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

read more

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 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 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-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-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 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 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 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

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