

Directors Lounge Screening in der Z-BarDonnerstag,...

Mon, 22 Nov 2010 04:15:00 -0500

Directors Lounge Screening in der Z-Bar
Donnerstag, 25.11.2010
21:00
Discreet Structures
Films by
Toby Cornish und Johannes Braun/ jutojo Berlin

Z-Bar
Bergstraße 2
10115 Berlin-Mitte

Discreet Structures, the title of the program with Toby Cornish and Johannes Braun, refers to the compositional qualities of their films. It also applies to the linking to local architecture or urban places, and to the ways the artists work with musical scores. Both artists’ work mainly originates in Super-8 or 16mm footage, which they shoot and then process digitally. And most films are product of collaborations with musicians.

Two visits to Sarajevo in 2003 and 2004 gave Toby the opportunity to make a structural film in this historically and politically charged place: Sarajevo Vertical. The bridge, where arch-duke Franz Ferdinand was murdered, which gave way to the declaration of war in 1914, the name Tito on a bridge, and the white graves of killed Muslims from the most recent war, all appear in the film but only as a backdrop, or as the ground on which the visitor stands. If “Sarajevo Vertical” has or needs a symbolical/political reading is up to the viewer. First of all it is the rule of composition of filmmaker Cornish to align every image to a vertical line while shooting and then edit the film on principles of repetition, rhythm, acceleration and size of the vertical line.

Toby Cornish is interested in metric structures, in interferences of loops with different lengths, which due to their complexity might lead to a chance operation, similar to musical structures of John Cage or Steve Reich, and which in the end where the result may surprise the artist as much as the audience. With “Rückbau”, a film about the destruction of the East German parliament building, he takes this strategy further. With the help of digital programming, the film composes itself and anew on each presentation.

Johannes Braun, on the other hand is less interested in chance operations but in the totality of visual-acoustic composition. His film Teufelsberg also shows his background as trained architect. The images unfold his explorations of building structures while he tries to capture traces “of hope and disillusion, of making and destroying, still to be sensed” in the rubble and the left-over walls. They also comment on already past (and forgotten) plans for future developments, including architecture drawings and a former model apartment of the already scattered utopia for a commercial hot-spot on Teufelsberg. The visually dense composition thus not only shows the beauty of the bygone structures but also contains an edge of irony.

With “Gaz”, a collective product, the filmmakers again show their strength of working with compositional structures. Gaz was composed to a graphical score, which the filmmakers and the 2 musicians worked on independently of one another. The film celebrates the early industrial designs around gasometers and gas-lights, still to be found in Berlin’s city center.

http://www.jutojo.de/home/

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

More infos and film stills:
http://richfilm.de/filmUpload/1-framesJutojo.html

Urban HabitatA Co-Existence of the Senses Opening 19 November 7...

Fri, 19 Nov 2010 08:32:00 -0500

Urban Habitat
A Co-Existence of the Senses Opening 19 November 7 pm

‘In urban space I see an expression of a particular society’s values regarding democracy, identity and citizenship. Public and private space are key elements of the imagined communities we call nations. The displayed body of work investigate the individual’s relationship with their private habitat and the social built environment. From these two realms we construct our personal meaning of place.’ (Diego Ferrari)

Nearly everywhere, humanity is becoming urbanised. More than half of all people worldwide live in cities. The city is not only about buildings, yet the built environment dominates our experience of living in urban settings.

For over twenty years the photographic work of London-based photographer Diego Ferrari has investigated how people relate with space physically, intellectually and emotionally. The photographic project he is showing from 19 to 26 November 2010 at okk/raum29 focuses on everyday actions of the body in space, and individual emotional responses. The show is curated by urban dialogues’ artistic director.

Diego Ferrari (Argentina1965) is an artist and photographer. He studied at the Escola Llotja in Barcelona, completed a Fine Art BA at Goldsmith’s College University of London. He works in London and teaches on the master’s degree course on design and photography at the Escola Elisava in Barcelona. He also teaches 'Photography, Art and Architecture’ at Central Saint Martins College of Art and is currently a tutor for the BA in photography at Kingston University, London. He has been commissioned amongst others during the last six years by Whitechapel Gallery (London), InIVA (Institute of International Visual Art, London), House of World Cultures (Berlin) and Fundacio d’ Espais d'Art Contemporani (Girona, Spain).

