<nettime-ann> Coded Cinema | November Programme

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Coded Cinema | November Programme       Code: 0705


Still from The New Architecture of the London Zoo, Laszlo Maholy-Nagy, 1936 

Kiosk7 : OudWestKiosk

In the framework of the project Kiosk7: OudWestKiosk (opening on 3 November 2007), there is a three part programme in the Coded Cinema for the month of November. The artists group Gavin Wade mit Simon & Tom Bloor have invited four local groups involved in their project to present a documentary or other film work that relates to their organization. The second part of the Coded Cinema programme consists of two documentaries on Russian architect Berthold Lubetkin, and is followed by a third part consisting of films selected by the artists themselves.

Part I

El Ingenioso Hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha, English subtitles, 10:00 min, 2005, a video by artist Jean-Baptiste Gannes, proposed by M4guesststudio. Jean-Baptiste Gannes was an artist-in-residence at M4gueststudio in 2005. During his stay he produced this film which shows a red light shining through the window of the studio. The light flickers Morse code transmitting the text of the novel El Ingenioso Hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha.

Dezelfde wereld maar dan Anders, a documentary by Beeldend Gesproken art library / gallery, in Dutch, 30:00 min, 2004. Beeldend Gesproken is a national institution working with artists with a psychiatric background. The documentary focuses on Steven van den Broeke, Mirande Phernambucq and Yair AA, three artists from the gallery, and is presented by Professor in Art History Henk van Osch.

Historical film fragments of Amsterdam Oud West from the City Archives, proposed by Stichting Tijdgeest, 3 min, fragments of film from the 1930s.

Loverboy, Lodewijk Crijns, in Dutch, 79:00 min, 2003, proposed by Stedelijk Jongerenwerk Amsterdam, unit Argan. Loverboy is a drama dealing with the phenomenon of loverboy prostitution. It tells the story of 17-year old high school student Denise, and 19-year old Michael. It takes Denice, in love with Michael, a while to see that it has been Michael´s plan from the outset to have her work as a prostitute. The film was made for Dutch television and was praised for showing a nuanced view of the motivations behind the characters relationship, but is criticized for presenting an overly positive ending, which trivializes the seriousness of this reality.

Part II

The New Architecture of the London Zoo, documentary by Laszlo Moholy-Nagy for the Museum of Modern Art New York, silent, 15:00 min, 1936. Moholy-Nagy made two documentary films in London that further illustrate his biologically-inspired design programme. The first was commissioned by a London documentary film company and released in 1935 as In the Cradle of the Deep. It is a sixteen-minute-long naturalistic record of the growth of lobsters from baby to old age, as well as of the fisherman's struggle to search them out. He argued that a "prehistoric animal shell is constructed in such a wonderful way that we could immediately adapt it to a fine bakelite or other moulded plastic form". The second was a fifteen-minute silent film commissioned by the Museum of Modern Art, New York, The New Architecture of the London Zoo (1936). It is an attempt to show the spacial relationships within a set of avant-garde buildings designed by Berthold Lubetkin, and fits well with Moholy-Nagy's project of documentation of different biological experiences of space in the human and animal world.

The Chosen People: The Architect, documentary by Russia Today, in English, 30 min, 2007. Berthold Lubetkin - the main character of a new installment of The Chosen People documentary series ? is a Russian émigré architect who pioneered modernist design in Britain in the 1930s. In the 1920s, he practiced in Paris where he associated with the leading figures of the European Avant-Garde, including Le Corbusier. The architectural style he brought to London was something absolutely new. He's not well known in Russia, but in London his achievements are highly respected and still a lot of buildings remind one of his talent.

Part III

Rashomon, Akira Kurosawa, in English, 88:00 min, 1950. Rashomon is a 1950 Japanese film directed by Akira Kurosawa, working in close collaboration with cinematographer Kazu Miyagawa. The film has an unusual narrative structure that reflects the impossibility of obtaining the truth about an event when there are conflicting witness accounts. In English and other languages, 'Rashomon' has become a byword for any situation in which the truth of an event is difficult to verify due to the conflicting accounts of different witnesses. In psychology, the film has lent its name to the 'Rashomon effect'.

