// aDifferent festival // Program 4 //
// Why Don't They Fly Away? //
5:00 PM
Sunday, February 4th, 2018
Woodland Pattern Book Center
720 E Locust St. Milwaukee, WI
Catalogue Volume 10 (2017), Dana Berman Duff
5 minutes 40 seconds, 16mm and digital video
Synopsis:
The “Catalogue” series is a set of 16mm films and videos that take as their subject a mainstream retail catalogue of knock-off furniture in 13 volumes, one film for each. Each film considers a different aspect of representation, of looking, and desire.
“Catalogue Volume 10” (2017, 16mm scan to digital/digital). A dystopia of moving text and moving image; Modernist chairs, Georges Perec’s Things: A Novel of the Sixties and underwater photography using 16mm, GoPro, and DSLR.
Artist Bio:
Dana Berman Duff lives and works in Los Angeles and rural Mexico. Her artworks are included inseveral museum collections, such as the Museum of Modern Art (NYC), the New Museum of Contemporary Art (NYC) and a number of private collections. She’s been awarded residencies at Foundation Kaus Australis in Rotterdam, and the American Academy in Rome. Her works in small format film and video have been selected for a number of international film festivals, including the Toronto International Film Festival, International Film Festival Rotterdam, the Biennale de l’Image en Mouvement (Geneva), and Edinburgh International Film Festival.
The Night In All Things (2017), Alexander Girav
9 minutes 45 seconds, video
Synopsis:
Somewhere, a young man is asleep, his room illuminated green by the flicker of his computer screensaver.
Even the night sky resembles its digital replication.
Anthropological observations on sleep in the age of technology, and the ways in which it substitutes natural environments.
Artist Bio:
Alexander Girav was born in Chicago in 1995 and now works as a cinematographer in Los Angeles. While a student at CalArts, he has screened at The Chicago International Film Festival, Valvidia International Film Festival, the European Media Arts Festival in Osnabruck and the Calarts Film/Video Showcase in Los Angeles, among others.
home (2017), Pieter Geenen
11 minutes 20 seconds, HD video
Synopsis:
On the walls of the local Belgian Club in Delhi, Ontario (Canada) hangs a banal painting portraying Saint Catherine’s Square, a square in the heart of the Belgian capital Brussels. Depicting this specific place the painting evokes the memory connected to it for the many Belgian immigrants in this particular Canadian region, which helps defining and enhancing the community’s identity.
In ‘home’ the camera starts from the level of the video pixel, an extreme close-up of the painting, and slowly travels backwards revealing the texture of paint and finally the architecture of the space, the interior in which this exterior was placed. The gaze of the viewer constantly shifts, from the abstract to the picturesque and to the real. Gradually the whole context is being revealed and metaphorically illustrates the concept of communities (essentially imaginary, artificial and idealised), the construction of national identity and the potential loss of it after migration. Both realities, Brussels and Canada, are connected by the sound, which mutates from the busy square in Brussels to the deserted spaces of the club of the Belgian diaspora.
‘home’ travels from the detailed and vivid memory of a place and time once called home, to the vague and blurred remains of this memory, which got exchanged for a new reality, a new home.
Shortly before the Delhi Belgian Club closes down for good we’re allowed to cast one last glance at what once has been and what is about to disappear forever.
Artist Bio:
Pieter Geenen (°1979) lives and works in Brussels. His work has been presented at the International Film Festival Rotterdam, New York Film Festival, Hong Kong International Film Festival, VIDEOEX Zürich, Doclisboa, Images Festival Toronto, EMAF Osnabrück, EXiS Festival Seoul, FID Marseille, Rencontres Internationales Paris/Berlin/Madrid, M-Museum Leuven, La Capella Barcelona, Centre Pompidou-Metz, FRAC Basse-Normandie, Médiathèque FMAC Geneva and ARGOS Brussels among others. Together with audiovisual artists and filmmakers Sirah Foighel Brutman, Eitan Efrat and Meggy Rustamova he is a founding member of Messidor, a collective platform for reflection, production and distribution.
Whose Dreamland? (2017), John Barlow
13 minutes 39 seconds, super 16mm to HD video
Synopsis:
Using 16mm and an experimental documentary approach, ‘Whose Dreamland?’ takes the viewer on a reflective journey through the politically charged river and seascapes of London and South East England. This journey takes place in the shadow of Britain’s European Union referendum vote of 2016, when Britain took the extraordinary, regrettable decision to leave the EU. The film was created as a calm, measured female voice of protest against the male-centric, right-wing world of anti-Eurpoean sentiment.
Artist:
Before recently completing a practice-based PhD in contemporary art, John Barlow worked for six years in UK politics, including roles at the UK Parliament, at the London Assembly and with the Labour Party in the South East of England. He also holds a BA qualification from the Courtauld Institute of Art, and an MA from King's College London. John's first short after graduating from his PhD, the experimental 16mm documentary 'Coastal Drift', was selected for the 2017 'Crossing the Screen' UK international film festival and screened at Eastbourne's Towner Art Gallery. 'Heading Due North', his second short, was selected for the 'Analogica 7' artists' film festival in Italy.
Sunset Song (2017), Grace Mitchell
4 minutes 37 seconds, video
Synopsis:
The sunset multiplies thousands of times through the lenses of tourists capturing a keepsake, showing someone somewhere where they are. Here’s the sun, for you, and you, and you -- there’s enough for all of us. Sunset Song swells between the dissociation of observation and an anthropologist’s tender heart.
Artist Bio:
Grace Mitchell is a multidisciplinary artist residing in Milwaukee, WI.
Catalogue Vol. 3 (2017), Dana Berman Duff
2 minutes 43 seconds, digital video
Synopsis:
The “Catalogue” series is a set of 16mm films and videos that take as their subject a mainstream retail catalogue of knock-off furniture in 13 volumes, one film for each. Each film considers a different aspect of representation, of looking, and desire.
“Catalogue Vol.3” (2016-17) was made using the “Small Spaces” catalogue, with an Arne Jacobsen 1955 Series 7 chair as protagonist. This is a computer-generated rendering of the original chair, which was the inspiration for the knock-off version in the catalogue.
Artist Bio:
Dana Berman Duff lives and works in Los Angeles and rural Mexico. Her artworks are included inseveral museum collections, such as the Museum of Modern Art (NYC), the New Museum of Contemporary Art (NYC) and a number of private collections. She’s been awarded residencies at Foundation Kaus Australis in Rotterdam, and the American Academy in Rome. Her works in small format film and video have been selected for a number of international film festivals, including the Toronto International Film Festival, International Film Festival Rotterdam, the Biennale de l’Image en Mouvement (Geneva), and Edinburgh International Film Festival.