'Freeze-Frame, a Vanitas of Light' investigates in what form film can exist without the physical presence of film. The starting point is the local history of Wetteren, where in the 1960s were four cinemas; Cinema Roxy, Cinema Nova, Cinema Max and Cinema Forum. The socialists, liberals and Catholics, each had their own cinema and one was there for the 'naughty' films. Now that these cinemas have disappeared from the street scene, the question remains whether the cinematic is still present in Wetteren, or can be, and how an idea of film can exist without actually being present as a film.

This program brings together a selection of early to mid-career 16mm works by American filmmaker Fred Worden. Occupied with optical cinematic investigations and the machinic constituents of cinema, Worden's work has been described as being developed "out of his interest in intermittent projection as the source of cinema’s primordial powers. How a stream of still pictures passing through a projector at a speed meant to overwhelm the eyes might be harnessed to purposes other than representation or naturalism."

CINEMA PARENTHÈSE  and WIELS is happy to present a screening of "Down Clairborne" (2018) by MOIRA TIERNEY. In the framework of the exhibition Ellen Gallagher & Edgar Cleijne: Liquid Intelligence at WIELS