Territories of the In/Human

Screening Program
July 6 - 24, 2010

With films and videos by
bankleer, Patricia Esquivias, Korpys / Löffler, Elena Kovylina, Christine Meisner, Olivier Menanteau, Damir Ocko, Monika Oechsler, Amie Siegel, Helene Sommer, José Carlos Teixeira, Alexey Terehoff, Ingrid Wildi

PROGRAM

Tuesday, July 6, 2010, 7 p.m.

SPECTERS OF POSTCOMMUNISMS

Alexey Terehoff,
Lyapis Trubetskoy "Capital", 2007, 3’17’’
Elena Kovylina,
Dying Swans, 2008, 8’ 36”
bankleer, Lenas Gespenster, 2007, 25’
Helene Sommer, A Tale of Stone and Wood, 2009, 21’
Damir Ocko, The Boy with the Magic Horn, 2007, 15’
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Alexey Terehoff, Lyapis Trubetskoy "Capital", 2007
Alexey Terehoff, Lyapis Trubetskoy "Capital", 2007
bankleer, Lenas Gespenster, 2007, 25’
Damir Ocko, The Boy with the Magic Horn, 2007, 15’

Alexey Terehoff, Lyapis Trubetskoy "Capital", 2007
Music video of Lyapis Trubetskoy’s song Capital

Elena Kovylina, Dying Swans, 2008

More than 200 journalists have been killed or gone missing in Russia over the last ten years. The film Dying Swans, which is devoted to them, refers to a particular ritual from the former Soviet Union: Tchaikovsky’s ballet Swan Lake, which since Stalin’s death has been broadcast whenever a Soviet leader has passed away.

bankleer, Lenas Gespenster (Lena’s Ghosts), 2007
Lenas ghosts questions the aftermath of a political and cultural vision . . . The Soviet Union’s founding father, deceased 80 years ago, conjures a time of turmoil, revolt, and Red Terror. Lenin’s ghost haunts not only the museum bearing his name in Volgograd, but also the consciousness of many people who today wonder what is left of the social utopia where community spirit and the integrity of individuals supposedly reigned? . . . (bankleer)

Helene Sommer, A Tale of Stone and Wood, 2009
The Bulgarian mountain village Kovatchevitsa became popular in the nineteen-seventies as a favored film location for the Bulgarian film industry. The video interlinks fragments from a selection of these films with the artist’s own footage shot at different sites within the village. The village appears as a blank space overloaded with various projections, where both the real and the fictitious historical narratives—from the Ottoman era to that of postcommunism—are superimposed.

Damir Ocko, The Boy with the Magic Horn, 2007
During the period of political transition, Croatia abandoned one of the biggest projects ever to be built in the northern hemisphere: a university hospital that would occupy nearly 250,000 square meters. The hospital . . . forms the architectural backdrop for The Boy with the Magic Horn: derelict halls, bare concrete walls, labyrinths of undefinable rooms, and nature invading the whole environment. Based on a Wagnerian scenario, the video depicts a dreamy and hallucinogenic game played by alien characters that references their new social and emotional displacement . . . (Damir Ocko)

Tuesday, July 13, 2010, 7 p.m.

EMPATHY

Amie Siegel, Empathy, 2003, 92’
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Amie Siegel, Empathy, 2003, 92’
Amie Siegel, Empathy, 2003, 92’

Amie Siegel, Empathy, 2003
Empathy reverses the psychoanalytic gaze back onto the psychoanalyst. Three genres—fiction, screen test, and documentary interview—provoke questions about power, manipulation, and understanding. A fictional narrative about a voice-over actress, who is being treated through psychoanalysis, interweaves with screen tests of different actresses auditioning for her role in Empathy as well as with interviews conducted with actual psychoanalysts. (Amie Siegel)

Tuesday, July 20, 2010, 7 p.m.

MAGICAL CONSTRUCTIONS / CONSTRUCTIONS OF THE MAGICAL

Patricia Esquivias, Folklore I, 2006, 12’
Patricia Esquivias, Folklore II, 2008, 14’
Monika Oechsler, There Is Only One Life, 2006, 12’ 50’’
Korpys / Löffler, The Nuclear Football, 2004, 30’ 30’’
Olivier Menanteau, Media Alert, 2006, 12’ 30’’
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Patricia Esquivias, Folklore I, 2006, 12’
Patricia Esquivias, Folklore I, 2006, 12’
Patricia Esquivias, Folklore II, 2008, 14’
Patricia Esquivias, Folklore II, 2008, 14’
Monika Oechsler, There Is Only One Life, 2006, 12’ 50’’
Monika Oechsler, There Is Only One Life, 2006, 12’ 50’’
Korpys / Löffler, The Nuclear Football, 2004, 30’ 30’’
Korpys / Löffler, The Nuclear Football, 2004, 30’ 30’’
Olivier Menanteau, Media Alert, 2006, 12’ 30’’
Olivier Menanteau, Media Alert, 2006, 12’ 30’’