Modern Times, Charlie Chaplin, in English, 85:00 min, 1936. Modern Times is a 1936 comedy film by Charlie Chaplin that has his famous Little Tramp character struggling to survive in the modern, industrialized world. The film is a comment on the desperate employment and fiscal conditions many people faced during the Great Depression, conditions created, in Chaplin's view, by the efficiencies of modern industrialization. The movie stars Chaplin, Paulette Goddard, Henry Bergman, Stanley Sandford and Chester Conklin. It was written and directed by Chaplin, and marked the final screen appearance of the iconic Tramp character.

Groundhog Day, Harold Ramis, in English, 101:00, 1993. Groundhog Day is a 1993 comedy film directed by Harold Ramis, starring Bill Murray and Andie MacDowell. In the film, Murray plays Phil Connors, an egocentric Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania TV weatherman who, during a hated assignment covering the annual Groundhog Day event (February 2) in Punxsutawney, finds himself repeating the sameday over and over again. Subsequent to his indulging in all sorts of hedonistic pursuits, he begins to reexamine his life and priorities.

Night on Earth, Jim Jarmush, in English, 129:00, 1991. Night on Earth is a 1991 film written and directed by Jim Jarmusch. It is a collection of five vignettes concerning the temporary bond formed between taxi driver and passenger in five different cities: Los Angeles, New York, Paris, Rome, and Helsinki. The movie begins with the Los Angeles-based snapshot and moves from city to city as the clock turns during the late hours of the night.

Kiosk7 : OudWestKiosk
Exhibition by Gavin Wade mit Simon & Tom Bloor  

Opening: Saturday 3 November 2007, 21.00 hrs
3 November - 15 December 2007

Gavin Wade mit Simon & Tom Bloor are an artist group based in Birmingham, UK. Their ongoing Kiosk project exploits two ellipsoid concrete buildings located among enclosures created for Dudley Zoo (UK) in 1937 by the Russian architect Berthold Lubetkin and his young architecture group Tecton.  Kiosk7: OudWestKiosk has been developed by the artists and SPS over the course of 2007. It is an ongoing project that is simultaneously a competition, an artwork and an exhibition.

Organizations in the local neighbourhood Oud-West, were invited to propose new functions for the kiosk. After an edifying response from a broad range of Oud-West groups, four Kiosk proposals have been selected by the artists which are being developed for the final round of the competition. The artists have selected kiosk functions they deem as most beneficial to the local community and ones that enhance new understandings of the public realm. These four proposals are the heart of the artwork and form this exhibition.

Kiosk7: OudWestKiosk incorporates aspects of architecture, urban planning and social systems within a framework of localized and international aesthetics, forms and ideals. Each of the four entries are designated a section of the kiosk (the bar, roof etc.) as a symbolic sculptural gesture and each group is invited to provide content and materials for use in the exhibition that represent the organizations? ongoing activities and aspirations. The artists have (re)worked the material resulting from the proposals, using the principle of collage, appropriating and adapting quotes by Berthold Lubetkin, and have playfully composed a special edition of the publication series SMART Papers.

The winning Kiosk will be selected by an international panel of experts and exhibition visitors in December 2007. SPS aims to realize the winning kiosk proposal as a public artwork in the neighbourhood Oud-West in 2008.

Coded Cinema | October Programme      Code: 7793

While working towards the re-opening of SMART Cinema, as a gesture of appreciation to our audience, SMART has developed a radical new approach to the cinematic experience. The new Coded Cinema offers 24 hour access to an intimate 12 seat film theater, allowing visitors to let themselves in at their own leisure, make themselves at home and enjoy the eclectically mixed programme of video art, experimental film, art house cinema and documentary film. The Coded Cinema is located in a small outbuilding adjacent to the main building. Each month the access code is distributed through an emailing for which you can register at the SPS website.

AHMET ÖGÜT
CUT IT OUT (Turkey, 2004, 2mins)
Ögüt's Cut it Out is a sardonic take on what is perhaps the newest TV genre that can safely lay claim to any political impact, one that has already established its own codes and conventions as a genre ? the self-staged statement on the part of armed insurgents. Ögüt's film employs these codes in a manner that is striking and humorous, though it remains open on whom the joke is ? the genre, the audience, or the artwork itself. Courtesy of the artist.

