Monumental

Director's Lounge 2008
Scala Theater
Berlin Mitte, Friedrich Str. 112A
February 8, 2200-2300

curated by Kim Collmer with assistance from the Voyeur Collective

Monumental shows work which in some ways both subverts and rallies behind the notion of monument. Often a singular object suggesting timelessness, the nature of monuments and their meaning becomes more complex as we see evidence of crumbling dynasties around us. The theme for the screening is loosely addressed with works about religious ritual, technology, unfilled journeys, political commemoration, home, pompous ritual, cultural history, and nature's glories. We will be screening an international group of artists. The running time is approximately 55 minutes.

Video Artists
Sofi Basseghi
Sarah Buckius & Melanie Manos
Jennifer Davy
Sven Kalden
Martin Koeppl
Sophia New
Sean Reynard
Bridget Walker
Voshardt & Humphrey

Videos

Sofi Basseghi | Melbourne, Australia
The Dance, 2006, 4'40min.
The Dance is a short response to depictions of familiar yet strange and frightening visions of mass religious hysteria. Men particularly perform this ritual publicly as the women admire silently. These images are contrasted by a woman dancing in solitude in a serene, mystic and sensual interior enclosure of a cave in a southern island of Iran, Kish.

This work is an artistic impression of the complexity of society where women's rights are menacingly violated. At the same time it portrays both a collective and individual struggle for contemporary social and cultural freedom.

Buckius & Manos | Ann Arbor, MI
101 Ways to Humanize Technology, 2007, 3:11 min.
101 Ways to Humanize Technology investigates the familiar technological landscape in new, humanized ways. Working as a team, The ManosBuckius Cooperative, we interact physically with technological devices by using them to perform unconventional, bizarre and highly non-productive tasks. The work proposes that everyday technologies might be reinterpreted in absurd, playful, and strange ways, and that the nature of productivity and function be re-examined. We situate our physical bodies in odd arrangements with technological objects, which become unsuspecting cohorts in our improvised activities. The dynamic is hardly one-sided, however: the objects often indicate the nature and rhythm of our movement and inspire mischievous, albeit highly serious, responses from us. The ManosBuckius Cooperative is intensely purposeful in its purposelessness.

Jennifer Davy | Berlin, Germany
Mulo, 2008, 14:46 min.
Film by Jennifer Davy, Actors: Anette Schaeffer and Miles Chalcraft
Special thanks to sub-art, Razanj, Croatia
Shot entirely on an Aiptek Pocket DV camera, Mulo is a short film and quest for perception. Through the lens of naïveté on a path of futility "she" embarks on an "Odyssette" pursuit for ... Mulo.

Sven Kalden | Berlin, Germany
Palpatine am Platz der Vereinten Nationen, 2007, 8:46 min.
Project Sven Kalden, Cinematography Wolf Wachner, Costume Nike Hinsberg, Photo documentation Thomas Bruns, Fountain Technique Wilfried Krauss
Wichtige Protagonisten für das Projekt "Palpetine am Platz der Vereinten Nationen" ist vor allem die zweilichtige Figur des Kanzlers Palpetine selbst, der durch seinen Satz "I love democracy, I love the republic" Filmgeschichte geschreiben hat und natuerlich die im Kreis gruppierten Gesteinsformationen am Platz der V.N. die als michrige Brunnenanlage Verwendung finden. Der Ort, der vor 1989 durch ein 19 Meter grosses Leninmonument dominiert und von einer stilisierten Fahne (Hochhaus) flakiert wurde, wird heutzutage nur unzureichend seinem Anspruch gerecht, naemlich Heimstaette der geballten Kraft aller Nationen dieser Erde zu sein. Genau hier galt es einzugreifen und dem Platz (zumindest temporaer) zu einem neuen Selbstbewusstsein zu verhelfen. Und wer, wenn nicht Kanzler Palpetine, koennte diesen verloren gegangen Machtanspruch re-initiieren. Die bislang lose hingeworfenen Steinbrocken werden durch Palpetines visuelle Eingriffe und Handlungen zu einer Art Kultstaette uminterpretiert und koennen somit dem Glauben an-und eine Identifikation mit dem Werten (values) der globalen Gemienschaft der Voelker (Vereinte Nationen) durch den Ort erwirken.

Martin Koeppl | Munich, Germany
Stadtluft, 2007, DV-PAL, 5:16 min.
This short ilm is part of my Towers series of videos/films which take Le Corbusier's Utopia of a Modernist City of Towers as their critical starting points. "Stadtluft" shows contemporary urban life alongside Concentration Camp Memorial Site watch towers. It references Dachau's endowment of city status in 1933, as well as the establishment of the first Nazi Concentration Camp in that same year.

Sophia New | Berlin, Germany
Curiouser and Curiouser, DVD and Installation, 2006
With air travel becoming cheaper and distances smaller, the choice of where one lives becomes extended, but questions of where one is from or what home is become more complex. Dressed as a hybrid of Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz and Alice in Wonderland, I walked the streets, parks, airports, hotels, houses, flats and beaches of places I encountered in the six months in the crISIS residency. These indcluded a house in Bristol, a studio in Berlin, Munich Airport, and a beach near Newcastle. This walking became a contemplative questioning of place and identity. A dialogue between the two characters emerged as a way of elucidating questions that are pressing for me.

Sean Reynard | Germany & Australia
A Veritable Logorrhea, 2007, DVD, 15:00 min.
Two 18th Century aristocrats make their obligatory annual perambulation around the palace grounds of Mr Liptrott.

Bridget Walker | Melbourne, Australia
One Verse, No Chorus, 2007, 5:32 min.
One Verse, No Chorus was developed independently by Bridget Walker during a period of time spent in the Northern Territory, Australia. It recently appeared as part of the Experimental/ Conceptual Shorts program of the 56th Melbourne International Film Festival. It was also screened at EXiS07 Experimental Film & Video Festival, Seoul, Korea and in the Southern Panorama of the 16th International Electronic Art Festival SESC VIDEOBRASIL.

Voshardt & Humphrey | New York
Cloudland, 2004, DVD, 3:24 min.
Cloudland opens with an ominous sky and the phrase “Soon we must worry about time...but not for almost a day,” spoken by the artists at various speeds and on multiple tracks. It’s a visual and verbal conundrum that seems pressing – yet begs procrastination – while the viewer is transported through stills of dissolving clouds and vapor trails. The accompanying soundtrack descends into silence, creating a feeling of suspension and temporary weightlessness before intensifying once again.