Patricia Esquivias, Folklore I, 2006
Patricia Esquivias, Folklore II, 2008

In her videos Folklore I and Folklore II, Patricia Esquivias develops her ideas about the history, identity, and culture of Spain through notes, diagrams, and photographs, weaving together seemingly unrelated events and facts Her derivations and references between a fried-egg-eating contest, real estate speculation, a folk festival, and the club culture of the nineteen-eighties and nineties (Folklore I) — or between the Spanish King Philip II, the pop singer Julio Iglesias, and the sun as a tourism factor (Folklore II) —appear simultaneously plausible, naïve, and reminiscent of a crude conspiracy theory.

Monika Oechsler, There is Only One Life, 2006
The video work There is Only One Life reflects consumer society’s spiritual search for meaning beyond the traditional religious denominations. With recourse to Cabalist doctrine, poems by the British painter and poet William Blake, the science-fiction comic strip and novel Promethea by Alan Moore, as well as to song lyrics from the bands Verve and Radiohead, this video collage follows the four different incarnations of the novel’s protagonist Promethea. The setting includes different locations in London: the financial district Canary Wharf, a London Underground station, and the Abney Cemetery.

Korpys / Löffler, The Nuclear Football, 2004
The Nuclear Football accompanies George W. Bush during his official state visit to Berlin in 2002: from his arrival at Tegel Airport to his visit at Schloss Bellevue. Of focus here besides diplomatic protocols is a suitcase: the so-called “Nuclear Football” that accompanies all travels of U.S. presidents enabling them to command a nuclear war should the United States be attacked.

Olivier Menanteau, Media Alert, 2006
The video Media Alert shows different situations shot by the artist in 2006 at the press and conference halls of the United Nations in New York City. Here, a woman postulates outlawing rape as a war strategy in the context of the elections in the Congo; another woman pleads for the genetic conservation of indigenous peoples; and at an AIDS-related event children are seen performing African dances. The machinery of the United Nations is explored here in regards to its protocols, mediagenic representations, and colonialist implications.

Saturday, July 24, 2010, 6 p.m.

NARRATIVES OF MIGRATION

Christine Meisner,
Recovery of an Image, 2005, 26’
José Carlos Teixeira, Deviation and Consequence: Towards a New (R)evolution, 2008, 22’
Ingrid Wildi, ¿Aquí vive la Señora Eliana M…? (Does Mrs. Eliana M… live here?), 2003, 68’
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Christine Meisner, Recovery of an Image, 2005, 26’
Christine Meisner, Recovery of an Image, 2005, 26’
José Carlos Teixeira, Deviation and Consequence: Towards a New (R)evolution, 2008, 22’
José Carlos Teixeira, Deviation and Consequence: Towards a New (R)evolution, 2008, 22’

Christine Meisner, Recovery of an Image, 2005
Recovery of an Image narrates the life story of João Esan da Rocha, who in 1840 at the age of ten years was displaced from Lagos (Nigeria) to Salvador de Bahia in Brazil in order to work as a slave at a sugar-cane plantation. After 31 years he was redeemed and was able to return to his hometown. But even though it had always been his wish to return to Africa, he only could find his place here within the Brazilian community. (Christine Meisner)

José Carlos Teixeira, Deviation and Consequence: Towards a New (R)evolution, 2008
Conceived as a video installation, this work shows a double projection of shots watching a group of African-Portuguese juveniles who are working on new lyrics for the Portuguese national anthem. The process is accompanied by questions pertaining to identity, cultural differences, as well as to exile and affiliation. The young migrants’ perspectives on their host country are inscribed in the new transnational hymn.

Ingrid Wildi, ¿Aquí vive la Señora Eliana M…? (Does Mrs. Eliana M… live here?), 2003
This video work is based on a series of interviews conducted by the artist during her search for her missing mother, a well-known soothsayer in Chile. Among the numerous interviewees are her grandmother telling the family’s migration history, a cousin who works as an anesthetist and represents a longing to forget the past typical for Chile, as well as an aunt who tells about her parapsychical experiences. The work meanders between different realities—the real and fictitious, the visible and the invisible.

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