Galerie okk/raum 29

Prinzenallee 29, 13359 Berlin u8 pankstraße

Opening 19 November 7 pm

20 to 26 November 2010 daily 5 to 9 pm

urban dialogues - home

Ladybugs do not DreamDirectors Lounge ScreeningwithMaru Ituarte...

Mon, 25 Oct 2010 07:35:00 -0400

Ladybugs do not Dream
Directors Lounge Screening
with
Maru Ituarte and Ute Ströer

Thursday, 28 October 2010
21:00
Z-Bar
Bergstr. 2
D-10115 Berlin-Mitte
U-Rosenthaler Platz

Ladybugs do not Dream
- Marienkäfer träumen nicht -

Two female filmmakers present their work at Z-Bar, the upcoming Directors Lounge screening. Both show a clear female point-of-view onto their subject without calling themselves feminists. Maru Ituarte, born in Monterrey, Mexico, has recorded and collected images of her surrounding with a critical view onto the violent, destructive and male-oriented aspects of a society that separates the male and female spheres at large. A found box of Hi-8 tapes, meant to be recorded over, became the source for a work called „Mexican Goulash“, which has a stunning similarity to a compilations of those self-obsessed clips to be found on Youtube in our days. It becomes the portrait of a certain part of the middle class.

Ute Ströer’s interest in film is based on her love for fairy tales and horror movies. The filmmaker meticulously works on the look of her images, strives for perfection in color and composition, and with her film characters she tries to achieve the largest band-with of expression and possible interpretation. The narrator we might have believed to hear exists only in the viewer’s head, the story we read only exists in fragments of symbols, a “Glasperlenspiel” of meanings.

Thus, as much as the aesthetic of the two artists may differ, they have much in common. Both invite, even seduce the viewer to follow onto a subjective journey of female perspective, when half-way on seemingly secure roads the viewer realizes, it’s their own imagination that has been triggered, their own story they have lived through, and actually, there is no such simple interpretation.

The artists will be present and available for Q&A.
(Curated by Klaus W. Eisenlohr)

video program
curated by Klaus W. Eisenlohr

http://www.richfilm.de/currentUpload/index.html
http://directorslounge.net

Artists Links:
http://maru-ituarte.com
http://www.utestroer.de

Programme:

• Daumenlutscherin     Ute Ströer    12:17
• Schlafende Füchsin    Ute Ströer     15:07
• La Metafisica Del Yoyo    Maru Ituarte    2:30
• Reproduktion    Maru Ituarte     9:13
• Hotel Rex    Maru Ituarte    3:06
• Mexican Goulash    Maru Ituarte    9:55
• Noa Noa Narko Tour    Maru Ituarte    5:01
• Fleisch    Maru Ituarte     6:30
• Phreak Show    Maru Ituarte    10:23
• Matrijoschka    Ute Ströer     7:33

Directors Lounge presents: The Destructive Power of...

Fri, 17 Sep 2010 16:13:00 -0400

Directors Lounge presents:

The Destructive Power of Happiness
Video and Film Works by
RICCARDO IACONO
Thursday, 23 September 2010
21:00

Z-Bar
Bergstraße 2
10115 Berlin-Mitte

Riccardo Iacono, London-based artist and filmmaker, presents a selection of films and video from three different bodies of work: abstract videos, hand-painted films and performance tapes (produced between 1993-2007).

“I like the destructive power of fire”, a friend stated to Riccardo. It became the source for the title of the show in Berlin. Riccardo’s fire might be his anarchistic disposition to destroy static concepts. However, he does not avoid the pains, the exhaustive efforts it takes to make art from “happiness”.

