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 Research/ Directors Lounge at
KING KONG Contemporary Art Project,
Ehrenhof des Mannheimer Barockschlosses

Sound Pattern #1 Violence in the City
12-29 November 2010

Opening reception 12 November 19:30

Mannheim Barock Castle

Three guest curators, Klaus W. Eisenlohr (Berlin), Hans W. Koch (Köln) und Thomas Lühr Frankfurt/M.) present video and sound works.

Barock Castle Catacombes: Tom Skipp’s 3-channel work Stormwater, which explores Europe’s biggest stormwater reservoir before the flood

Container 1: Urban Research Screening and Installation
"urban interference and the city’s symbols"

The success of modern cities is connected with relative security and trust in the social contract between citizens. As Jan Philippe Reemtsma states: “If I happen to drop into a violent situation, I will neither be made responsible for not being armed, nor for having failed to defend myself.” (memory-quoted). Although this unwritten contract is part of the production of modernity, urban myths and symbols often tell about violent situations. Therefore, films about urban symbols often deal with the uncanny. They thus touch the precarious balance between the violence of law enforcement and undisclosed threats of decay.

On the other hand, with urban interventions, artists try to play a more active role in society . Some artists see themselves as “political activist” and try to change politics and society; others just try to reach a different, more divers audience; or, they like to reach out for a seemingly impossible dream. All of them, however, share visions and ideas about urban life. And those inspirations may be infectious!

Videos:
   

•    Seven After Eleven, 2008 -*- Christina McPhee US
    •    Play Ground, 2009 -*- Rinat Edelstein IL
    •    Descend, 2009 -*- Pablo Useros ES
    •    Fragments of the Los Angeles River, 2009 -*- Richard O’Sullivan UK
    •    Elsewhereness: Yokohama, 2008 -*- Anders Weberg + Robert Willim SW
    •    Sintia, -*- Jose Matiella +Ivan Meza MX
    •    Buda, 2009 -*- Beatriz + Carlos Matiella MX
    •    Easy Rider, 2006 -*- Pilvi Takala FI
    •    Jalkeilla Taas (Up And About Again), 2009 -*- Maarit Suomi-Väänänen FI
    •    Amusement Park, 2001 -*- Pilvi Takala FI
    •    Drive, 2008 -*- Elham Rokni IL
    •    Simulacro, 2005 -*- Hector Falcon MX
    •    Moel Yad, 2009 -*- Hadas Tapouchi IL
    •    Night Meter, 2000-*-Yaron Lapid UK
    •    Interception 2007-2009 -*- Roch Forowicz PL
    •    Stormwater / Estanque de tormentas-*- Tom Skipp ES
curated by Klaus W. Eisenlohr (Directors’ Lounge Berlin)

Links:

KIng Kong
http://www.kingkong-contemporary.de/?p=539
Klaus W. Eisenlohr
http://www.richfilm.de/DL2010/framesIndex.html

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

Neue Bewirtschaftung, Magistrale 2010.
(New Management)
Screening in public pubs and at gallery Suomesta on Potsdamer Str.:
October 8 starting at 6pm
October 9 starting at 2pm
October 10 discussion at 2pm

Organized by gallery Suomesta and Neues Museum, this event is including many Directors Lounge artists and associates. The artists and their films will occupy screens in public pubs usually set up for watching soccer games along Potsdamer Str, Berlin

Participating artists:
Thorsten Fleisch, Veli Granö, Jari Haanperä, Marikki Hakola, Aline Helmcke, Pekka Kantonen, Cinema Mobile, Horace Ové, Antti Pussinen, Seppo Renvall, Pekka Sassi, Ira Schneider, PINK TWINS, Roi Vaara and Klaus W. Eisenlohr with a selection of his Urban Research programme.
On Oct. 10 there will be a discussion panel on the question of “places for short independent film today?”
Program and more detailed infos on http://magistrale2010.wordpress.com/

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

presents:

Aline Helmcke

Time—Framed

Friday, 16 July 2010
21:30

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

Programme
Films by Aline Helmcke
Reanimation, 2003, 3:49min (D)
animation exercises, 2004, 1:51min (D)
Destrukt, 2006, 2:20 min (D)
bus ride, 2007, 2:14 min (UK)
pavement, 2007, 1:27 min (UK)
Kamo Gawa, 2008, 4:33 (CH/UK)
58 Pages, 2008, 6:26 min (UK)
Rehe blicken nicht nach oben, 2010 Preview at DL !!, 6:55 min (D)