Born in Diyarbakir, Turkey in 1981. Graduated from Hacettepe University, Fine Art  Faculty, Painting Department. He currently works as a researcher at the Yildiz Teknik University and lives in Istanbul. He has exhibited widely, including 9th International Istanbul Biennial, Platform Garanti Contemporary Art Centre, Instanbul, Ikon Gallery, Birmingham, and The Museum of Modern Art Slovenia.

CHRISTOPH BÜCHEL
AC 130 GUNSHIP (Switzerland, 2004, 9mins)
Büchel's AC 130 Gunship, in some ways a cornerstone of the programme, is an edited documentation of a US attack on a building complex somewhere in rural Afghanistan. The violent nonchalance of the off-voices of military pilots becomes all the more chilling as one realises that the brutality unfolding on the screen is irresistibly entertaining. Courtesy of the artist and Hauser & Wirth Zürich.

Born 1966 in Basel, Switzerland, lives and works in Basel. Recent exhibitions have included Always a little further, Arsenale, 51st International Art Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia, Italy; Sharjah International Biennial 7, Sharjah, United Arab Emirates; Dionysiac, Centre Pompidou, Paris; Close Quarters, Kunstverein Freiburg; Untitled, Swiss Institute New York; Guantanamo Initiative, Centre Culturel Suisse (with G.Motti), Paris; Under Destruction, MNAC, Palace of the People (with G.Motti), Bucharest; 1st international Biennial of Contemporary Art of Sevilla , Spain; The beauty of failure and the failure of beauty, Mirò Foundation Barcelona.

AKRAM ZAATARI
SAIDA. JUNE 6, 1982 [extract] (Lebanon, 2004, 4mins)
Zaatari's, Saida. June 6, 1982, is perhaps his one most elegant renditions among the many visual inquiries into the value of documentation and the possibility of historical memory, a piece that renders the bomb explosions of that day as beautiful as they were terrifying, by way of an ingenious juxtaposition of only six photographs Zaatari took of the attack. Courtesy of the artist and Sfeir Semler Gallery.

Akram Zaatari is a video artist and curator who lives and works in Beirut. In addition to his television and teaching experiences, he is the author of more than 30 videos and video installations exploring political issues pertinent to the Lebanese post-war condition, particularly the logic of religious and national resistance and the mediation of political conflicts through television such as in All Is Well on the Border (1997). Co-founder of the Arab Image Foundation (Beirut), Zaatari based his work on collecting, studying and archiving the photographic history of the Middle East.

MIGUEL CALDERON
INVERTED STAR (Mexico, 2002, 4mins)
Calderon's Inverted Star departs from war issues, turning to a more general inquiry into questions of sensationalism and testimony. For this piece, Calderon posted announcements in newspapers offering a small sum to anyone possessed by the devil who would be willing to be filmed. It is a brilliant take on poOrnography and the exploitation of misery to aesthetic / artistic ends ? but without forgetting crucial questions of self-staging and strategy on behalf of the actors. Courtesy of the artist.

Born 1971, Mexico City, Mexico, lives and works in Mexico City. His work has been exhibited in Mexico and abroad, including at the Museo Rufino Tamayo, the Diego Rivera Gallery, Mexico, ICA, London, the Sharjah Biennial, United Arab Emirates and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York. He both curates and writes about art and was founder of La Panadería art space in Mexico City. Calderón has a BFA from the San Francisco Art Institute. His artworks had a scene specially written for them in the movie The Royal Tenenbaums.

SENER ÖZMEN
OUR VILLAGE (Turkey, 2004, 7mins)
Özmen's Our Village is the most atmospheric or uncanny of the works in the programme, using the high-pitched cheerfulness of children's songs, and the benign, innocent demeanor of two little girls, to create a very crass and simple - but perhaps all the more effective - contrast with a depressing tale of rural dejection. Courtesy of the artist.

