Close-Up Cinema: Signal Noise [1]
Karel Doing presents a programme of films that explore the borders of the "readable image", fluctuating between havoc and absence. Patterns emerge out of disorder, and meaning is found in vacuum. The cinema screen provides a universe on its own, letting the viewer travel through space and time while visiting the outer borders of cognition.
Programme:- Dust Poetry (Nan Wang, 2014, 9'12 min, Colour, Digital)7000 frames of dust collected in the room of the filmmaker, and a sequence of small plants and insects picked up from the garden. Nan Wang is fascinated by the beauty of small abandoned physical materials, like dust, plants and insects, and she tries to imagine their memories and emotions. The recorded sounds of singing insects and wind rustling plants is used to evoke their language and poetry. The aim of this work is to use dust and sound as elements to construct another reality, and offer a counterpoint to our mediated, fragmented and noisy world.
- Árvore Da Vida (Jacques Perconte, 2013, 11'06 min, Colour, Digital)Árvore Da Vida is the story of a tree in Madeira, a tree on the edge of the primary forest. In the beginning and at the end, there was colour: green. Monochrome, the movement of each of the branches and leaves will identify certain shades of matter and forms to be born. The tree appears. All dimensions of the image and music come alive and stir until they are indulged in appeasement. This is the cycle of a universe, an endless cycle. They are embodied in the tension that exists between the image and the music.
- Transitus Angeli (Stewart Collinson & Andrea Szigetvári, 2014, 11'17 min, Colour, Digital)Transitus Angeli, a piece of "sonic cinema", or "sonikinos" is an oppositional response to current reactionary tendencies and growing economic, social and political turbulence. Through systematic distortion and deconstruction, a synthesized bell-sound becomes transformed into a rough-music, charivari, scampanate, or katzenmusik, articulated and reinforced visually, synchretically, and synaesthetically by the agitated jitter of a visual field derived from digitized looped and sequenced hand-painted 16mm film. Is this the beating of wings or the frantic flapping of flags?
- After, Before (Gareth Polmeer, 2015, 6'15 min, Colour, Digital)An experiment in pure colour and pixelation, exploring the fundamental dynamic between stillness and movement, and foregrounding its process and formation in the void between the frame's edge and the negative space between pixels. The title alludes to inter/intra frame encoding processes, where spatial and temporal information sampled from before and after constitutes an image's "nowness". Intervals or breaks of process become central to the work, where static elements of pixel and frame give way to motion and fluid forms. Shifts of colour engage further positive/negative space between projection/reflection, light/darkness and stillness/movement.
- Wilderness Series (Karel Doing, 2016, 13'38, Colour, Digital)By using plants, mud and salt in conjunction with alternative photochemistry, images are 'grown' on motion picture film. What in first instance is perceived as abstract turns out to be a concrete precipitation from phenomena that surround us in everyday life. The 'aliveness' of the images is underlined by Andrea Szigetvári's evocative sound-design.
Category:
- Screenings [3]
Dates:
Venue:
Close-Up Cinema [4]
“It is very important for me that those fragments of beauty, of paradise, are brought to the attention of friends and strangers equally.” – Jonas Mekas
Close-Up aims to make film culture and history accessible through its library, film screenings and the online publication of Vertigo Magazine. Established in 2005, the company has built up its activities on the basis of reinvesting all its profits into creating an extensive film resource.
The Library
The Library’s collection of over 19,000 titles specialises in early cinema, classics, world cinema, documentaries, experimental films and video art. It includes rare films exclusive to Close-Up and by independent filmmakers not represented by distributors.
Film Screenings
Close-Up's repertory cinema presents a series of films that shaped the art of cinema and its history. The programme also includes regular special events with filmmakers present to discuss their work. Close-Up is committed to supporting and developing the exhibition of independent and experimental cinema, focusing on the cross over between the arts and film culture.
Vertigo Magazine
Founded in 1993, Vertigo has established itself as a reference for the discussion of film culture and history. Vertigo offers a diverse range of critical views, committed to inspire and engage with audiences, academics and practitioners alike.