Guests
Hei Cheng, Boiling, 2007, 3:40 min (UK/JP)
Martin Morris, Reaction, 2004, 4:00 min (UK)
Matthias Beckmann, Keine Tricks, 2008, 14:13 min (D)
Pia Maria Martin, Go, 2004, 12:00 min (D)
Joe King & Rosie Pedlow, Strange Lights, 2010, 8:08 min (UK)
Toby Cornish, Sarajevo Vertical, 2004, 10:20 min (UK/DE)

Aline Helmcke either uses the drawing pen or the camera to create her film images. Her last film, “Rehe blicken nicht nach oben”, was realized with actors, scriptwriting and a tangible narration. The drawings, however, are based on photographs, or better saying on media images. The movement that derives from the differences of images ­ the animation, as we call it ­ though emphasizes the movements of drawing itself and the differences between one line and another line, but it rarely creates the illusion that we know from other animation films.

What we thus may find here, is the wonderful hesitation of a young artist amongst a world of an rapidly accelerating flood of media images. The hesitation, the slowing-down, may already be a result of the painfully slow techniques of film drawings. (“I think I can call myself a filmmaker now, something I always strived for.” A.H.)

Anyhow, Aline Helmcke conceives images of a poetic hesitation in her films, and it is well worth following their progression and unfolding, thus contemplating Aline’s out-drawn thought process. A series of films from different artists, selected by the Aline Helmcke, completes the program, all of them either exploring drawing or being composed with frame-by-frame photography. The artist will introduce the program and be available for Q&A. Please feel invited.

Curated by Klaus W. Eisenlohr

Artist Link:
http://www.ahelmcke.com/

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

Urban Research Selection 2010
Screening at
PAm Festival in Senigallia, Italy
08 July 2010, at 20:00

GALLERIA GHERARDI 30
Via Gherardi 30 – Senigallia

urban research selection | urban interference and the city’s symbols

The success of modern cities as social entities is connected with the liability of relative security and trust in the social contract between citizens. As Jan Philippe Reemtsma states: “If I happen to drop into a violent situation, I will neither be made responsible for not being armed, nor for having failed to defend myself.” (memory-quoted). Although this unwritten contract is part of the production of modernity, urban identity, myths and symbols often tell about violent situations. Therefore, films talking about urban symbols often deal with the uncanny, with the precarious balance between the violence of law enforcement and violent social decay.

On the other hand, with urban interventions, artists try to play a more active role in society . Some artists see themselves as “political activist” and try to change politics and society; others just try to reach a different, more divers audience; or, they like to reach out for a seemingly impossible dream. All of them, however, share visions and ideas about urban life. And those inspirations may be infectious!
Curated by Klaus W. Eisenlohr

Program:

Elsewhereness: Yokohama 2008 -*- Anders Weberg SW
Zwischenzeit 2008 -*- Mischa Leinkauf + Mathias Wermke DE
Seven After Eleven 2008 -*- Christina McPhee US
Buda -*- Beatriz + Carlos Matiella MX
Sintia -*- Jose Matiella+Ivan Meza MX
Amusement Park 2001 -*- Pilvi Takala FI
Jalkeilla Taas (Up And About Again) 2009 -*- Maarit Suomi-Väänänen FI
Drive 2003 -*- Elena Näsänen FI
Drive! 2008 -*- Elham Rokni IL
Easy Rider2006 -*- Pilvi Takala FI
Simulacro 2005 -*- Hector Falcon MX
Play Ground 2009 -*- Rinat Edelstein IL
Night Meter 2000 -*- Yaron Lapid UK
Interception 2007-2009 -*- Roch Forowicz PL
Stormwater / Estanque de tormentas 2009 -*- Tom Skipp ES

Festival Program: http://www.pamfestival.com/programma/
Direct Link:
http://www.pamfestival.com/videoproiezione-di-klaus-w-eisenlohr/

Urban Research 2010: http://www.richfilm.de/DL2010/framesUrbanResearch.html

Z-Bar, Thurs, 24th

Film and Video are media of time, maybe even more so than any other medium. The frozen time, the preserved time, as well as the composed time are even more constitutive for experimental film and art videos than for narrative film. Not only Deleuze pointed out, that film at it´s height is “temps-image” instead of “movement-image”, though he referred to European narrative cinema; also Peter Kubelka stated: “film is not movement, quite the opposite, while projecting film, every thing is being undertaken to technically prevent showing the movement of the film strip”. It is time, however, to bring together some Berlin friends of experimental film and Directors Lounge, and under the headline of “time”. Please come and meet the artists; many of whom will be present, at the program at Z-Bar Berlin.