Born 1971, Idil, Sirnak, Turkey, Lives and works in Diyarbakir, Turkey. Studied painting at the University of Cukurova, Adana, Turkey. He has exhibited widely in Turkey and abroad including Istanbul Museum of Contemporary Art, Akbank Culture and Art Center Istanbul, Kunsthalle Fridericianum, Kassel, Germany and Museo D'Arte Contemporanea Roma, Italy. He also works as an art critic and curator.

ERIK VAN LIESHOUT
AWAKENING [single channel version of installation] (The Netherlands, 2005, 12mins)
Van Lieshout's Awakening is a typically hard-hitting portrayal of the artist's social surroundings in the wake of shifting social parameters regarding homosexuality, xenophobia and nationalism. Courtesy of the artist. 

Born 1968 in the Netherlands, lives and works in Rotterdam. Having started as a painter and draughtsman, Van Lieshout has increasingly manifested himself as an artist interested in installations. In his video productions he questions his own position with regard to other cultures in an often playful manner. And in approaching the question of what is politically correct or incorrect, he juggles with the established values. He has exhibited throughout Europe, including a solo show at the Groniger Museum, Gronigen, entitled 'Naughty By Nature, Not Because I Hate You'. He represented The Netherlands at the Venice Biennale in 2003 and was the recipient of the prestigious 'Prix de Rome.'

MARCIN KOSZALKA
SUCH A NICE BOY I GAVE BIRTH TO (Poland, 1999, 25mins)
Koszalka's, Such a Nice Boy I Gave Birth To is a portrayal of the sheer brutality of the filmmaker's relationship to his parents, one of undying humiliation and abuse. It is by far the longest film in the selection, and resorts to persistent, almost insufferable repetition ? repetitions only gradually undermined by subtle narrative developments throughout the film ? as a manner of getting its point across. Courtesy of the artist. 

Marcin Koszalka was born in 1970 in Cracow and studied sociology at Jagiellonian University and filmmaking at the Radio and Television Department of the University of Silesia.

About the curator
SCHADENFREUDE, the October programme in the Coded Cinema, was curated by Tirdad Zolghadr.  Since 1999, the focus of Zolghadr's work has shifted from documentary practices to the visual arts. After co-founding the Tehran-based feminist online magazine Bad Jens, he collaborated with artist Solmaz Shahbazi on a documentary on large-scale urbanism in Tehran, Tehran 1380. His ongoing projects in the field of curating and criticism arose from his critical engagement with the mise-en-scene of internationalism in the arts. Recent curatorial projects have include Ethnic Marketing at the Kunsthalle Geneva (with M. Anderfuhren), and the 7th International Sharjah Biennial. He is further active as a founding member of the Shahrzad Art & Design Collective, as a contributor to Frieze magazine and as an editor of Bidoun, a publication on arts & culture in the Middle East. -- Schadenfreude originated as part of The Artists Cinema, a Frieze Projects/ LUX collaboration which took place at the Frieze Art Fair 2006.

Renovations Underway



In August 2005 SMART Project Space acquired the former Pathological Anatomical Laboratories of the Wilhelmina Hospital area in Amsterdam Old West. After two years of developing plans, fundraising and permit procedures, renovation work began in May 2007 to the 3600m2 building. Peter Sas Architects and Bouwborg Nordwest are developing it into exhibition spaces (500 m2), a 3 screen cinema, a multi platform auditorium (120 seat capacity), ten studios, a café/restaurant, library with reading room and an art bookshop. The renovations will be complete by the end of 2007. The café/restaurant opens its doors to the public with a party on New Years Eve (tickets available in November) and SMART Cinema will be operational early 2008. During this time, access through the main entrance will remain available for all visitors and resident artists.s

SMART Project Space is kindly supported by the Mondriaan Foundation, Gemeente Amsterdam, VSBfonds, Stichting Doen, Filmfonds, and Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds.

SMART Project Space

Arie Biemondstraat 105-113 | NL-1054 PD Amsterdam

phone: +31 20 42 75951  | fax +31 20 247 59 53

http://www.smartprojectspace.net/

Location map: www.smartprojectspace.net/info/location

 

Opening hours: Tuesday ? Saturday, 12:00-17:00 hrs

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