Part 1: Motion Detectors

Compiled by Katrin Mundt (Bochum)

PHOENIX Halle Dortmund
Friday, 15 July 2005, 8 pm

The videos in this programme explore the cinematic recording, manipulation and reproduction of movement in urban space. In different ways, they refer to the perspective of the observing, surveillance and analytical camera. In particular, they examine the camera’s ability to transform an apparently neutral field into a clearly defined space of action, thereby assigning meaning to the contingent.

The latent awareness of the permanent surveillance of public space also creates a peculiar dialogue between the apparatus and the observed subject. The camera is assumed as a constant, though seemingly invisible, counterpart – an entity that becomes an accomplice to one’s own actions. In the videos presented here, strategies such as directly addressing this counterpart, duplicating it, or embracing the unpredictability of movement itself fundamentally shift and disrupt this relationship.

Mark Lewis
The Pitch, GB 1997, 4 min., video

Yael Bartana
You Could Be Lucky, NL/GB 2004, 7:30 min., video

Seoungho Cho
Horizontal Silence, USA 2003, 8:30 min., video

William Raban
Fergus Walking, UK 1978, 3 min., 16mm transferred to video

Kristin Lucas
Host, USA 1997, 7:30 min., video

Bureau of Inverse Technology
Suicide Box, USA 1996, 13 min., video

Tadasu Takamine
Inertia, Japan 1998, 3 min., video

Istvan Kantor
Barricades, Canada 1993, 11 min., video

Observing Cities

Part 2: Inner Cities

Compiled by Katrin Mundt (Bochum)

PHOENIX Halle Dortmund
Saturday, 16 July 2005, 8 pm

The second part of the programme focuses on urban architecture as a symbolic system. Architecture not only organises space and thus establishes specific conditions for communication, movement and visibility; as a condensed material form, it also conveys meanings.

Architecture is presented as a projection surface for individual desires and obsessions as well as collective utopias and fears. The videos in this programme engage with these “speaking” surfaces. Their images and narratives resist the organising power of the urban “whole” and allow the hidden interior of cities to emerge beyond their surfaces.

They transform real cities into settings for radical (self-)staging, reflect them in fictional urban designs and confront them with their own underlying contradictions.

Oliver Husain
Shrivel, Germany 2005, 8:30 min., video

Semiconductor
Sound of Microclimates, UK/France 2004, 10 min., video

Shelly Silver
What I’m Looking For, USA 2004, 13 min., video

Lotte Schreiber
quadro, Austria/Italy 2002, 11 min., video

Alvise Renzini
Grande Anarca, Italy 2003, 18 min., video

Knut Åsdam
Filter City, Switzerland/Norway 2003, 21 min., video