How We Move
November Program

NOVEMBER 1-6

MUSIZ
Ivan Moudov
2005, Video, 6’15”

In 2005, “a group of Bulgarian artists caused a major public scandal by organizing the fake opening of a modern art museum in Sofia, Bulgaria.” After more than 350 people flocked to attend the advertised opening, it became apparent the intervention was a well-planned action headed by artist Moudov to draw attention to the urgent need for such a museum in Bulgaria.

Occupational Hazards [Les Risques du Métier]
Antek Walczak
2000, Video, English and French, 56’

“Commissioned for the Purple magazine-curated Elysian Fields exhibition at the Centre Pompidou, Occupational Hazards arose from a fundamental constraint. For budget, insurance and scheduling reasons, filming was kept within the Centre Pompidou, using the institution’s own media production crew, whose normal job is to document exhibitions, openings, lectures and other museum events. The star architecture of the Rogers-Piano building, with interiors recently renovated in a bland euro-corporate space-age vernacular, became the generator of a Perecian house-constructed fiction. The locations were basic narrative units, as the spaces of the Pompidou went looking for other fictions besides their design, function or security.” - Antek Walczak

The Good Life (a guided tour)
Katleen Vermeir & Ronny Heiremans
2009, Video, English, 16’

The Good Life (a guided tour) redefines our perception of the art institution and raises our awareness of its part in the “creative city,” a scenario being played out in metropoles around the globe. The apparently “neutral” frame of the gallery space enveloping the spiritual and cultural heritage of our society recedes in favor of that of a real estate opportunity. The estate agent is the embodiment of the denial of any possible negative impact that the creative race between cities in a neo-liberal context might generate. Through a generic language that excludes any notion of “gentrification,” the hyperbolic tour creates an exclusive identity. The film’s elaborate treatment of sound – as well as the absence of it – disrupts the untenable perfection of the architecture and its mediated forms, making the emptiness of the building palpable, which actually is what the estate agent is selling: a lifestyle fantasy projected on an empty shell.

NOVEMBER 8-13

Theorists
Fikret Atay
2008, Color video, sound, transferred to DVD, 3’34”

Theorists explores the religious education of youth in Turkey. In order to imprint daily lessons in religion in their minds, students review these materials after school. Up to fifty pupils chant out loud while circling the room. As no one pays attention to each other’s rhythm while reciting, the result is a discordant babble. In this work, Atay seeks to underline the contradictions associated with such teaching practices and to sharpen our consciousness around the problematics of a strict religious upbringing. Also examined is the impact physical activity and movement, such as walking and talking, have on processes of learning and understanding.

Courtesy of the artist, PİLOT (İstanbul) and Galerie Chantal Crousel (Paris)


High School
Frederick Wiseman
1968, 16mm transferred to DVD, English, 75’

High School was filmed at a large urban high school in Philadelphia. The film documents how the school system exists not only to pass on “facts” but also to transmit social values from one generation to another. High School presents a series of formal and informal encounters between teachers, students, parents and administrators through which the ideology and values of the school emerge. (Zipporah Films)

NOVEMBER 15-20

A Crime Against Art
Hila Peleg
2007, video, English, 100’

“A Crime Against Art is a film based on the trial staged at an art fair in Madrid in February 2007 organized by Anton Vidokle and Tirdad Zolghadr. Inspired by the mock trials organized by André Breton in the 1920s and ‘30s, it playfully raises a number of polemical issues in the world of contemporary art: collusion with the ‘new bourgeoisie,’ instrumentalization of art and its institutions, the future possibility of artistic agency, as well as other pertinent topics.

The trial begins with the assumption that a crime has been committed, yet its nature and evidence are allusive and no victims have come forward. The testimonies and cross-examinations become an attempt by the Judge (Jan Verwoert), the Prosecuters (Vasıf Kortun and Chus Martinez), and the Defense Attorney (Charles Esche) to unravel the nature of the puzzling ‘crime against art’. Set as a television courtroom drama and filmed by four camera crews, the film serial presents a condensed 100-minute version of the trial.” (unitednationsplaza)

Russian Ark
Alexander Sokurov
2002, Video, Russian with English subtitles, 96’

A landmark in the history of cinema – and a benchmark in the evolution of digital aesthetics – this phantasmagoric tour of the Hermitage Museum unfolds as a single 96-minute Steadicam shot. Seen through the eyes of an unnamed narrator who wakes from a traumatic event, the film summons thousands of actors to evoke a ghostly theater of Russian history and culture. Both acclaimed and dismissed as a technical feat, Russian Ark uses its form to pose urgent questions about identity in an era of digital liquidation.

