a series of lectures and screenings, curated by Anke Bangma and Florian Wuest
November 2003 – January 2004
Constructing Visions explored the power and agency of visual representation. It looked at how images leave their imprint on lived reality by producing specific points of view and ways of seeing. Rather than trying to pass judgement on the truthfulness or deceptiveness of visual representation, the series aimed to explore how reality and fiction are intricately tied together. As leading psycho-analytic theorist Kaja Silverman has so poignantly observed: what ideologically passes for “reality” is in fact a “dominant fiction”.
The film programmes and invited artists presented critical and satirical responses to the life of images and the practices of visual production. The lectures and screenings deliberately addressed a wide range of subjects, moving through various a spects of visual culture, spectacle society, and artistic imagination. Subjects included the manipulative powers of visual technology; the implicit and explicit violence and charm of the eye of the camera; the illusionism of documentary imagery; and the role of imagination and fantasy in scientific visualisation.
November 13, 2003
screening of HARUN FAROCKI: BILDER DER WELT UND INSCHRIFT DES KRIEGES (75′, 1998)
An ongoing concern of filmmaker Harun Farocki has been to examine the production, use and perception of photo, film, video and computer images, whether produced by the media or by arms and surveillance technology. In a number of films he has addressed the problematic relation between reality and its visual representation with reference to specific conflicts in 20th century history. Images of the World and the Inscription of War is a meditation on the relationships of war, industry, and the production and perception of images. “The vantage point of the film is the “blind spot” in the aerial footage of the IG Farben industrial plant in Auschwitz taken by the Americans in 1944. Commentaries on the photographs show that it was only decades later that the CIA noticed what the Allies hadn’t wanted to see: that the concentration camp was indeed depicted next to the industrial bombing target.” (Christina Bluemlinger)
November 27, 2003
lecture by BRANISLAV DIMITRIJEVIC
Branislav Dimitrijevic is a curator and founding director of the Centre for Contemporary Art in Belgrade. Since 1999 the CCA also includes a School for the History and Theory of Images, driven by a concern for the ideological role of images in recent Serbian history and the need to develop a new discourse for art, which functions as a meeting point for artists, curators, and others aware of the political importance of images. Focusing on the exhibitions “International Exhibition of Modern Art” (Venice) and “Kunsthistorisches Mausoleum” (Belgrade), Dimitrijevic talked about the dominant fiction of Modern Art, the power of visual representation, and artistic strategies of deception, manipulation and irony.
December 4, 2003
screening: CAPTURE CONTROL, curated by Florian Wuest
This programme looked at the representational logic and authority of the camera and the increasing employment of video surveillance in public and privately owned spaces. By showing a variety of artistic approaches from the past three decades, Capture Control particularly investigated the relationships between audience and performer, camera-eye and suspect, real life and the media.
With the following films:
Denis Beaubois, In the event of amnesia the city will recall, 1997
Vito Acconci, Open Book, 1974
Fiona Tan, Stolen Words, 1991
Bureau of Inverse Technology, Suicide Box, 1996
John Smith, (The Girl Chewing Gum*, 1976
Harun Farocki, I thought I was seeing convicts, 2000
December 11, 2003
lecture: KLAAS HOEK: NOT BECAUSE BUT AS IF NOR OR BUT AND
For the H.K.U. and the Slade School of art in London, artist Klaas Hoek has developed a research project about the role and place of images in science. With his Hovering Bureau of Investigation he visits university departments such as Atomic, Molecular and Positron Physics; Astronomy and Astro Physics; Condensed Matter and Material Physics; Histology and Cystology; Biological Antropology, etc., to find out how scientific images are produced. A lecture about figures, data fusion, and scientific imagination.
December 18, 2003
screening: PARADOXICAL SCREEN, curated by Florian Wuest
Paradoxical Screen looked at the ramifications of film language on reality. In what ways does the media portray cultural difference, political rebellion or violent conflict? How can we build our own pictures against the incessant rendering of visibilities and invisibilities? Exploring the collusion between historical fact and collective imaginary, these films presented a provocative reflection on our apprehension of the world through spectacle.
With the following films:
Bruce Connor, Report, 1963-1967
Jean-Luc Godard & Anne-Marie Miéville, Ici et ailleurs, 1974
Walid Raad, Hostage: The Bachar Tapes, 2001
January 22, 2004
screening & talk by RENZO MARTENS: EPISODE 1
& January 29, 2004
lecture by PHIL COLLINS: I ONLY WANT YOU TO LOVE ME
Renzo Martens, Episode 1, video still, 2001-2003
During the International Film Festival Rotterdam, CONSTRUCTING VISIONS presented the work of two artists who, each in very different ways, respond to the power relations set up by news imagery. Renzo Martens plays provocatively with the exploitative presence of the reporter in war zones. Travelling through Chechnya, he asks disillusioned refugees and UN-officials not how they feel, but what they think of him, producing a disconcerting reversal of the typical interviewer vs. subject role division. Phil Collins subverts the sensational standard of journalism by carefully creating a setting for highly personal and intimate moments; his screen-tests and castings of people in San Sebastian, Belfast and Iraq, counter the violent gaze of the camera with looks of love.
Renzo Martens and Phil Collins also contributed to the Looking, Encountering, Staging publication.