Stephanie Barber in person

Deeply philosophical, frequently humorous and deceptively simple in form, the films, video works, poetry and book projects of Stephanie Barber operate at the intersections of spoken, written, composed, conversational and incidental language, reflecting shifting experiential qualities and varying modes of address. Barber’s feature-length DAREDEVILS (2013) is a three-part narrative portrait of risk and intimacy, presenting an interview between a young writer and an admired artist as a reverberating life event and turning point. Writes Barber, "The classic rising action, climax and denouement are sculpted, not by cause and effect, but by the subtle movements to and from understanding that are inherent in conversation. Bubbles of intimacy are blown and popped, begin to be blown again." 

Television creates political bodies because it happens to large groups of people simultaneously; we learn our stories gathered in bars and homes or virtually together while alone, we cast ballots for our idols all via a transmission from afar. Sharing these spectacular experiences has, for better or worse, made for large populaces more uniformly formed than any that history has seen. Meanwhile, political bodies use contemporary televisual streaming tools to broadcast their own struggles. Directed by television’s innate ability to create publics, and the common usage of livestreaming in contemporary populist movements, ACRE TV will spend February and March 2015* streaming moving image work that explores broadcast art and it’s ability to function as a catalyst for moving bodies. Direct Object/Direct Action will air live, canned, episodic, durational and experimental broadcast works that position the stream as an instrument as opposed to a stage, as well as works that address the concept and histories of political direct actions.

Born in Sweden, Gunvor Nelson (1931-) began her artistic career as a filmmaker in the mid-60s in San Francisco (USA). Major figure of the American West coast experimental film community, she has created an extraordinary filmic oeuvre, in which we can admire both the strangeness of her characters (Fog Pumas, 1967) and the poetic nature of her imaginary worlds (My Name is Oona, 1969) and the strength of her feminist commitments (Schmeerguntz, 1966). Since the 90s, Gunvor Nelson has lived and worked in Sweden where she continues through films, videos, paintings or installations, her exploration of the Swedish landscape and identity (Light Years, 1987).

Screening introduced by Julie Savelli (from Paul Valery University - Montpellier III)