NOVEMBER 22-27

The Anthem
Apichatpong Weerasethakul
2006, 35mm transferred to video, 5’

“In Thailand the Royal Anthem plays before each feature film presentation, in order to honor the King. One of the rituals embedded in our society is to give a blessing to something or someone before certain ceremonies. I would like to propose a Cinema Anthem that praises and blesses the approaching feature for each screening. An older lady will perform a ritual channeling energy to the audience to give them a clear mind. The ritual will ensure that after the feature film ends, life and the outside world will be better.” - Apichatpong Weerasethakul

Paris Is Burning
Jennie Livingston
1990, 16mm transferred to video, English, 71’

“Jennie Livingston’s documentary about gay Black and Latino men who compete in drag balls is a beautiful piece of work—lively, intelligent, exploratory. The drag queens we see here seem to be holding up a mirror to the world of the empowered as they see it in movies, TV shows and magazines. In the ballroom, some present themselves as elegant, glamorous women in designer outfits, and walk with the hip-swinging slouch of runway models, while others adopt more mundane personas: college students (of both sexes); military men; Wall Street businessmen; aristocrats at play, dressed for yachting or riding to hounds. The criteria by which all these turns are judged is verisimilitude—‘realness.’” - Terrence Rafferty

NOVEMBER 29-DECEMBER 4

The Futurist
The Picture House
The Plaza
Emily Richardson
2010, Video, 4’ each

“The Cinema series is a series of single shot films made in independent cinemas. As the shift from 35mm to digital projection takes place, the position of these cinemas becomes fragile. I am interested in creating a record of the changing relationship between films and cinema architecture, and in some way capturing the essence of the traditional cinema-going experience, where the atmosphere created by the cinema itself plays a part in the audience experience of the film. The films were all shot in the same way, using a single 360-degree time-lapsed shot from the center of the cinema, where a feature film is projected without an audience. The soundtrack of each film reflects the film being projected, the sound having been recorded in the projection booth during the projection. Each film is a distilled cinematic experience.” - Emily Richardson

Empire
Ergin Çavuşoğlu
2008, Video, 9’43”

“Empire (after Andy Warhol) is a single channel video exploring the constructs of ideas on place, non-place and placelessness. The work reframes an ordinary building in reference to the representation of an iconicized structure, while shifting from the global to the local. Borrowing its title from Andy Warhol’s film Empire, which consists of a single shot of the Empire State Building and runs 8 hours and 6 minutes, chronicling the passage from day to night, my single channel video rather echoes the ‘space of current relations’ associated with notions of temporal and spatial continuity, in which the concepts of domestic comfort are unsettled through an unrelenting gaze.” - Ergin Çavuşoğlu

SCREENING SCHEDULE

MUSIZ (Looped)
November 1-5: 14.00, 17.00

Occupational Hazards [Les Risques du Métier]
November 1: 15.00
November 2-5: 15.00, 18.00

The Good Life (a guided tour) (Looped)
November 1: 16.00
November 2-5: 16.00, 19.00

High School
November 10: 12.00, 15.00, 17.00
November 11: 13.00, 16.00
November 12: 12.00, 15.00, 17.00
November 13: 13.00, 15.00

Theorists (Looped)
November 10: 13.30, 14.00, 16.30
November 11: 12.00, 14.30, 15.00, 17.30
November 12: 13.30, 14.00, 16.30
November 13: 12.00, 14.30, 16.30, 17.00

Russian Ark
November 15: 13.00, 17.00
November 16-17: 12.00, 16.00
November 18: 14.00, 18.00
November 19: 12.00
November 20: 12.30, 16.30

A Crime Against Art
November 15: 15.00
November 16-17: 14.00
November 18: 12.00, 16.00
November 20: 10.30, 14.30

The Anthem (Looped)
November 22-23: 12.00 (Looped until 18.30)
November 24: 12.00, 18.15
November 25: 12.00 (Looped until 18.00)
November 26: 12.00, 16.30
November 27: 11.00

Paris is Burning
November 22: 18.30
November 24: 17.00
November 26: 15.00

The Futurist, The Picture House
November 29: 16.00, 18.00, 19.00
November 30: 13.00

Empire (Looped)
November 29: 13.00, 15.00, 17.00, 18.30
November 30: 12.00, 14.00, 16.00, 17.00, 18.00 (Looped until 18.30)
December 1-2-3: 12.00 (Looped until 20.00)
December 4: 10.30 (Looped until 18.00)