Tate Modern: To Be Is To Be Perceived

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Island Race (William Raban, 1996)Tate Modern: To Be Is To Be Perceived
17-26 September 2010
Tate Modern Starr Auditorum
Bankside, London, SE1 9TG, UK

In conjunction with Tate Modern’s exhibition Exposed: voyeurism, surveillance and the camera (until 3 October 2010), this film programme explores ways in which artists have used the camera to draw attention to a society mediated by permanent observation. It looks at how the camera has been used as a weapon, as a tool to reveal moments of privacy, and as a means of creating cultural icons.

Featuring the premiere of William Raban’s About now MMX, as well as work by Javier Aguirre, Peggy Ahwesh, Fikret Atay, Michel Auder, Samuel Beckett, Bureau of Inverse Technology, Jean Colom, Harun Farocki, Coco Fusco, William E Jones, Helen Levitt, Yoko Ono, Chris Petit, Nicolas Provost, Julia Scher and Andy Warhol.

Curated by Cristina Camara and Stuart Comer.

The invasive look
Friday 17 September 2010, 19h

Film shows a man’s attempts to escape the perceptions of others, before realising that his very existence renders his efforts futile. The implacable, continuous and brutal harassment of a girl by a male camera crew is showed in Rape.

- Film (Samuel Beckett & Alan Schneider, 1965, 24 min)
- Rape (Yoko Ono & John Lennon, 1968, 77 min)

Programme duration 100 min

Superstars
Saturday 18 September 2010, 20h

Andy Warhol’s groundbreaking double-screen film Outer and inner space plays with Edie Sedgwick’s iconic image, presenting her in front of a television monitor watching a prerecorded video of herself. By 1971, Warhol himself had become a celebrity. Life in his downtown New York demimonde is candidly chronicled in Michel Auder's Chelsea girls with Andy Warhol, part of Auder's legendary, vouyeuristic video diary.

- Outer and Inner Space (Andy Warhol, 1966, 33 min)
- Chelsea Girls with Andy Warhol (Michel Auder, 1971-76, 73 min)

Programme duration 106 min

Surveillance I: William Raban
Sunday 19 September 2010, 16h

The premiere of William Raban’s latest film, About now MMX, a portrait of the City of London filmed from the Balfron tower block with a surveillance camera. With a soundtrack by David Cunningham, the film exposes social contrasts and urban shifts. The programme includes a screening of Raban’s Island race and a discussion between Raban and curator Stuart Comer.

- About Now MMX William Raban, 2010, 28 min)
- Island Race (William Raban, 1995, 26 min)

Programme duration: 55 min plus discussion

The surreptitious gaze
Friday 24 September 2010, 18h

The camera is a furtive figure in this programme, which features filmmakers who use hidden cameras on the streets to capture everyday life from different times and cities. Films include:

- In The Street (Helen Levitt, Janice Loeb & James Agee, 1948, 16 min)
- El Carrer (Joan Colom, 1960, 30 min)
- Objetivo 40º (Javier Aguirre, 1968-70, 14 min)
- Plot Point (Nicolas Provost, 2007, 15 min)
- The Taste of Life (Harun Farocki, 1979, 29 min)

Programme duration 105 min

Surveillance II
Saturday 25 September 2010, 19h

This programme features films that expose a political point of view about the control systems deployed by private companies and public authorities. Films include:

- Mansfield 1962 (William E. Jones, 2006, 9 min)
- No Cum Shot (Julia Scher, 2004, 26 min)
- Surveillance (Chris Petit, 1993, 17 min)
- Suicide Box (Bureau of Inverse Technology, 1996, 13 min)
- a/k/a Mrs George Gilbert (Coco Fusco, 2004, 31 min)
- Rebels of the Dance (Fikret Atay, 2002, 11 min)

Programme duration 110 min

The private glance: Peggy Ahwesh
Sunday 26 September 2010, 16h

Over the past two decades Peggy Ahwesh has been active as a filmmaker, an advocate for the film arts, and an arts educator. Her films and videos reflect a major change in the interests and intentions of North American avant-garde filmmakers who came to prominence in the 1980s. Formed by the 1970s, feminism and the anti-art sensibility of punk, her work must be understood from her command of different media and her interest in contextualising avant-garde work within contemporary issues of gender, sexuality, art and popular culture. The Fragments Project collects histories of people in the filmmaker’s life. Strange Weather is a fake documentary video about four drug addicts in Miami, in which the viewer becomes an uncomfortable voyeur.

- The Fragments Project (Peggy Ahwesh, 1985-95, 50 min)
- Strange Weather (Peggy Ahwesh, 1993, 50 min)

Programme duration 100 min

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