In his process of working with film, the painted film became the silent musical score for the making, the re-photographing of the film. By means of an optical printer, he developed a way to have light reflected from the 3-dimensional surface of the paint, while at the same time still illuminating it from the backside. Although such animation techniques usually are tedious work, Riccardo already tried to achieve some immediacy while printing film to film. This urge for directness, and a need for improvisation and contact with people have possibly let to his more recent body of work: “Shooqui”. The whole series of videos, which involves throwing peas or clothes, is the opposite of camera-less film. The artist holds the camera, aiming and tracking the prospective trajectory of the object being thrown by his other hand. The body connection between holding and throwing leads to a compulsive and circular movement of the camera when throwing larger objects. “It is almost like the recoil action of a gun upon firing.”
(Curated by Klaus W. Eisenlohr)

Programme
From Memory 1994-2003 16mm, colour silent 15.00
Open 1994/2003 16mm optical sound 2.30
Fuzzy Lover 2003 16mm B/W silent 2.10
Pea Video 2006 DV colour Stereo 2.00
More Light 2004 DV colour Stereo 4.55
Recess 2007 DV colour stereo 1:00
P-Sample 1 2006 DV colour Stereo 2:45
Play 2001 DV colour stereo 3:50
The Electric Garden 2004 DV colour Stereo 5.55
Radiator 1994 DV colour stereo 4:15
Roadside Mix 2006 DV Colour stereo 1:31
Cold Tape 2000 DV colour stereo 1.11
Kinky 2006 DV Colour stereo 1:45
Walk 2001 DV Colour stereo 3:30
A Lecture In Throwing A Pea 2006 DV colour Stereo 1.00
Universe Energies Sustain Us 2002 DV colour Stereo 14.00
Elephant 2007 DV colour Stereo 7:30

Artist-Links:
http://www.riccardoiacono.co.uk
http://www.axisweb.org/openfrequency/riccardoiacono

Detailed program info:
http://www.richfilm.de/filmUpload/1-framesRiccIacono.html
http://www.riccardoiacono.co.uk/exhibitions/DL_berlin230910.html

http://www.z-bar.de

Directors Lounge Screenings at Gallery...

Wed, 11 Aug 2010 03:45:00 -0400

Directors Lounge Screenings at Gallery Meinblau
presents:

spectres of light
film works by
jari Haanperän

Friday, 13 August 2010
21:00

Galerie Meinblau
Pfefferberg
Christinenstr. 18/19
D-10119 Berlin-Prenzlauer Berg
U-Senefelder Platz

Jari Haanperän
Film Works

Jari Haanperän lives in Berlin and together with Mirka Flander, his producer, he is running the gallery Suomesta. With his installations, Jari Haanperän takes up and further develops the idea of the Light Space Modulator by Laszlo Moholy-Nagy. Although Jari’s film works on the other hand appear very different to the abstract spirituality of Moholy-Nagy’s light machine, the two constituting elements seem to be the constant source of inspiration for artist and filmmaker Haanperän: light and the spirited machine. However with Jari, these elements seem to evoke their opponents: darkness, which is needed for the effects of light, or lumen, and the darker forces.

Maybe, in order to deal with darkness and those darker forces, we also need storytelling, dark humour and irony. At least, this is what Jari Haaperän is doing in his film works: he tells short stories. In several of Jari’s films, the story goes back to the mechanical age: “The Turkish Chess Machine” refers to the famous “Schachtürke”, a mechanical Robot made in Austria in 1769. In “Kalavalo”, on the other hand, the artist gives a surrealist vision of the first deep-sea exploration undertaken in a spherical steel box by biologist Charles William Beebe in 1930. This saying, don’t we see the mechanical age as the succeeding period of enlightenment?

In his most recent film work, the documentary “World of Light”, however, there may be the hint for a turning point: Although the images all show images of dark spaces lit by multitudes of lights, in the narration a different idea emanates: what, if there will be too to many lights, too much light? Could it then be, that the future spectres will no more live in darkness but lie in light overflow, in over-lightenment? Like Jari, we still love the dark caves of cinema. (Curated by Klaus W. Eisenlohr)

Programme:
• Indoor Light
• KALAVALO
• The Dark Side of the Car
• The Turkish Chess Machine/Die Turkische Schachmaschine
• Bang
• World of Light

Artist Link:
http://www.jarihaanpera.com/
More Programme Details
http://www.richfilm.de/filmUpload/1-framesJHaanperan.html
Gallery Meinblau
http://www.meinblau.de

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Directors Lounge Screenings at Gallery Meinblau
presents:

spectres of light
film works by
jari Haanperän