Directors Lounge at Z-Bar, Thursday, 24 June 2010, at 21:00

The program comprises films and videos by Aline Helmcke, Andreas Gogol, Dagie Brundert, Deborah Phillips, Heiko Daxl, Ingeborg Fülepp, Jens Lüstraeten, Klaus W. Eisenlohr, Max Hattler, Myriam Thyes, Sandra Becker 01, Telemach Wiesinger, Thorsten Fleisch, Ute Reeh

Directors Lounge Screenings in der Z-Bar
präsentiert:
Within Landscape and Time
Video Works by
Elena Näsänen
Mittwoch, 26 Mai 2010
21:00

Z-Bar
Bergstraße 2
10115 Berlin-Mitte

Elena Näsänen
Video Künstlerin aus Finnland

Die große Leinwand, das große Kino und das Bild von Natur in Cinemascope sind Bezüge für Elena Näsänens Video Arbeiten. Sie ist eine der wenigen Künstler, die ausschließlich mit Video arbeiten, und die zudem selten auf der Kinoleinwand zu sehen sind. Stattdessen findet die Öffentlichkeit die Arbeiten der finnischen Künstlerin in Galerien und internationalen Kunstausstellungen.

Ihre Filme beinhalten Strukturen des narrativen Kinos: zu den meisten ihrer Videofilme hat sie das Drehbuch verfasst, es spielen Schauspieler, es gibt einen Kameramann und manche enthalten den Spannungsaufbau möglicher, unheimlicher Erlebnisse, wie sie die Zuschauer in Horror und Kriminalfilmen erwarten. In “Before Rain“ (Vor dem Regen) benutzt Elena Ausschnitte aus Hollywood Krimis, die jedoch nicht aufgelöst werden; in „Night“ (Nacht) folgt die weibliche Hauptfigur ihrem Drang, das Haus bei Nacht zu verlassen und den nahe liegenden dunklen Wald zu durchstreifen; und in „Wasteland“ (Ödland) ist eine Gruppe von Frauen im Hinterland Australien unterwegs, deren Aufgabe und Schicksal am Ende unbekannt bleiben. Überhaupt sind fast immer Frauen die Protagonisten der Szenen.

Zwei andere Elemente zeichnen Elenas Arbeit jedoch mindestens in ähnlich starker Weise aus: Zeit und Natur. Zeit ist gänzlich verbunden mit dem Bild. .Zeit wird ambivalent, wird zur Filmzeit, die entweder still steht oder endlos dauert, ganz abhängig vom Betrachter. Auf der anderen Seite scheint Natur die Szenerie zu dominieren. Vielleicht ist es so, dass Elene Näsenen hier den Blick auf das erhabene „Andere“ wieder aufleben lässt. Natur, so wie sie das unbekannte Andere für uns Bewohner der Städte wurde.
(Kuratiert von Klaus W. Eisenlohr)

Artist Link:
http://www.elenanasanen.com

Directors Lounge
http://www.directorslounge.net
More infos and video stills:
http://www.richfilm.de/filmUpload/1-framesElenaNasanen.html

———
ENGLISH TEXT:

Directors Lounge Screenings in der Z-Bar
presents:
Within Landscape and Time
Video Works by
Elena Näsänen
Wednesday, 26 May 2010
21:00

Z-Bar
Bergstraße 2
10115 Berlin-Mitte

Elena Näsänen
Video Work

Elena Näsänen’s reference for her work on video is the big screen, the glory of grand cinema, and with that, the picture of nature in cinemascope. She is one of the few artists who work exclusively on video, and who are rarely shown on a cinema screen. Instead, the audience finds her work in art shows, galleries and international exhibitions.

The films of the Finnish artist who lives in Helsinki contain structures of narrative cinema: most of them are written by the artist, are played by actors, and they are building up a suspense of uncanny possible occurrences, which the audience anticipates to happen. In “Before Rain” Elena uses fragments of Hollywood crime movies that stay unresolved, in “Night” a female character follows an urge to leave the house at night searching through the adjunct woods, and in “Wasteland” a group of women are on their way to an unknown task and destiny.

There are two other elements, however, that seem to mark Elena’s work just as strongly: time and nature. Time is strictly connected with images. If her images stay in our memory, their time seems to persist, thus making time ambivalent, a “film time” that stands still or becomes endless, depending on the viewer. Nature, on the other hand seems to dominate the image, and Elena’s characters. Maybe, Elena Näsänen here revives a contemporary view onto the sublime other: Nature as it has become the unfamiliar other for us city dwellers. And this mystery may be contained by the Australian outback, the Chinese yellow mountains, or the Finnish landscape.
(curated by Klaus W. Eisenelohr)

Artist Link:
http://www.elenanasanen.com

Directors Lounge
http://www.directorslounge.net
More infos and video stills:
http://www.richfilm.de/filmUpload/1-framesElenaNasanen.html