Tags: Ben Rivers

Ben Rivers

Ben Rivers (born in 1972) is an artist and experimental filmmaker based in London. His work has been shown in many film festivals and galleries around the world and has won numerous awards. His work ranges from themes about exploring unknown wilderness territories to candid and intimate portrayals of real-life subjects.Rivers's practice as a filmmaker treads a line between documentary and fiction.

Nationality: 

United Kingdom

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  • Experimental Film Club: Ruins & Entropy Part 2

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    The End (Patrick Keiller, 1986)Experimental Film Club: Ruins & Entropy Part 2
    Part 2 of a two part programme curated by Aoife Desmond.
    Tuesday February 26, 18:30h
    Irish Film Institute, 6 Eustace Street, Temple Bar, Dublin 2)
    Introduced by Dr Declan Long (Co-director, MA Art in the Contemporary World, NCAD)

    EFC and IFI present Ruins & Entropy Part 2. Part 2 continues the thread explored in Part 1 which focused on Robert Smithson’s art practice and theory. Part 2 focuses on contemporary filmmakers; Emily Richardson, Ben Rivers and Patrick Keiller and their exploration of decay and impermanence within the contemporary landscape. A selection of four films from these filmmakers combines architectural residue and history with a wandering or drifting protagonist and his/her poetic overview. The locations range from Hackney in London and Oxford Ness a disused military site in England to a wide ranging European tour and a fragmented tour of Britain ending up in the Isle of Mull.

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  • Ben Rivers - Two years at sea

    Using 16mm cameras, artist Ben Rivers documents the solitary existence of Jake, a man who lives in isolation in the middle of the forest in a remote part of Scotland. The film follows his unconventional life, capturing moments of profound beauty. Jake is seen in all seasons, surviving frugally, passing the time with strange projects, living the radical dream he had as a younger man, a dream he spent two years working at sea to realise.

    Gracefully constructed, Two Years at Sea creates an intimate connection with an individual who would otherwise be a complete outsider to us.

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    Average: 3.5 (4 votes)

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  • Experimenta Weekend 2012

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    Peter Kubelka working on the Arnulf Rainer installationExperimenta, the avant-garde and experimental films strand of the London Film Festival returns in its 2012 edition (October 19th-21st) with the biggest and broadest programme to date. The main protagonist of the section curated by Mark Webber with assistance from Shama Khanna, is the presentation in Europe of Peter Kubelka's latest work Antiphon (2012), as part of his lecture Monument Film. Kubelka will also be the protagonist of a full retrospective of his work, and of Martina Kudlácek's latest documentary film Fragments of Kubelka (2012).

    The festival opens with the screening of a newly-restored print of Isidore Isou's masterpiece Traité de bave et d'éternité (1951), and will present as always, a selection of the most recent experimental works including the latest films and videos by Nathaniel Dorsky, Jerome Hiler, Luke Fowler, Mati Diop, Beatrice Gibson, Ben Rivers, Laida Lertxundi,... Experimenta will also present present several screenings the precious week coinciding with the Frieze Art Fair, from 10-13 October.

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  • Experimental Film Club: Of Ruins and Light

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    Redshift (Emily Richardson, 2001)Experimental Film Club: Of Ruins and Light
    Friday September 21st 2012, 21h
    Coal Quay carpark Culture Night, Cork.

    This programme of 16mm experimental film works is curated by Esperanza Collado and Aoife Desmond of the Experimental Film Club, Dublin. Their chosen films present expanded representations of time and space; from the earthly to the celestial, from the transience of man's structures on earth, to the vastness of the universe.

    - Scotch Tape (Jack Smith, USA, 1959-1962, 3 minutes, B&W, Sound (optical), 16mm)
    - The End (Patrick Keiller, 18 min, 16mm, B&W, sound (optical), 1986)
    - Stellar (Stan Brakhage, 3 min, Colour, Silent, 16mm, 1993)
    - Origin Of Species (Ben Rivers, 16 minutes, Colour, Sound (Optical), 16mm, UK, 2008)
    - Redshift (Emily Richardson, 4 min, 16mm, colour, sound, 2001)
    - The Cup And The Lip (Warren Sonbert, 20 mins., 16mm, colour, sound, 1986)
    - Observando El Cielo (Jeanne Liotta, 19 mins, 16mm, colour, sound, 2007)
    - Transit Of Venus (Nicky Hamlyn, 2 Min, 16Mm, B&W, Silent, 2005)

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  • Ben Rivers: Shorts

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    This Is My Land (Ben Rivers, 2006)Ben Rivers: Shorts
    Saturday August 4th, 16:10h
    Sunday August 5th, 2012 18:40h
    Thursday August 9th, 2012 18:40h
    BFI Southbank
    Belvedere Road, South Bank, London SE1 8XT

    This new LUX touring programme brings together five early shorts by Ben Rivers - The Coming Race; This Is My Land; A World Rattled of Habit; Origin of the Species, Ah, Liberty - which together present a series of portraits of unconventional lives - of people existing, to varying degrees, in wilderness or isolation. River's films are compassionate and elliptical, ambigious documents of both the reality of life outside urban norms and our own Romantic preconceptions of a life beyond bounds. The programme includes This Is My Land, Rivers' first portrait of Jake Williams, later the subject of Two Years at Sea.

