Flex Fest at Director’s Lounge

FLEXFEST 2011 -SELECTED WORKS FROM THE FLORIDA EXPERIMENTAL FILM/VIDEO FESTIVAL 2011 presented by Roger Beebe, artistic director of Flexfest
Thursday, 26 May 2011 // 21:00 // Director’s Lounge at Z-Bar // Bergstraße 2 // 10115 Berlin-Mitte // FLEX: the Florida Experimental Film and Video Festival presents a program of highlights from their 2011 biennial competitive festival. FLEX is interested in an expansive notion of experimental media. “Work may draw on documentary, animation, avant-garde, underground, or other traditions—or no traditions at all.“ As such the programming comprises a variety of mediums from 16mm direct animation to found video and from laconic place studies to experimental love poems.

Since its start in 2004, Flexfest has become one of the most important festivals for experimental media in USA, challenging us to rethink what ‘experimental’ means. Roger Beebe, who is the artistic director of Flexfest, and who is currently teaching a 5 week workshop at LaborBerlin, will present the program. Roger Beebe will be available for Q&A.

Program:
Utopia, Part 3:The World’s Biggest Shopping Mall, Sam Green (13:09/HD/2009/USA)
Iron-Wood, Richard Tuohy (7:00/16mm/2009/Australia)
The Voyagers, Penny Lane (16:30/DV/Jun. 2010/USA)
Horizon Line, Katherin McInnis (1:00/HDV/USA)
Somewhere Only We Know, Jesse McLean (5:15/Video/2009/USA)
Tusslemuscle, Steve Cossman (5:00/16mm/Nov. 2009/USA)
Portrait #2: Trojan, Vanessa Renwick (5:00/35MM TO VIDEO/2006)
White House, Georg Koszulinski (8:00/DV/2009/USA)
Day/Night (Devil’s Milhopper), Andres E. Arocha (4:56/16mm/Apr. 2009/USA)
28.IV.81(Bedouin Sparks), Christopher Harris (2:49/16mm/Jan. 2009/USA)

Widmann & Kowalski’s Trailer for IKFF

Please check out the brand new trailer for this year’s edition of the International Short Film Festival in Hamburg (IKFF). We’re very proud to say that the film was made on our Crass animation stand, which was introduced to our lab early this year. It’s one of many ongoing creative collaborations at LaborBerlin, with Philip Widmann as director, Clemens Kowalski as director of photography, and sound design by Roman Vehlken (and Widmann).

Point It At Gran

Dear all, you are cordially invited to the opening of the exhibition Point It At Gran, featuring works by Clara Bausch, Rick Buckley, Sebastian Dacey, Iris van Dongen, Fabian Fobbe, Valentin Just, and Malte Urbschat. Friday May 20th, at 19:00 – open end.

Exhibition on view May 21st and 22nd, 13:00 – 17:00

nationalmuseum
Urbanstrasse 100
2. Hinterhof / 1. OG
10967 Berlin (U-Bhf Hermannplatz)

Cinematic Cartographies

Workshop: Cinematic Cartographies, with Roger Beebe and Wes Kline May 16th through June 17th, Monday to Friday 10:30 to 13:00.

This is a film production course, but its approach is primarily theoretical rather than technical.

How do we locate ourselves within the new global economic system? What connections can we make between our local environment and the bigger stage of multinational capitalism? These are the big questions that this course hopes to begin to answer by the end of the semester, but it will start more modestly with a series of mappings of more local areas and structures (specific buildings, streets, neighborhoods, etc.) before building to representations of the city itself and then finally tackling the more abstract issues of nation and the world system of global capital. We will be looking at various historical attempts at representing the world on these different scales (mostly in experimental film and video), but we will also look at some of the more ambitious literary and theoretical attempts at such mapping, including Fredric Jameson’s work on “cognitive mapping,” the Situationists’ radical urbanism, contemporary architectural theory, etc.

Practically, the course will focus on aesthetic approaches to this project of cognitive mapping. Students will produce a series of short exercises designed to tackle these progressively larger scales of representation while simultaneously exploring the basics of moving-image work. The course should provide a good way of engaging with Berlin, its geography, its history, and its people while concurrently developing a set of technical and aesthetic strategies. While the primary focus will be on super 8mm filmmaking, students may elect instead to do photo-essays, write fictions, or experiment in non-traditional essay forms instead. In cooperation with the University of Florida, Gainesville.

4 Films by Robert Beavers

Robert Beavers und P. Adams Sitney im Arsenal, 15.5.2011 // 19:00 // “My Hand Outstretched to the Winged Distance and Sightless Measure”: “In diesem Zyklustitel verbirgt sich durchaus Praktisches: Die ausgestreckte Hand. Der geflügelte Abstand (oder auch: Ferne, Wegstrecke, Zwischenraum, Zeitraum). Sowie das blinde Maß – ein Begriff, der unter anderem besagt, dass Robert Beavers bei der Montage kaum je das Bildfenster des Schneidetischs im Auge hat, sondern den Filmstreifen selbst, und dass er dabei stark auf die Erinnerung an den Moment des Filmens vertraut.” (Filmmuseum Wien) Niemand hat die poetische Kraft der Filme von Beavers anschaulicher hervorgehoben als P. Adams Sitney in seinen Schriften. Wir freuen uns, beide als unsere Gäste begrüßen zu dürfen.

Robert Beavers and P. Adams Sitney at Arsenal, 15.5.2011 // 19:00 //
“My Hand Outstretched to the Winged Distance and Sightless Measure”: “The title of this cycle hides something very practical: The outstretched hand. The winged distance [or also: distance, space, time]. Just like the sightless measure – a term that also points out that Robert Beavers does not have his eye on the image aperture during the montage but on the filmstrip itself, and that he deeply trusts the moment of filming.” (Filmmuseum Wien] “No-one has done more to elucidate Beaver’s poetic strength than cultural historian P. Adams Sitney.” (M.Guillen) We are pleased to welcome both as guests.