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  • Courtisane Festival 2012

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    Courtisane logo

    A little more than two weeks left until the beginning of the 2012 Courtisane Festival (March 21-25, Ghent, Belgium). Now in its eleventh year, the festival keeps a solid programme as ever with their 'Artists in focus' section, with expanded projectionists Sandra Gibson & Luis Recoder (who will perform their new work ‘Aberration Of Light: Dark Chamber Disclosure’ with Olivia Block on the opening night), Ben Russell & Ben Rivers;and Philippe Grandrieux. Each artist will be the protagonist of a series of different events including performances, installations, masterclasses and, of course, screenings. The 'Profiles' section presents monographic programmes dedicated to filmmakers Gabriel Abrantes, Sung-A Yoon, Naomi Uman's Ukrainian Time Machine and the recently deceased George Kuchar's Weather diaries. And last, but not least, the competitive section includes films and videos by Ute Aurand, Bonnie Begusch, Sirah Foighel Brutmann & Eitan Efrat, Mati Diop, Fabian Euresti, Janie Geiser, Beatrice Gibson, Kwon Hayoun, Robert-Jan Lacombe, Laida Lertxundi, Rose Lowder, Gary Mairs, Valérie Massadian, Pavel Medvedev, Nicolás Pereda, Charlotte Pryce, Alina Rudnitskaya, Jani Ruscica and Isabelle Tollenaere. Details on the full programme will be published soon.

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  • Experimenta Weekend 2011

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    The return (Nathaniel Dorsky, 2011)Experimenta Weekend, the avant-garde and experimental films strand of the London Film Festival returns once again on October 21-23. Curated by Mark Webber, together with Adam Pugh and Marina Ribera, this year's edition includes highlights such as Jonas Mekas' Sleepless Night Stories, and his correspondence with Spanish filmmaker José Luis Guerín, sessions dedicated to Portuguese filmmaker Gabriel Abrantes and Chick Strand, with newly restored prints of classics such as Loose ends and Cartoon le Mousse.

    As in previous years, the section presents a selection of the most recent experimental works, including the latest films and videos by Nathaniel Dorsky (The return), Ben Rivers (Sack Barrow and Two years at sea), James Benning (Twenty cigarettes) and Phil Solomon (American Falls), who is also the protagonist of 'Feel flows', a partial retrospective at Tate Modern.

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  • LFF 2010: Experimenta

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    The Indian Boundary Line (Thomas Comerford, 2010)As each year the London Film Festival features their Experimenta Weekend, dedicated to 'artists' film & video'. Curated by Mark Webber with assistance from Melissa Gronlund, the event will feature eight programmes of film and video with the latest work of artists such as Nathaniel Dorsky, Peter Tscherkassky, Ben Rivers or Miranda Pennell. Filmmakers Emily Richardson and Martin Arnold will present their new works as two installations that will be running during the whole weekend. Lewis Klahr and David Gatten will be the protagonists of several special events including a workshop by the American re-animator on 'Narrative collage'.

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  • Picture This: Ben Rivers

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    Picture This: Ben Rivers
    26 November - 05 December
    Picture This Atelier, Bristol, UK
    Film still from Origin of the Species
    Two films by artist Ben Rivers which muse on the ideas of Charles Darwin - one through the field of island biogeography, considering possible future Utopias evolving on isolated islands, the other through the thoughts of a 75-year-old amateur inventor and Darwin enthusiast.

    "How come it's like this, how did it get like this? And the thing that'll amaze you - Ben - is, the time; it has taken so very, very long... and some things happen very, very slowly." Origin of the Species

    Picture This presents the first opportunity to see an element from a new four-screen work currently in production. Slow Action focuses on the relationship we have - and may have in the future - to islands. Ben Rivers' investigation considers the possible future Utopias evolving on isolated islands.

    Exquisitely beautiful, poetic and serene, yet exact and rigorous in composition and timing, Origin of the Species is a tentative, fleeting portrait of a man about whom we are told little but learn much: a man of inventions, of science, of solitude; and to whom Darwin's On the Origin of Species is evidently dear. The world is seen as simultaneously familiar and alien; full of wonder and composed of a palette of dream-colours, alternately rich and colour-saturated and steely or tawny.

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Experimenta Mark Webber Nathaniel Dorsky LFF Lewis Klahr David Gatten Emily Richardson Mary Helena Clark Robert Todd Peter Kubelka Ben Russell Chick Strand Jennifer Reeves

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