Jozéf RobakowskiPERSONAL CINEMA SPRING SERIES 2008
OPEN SCREENING
April 25, May 30, June 13 (Fridays)
DVD, Mini-DV, Videotape, 16MM, S8MM. All works are shown on a first-come-first-served basis. Bring films, videos and/or come as a viewer. (Finished works only, limited to a maximum of 20 minutes per person). Refreshments will be available. Doors open at 7pm. Screening begins at 8pm and ends at 10:30pm. Admission by contribution.
FROM AUSTRIAL AND POLAND
SELECTED PROGRAMS FROM INDEX
A Joint project of Medienwerkstatt and sixpackfilm, Index was founded in 2004. It releases and distributes audio-visual programs relevant to the history of international and Austrian film, video and media art. Dietmar Schwarzler from sixpackfilm will be present to interoduce the programs. Export and Robakowski will not be present.
MAY 2 (Fri.) AS SHE LIKES IT: FEMALE PERFORM-ANCE ART FROM AUSTRIA
Films and videos by MARIA LASSNIG, HUBERT SIELECKI, MIRIAM BAJTALA, CAROLA DERTNIG, KERSTIN CMELKA, BARBARA MUSIL, KARO SZMIT, ULRIKE MÜLLER, FIONA RUKSCHCIO, MARA MATTUSCHKA, CHRIS HARING, and MICHAELA POSCHL.
"The AS SHE LIKES IT program is a collection of current works by Austrian videomakers which combine contemporary aspects with the tradition of performance art by women. The representation of the female body and feminine identity play a role in the electronic media also. With the aid of a mirror's glare Mirjam Bejtela saves herself from being captured by the omnipresent eye of the camera. The demands for perfectionism which determine the course of our daily lives are satirized by Carole Dertnig in her slapstick series entitled TRUE STORIES. Karoe Goldt's face telegraphs its moods through painterly abstraction in SOLO MIT CHOR and, with a number of photographs, provides a visual accompaniment to the autobiographic story of Personal to create an impressive visual statement. Sabine Marte juxtaposes the familiar role of the sewardess as 'pretty' airborne servant and the common practice of using images of celebrities, normally voyeuristic, in music videos to increase sales. In GRAS A/B Marte fragments the idyll of a human encounter on both the visual and linguistic levels. In Ulrike Müller's MOCK ROCK a cover of a familiar pop song becomes a melancholy farewell to a 'desire for independence as well as the impossibility of achieving it.' (U.M.). In a very different mood Barbara Musil and Karo Szmit play carefree tourists in a world of kitschy portrayals of Austria's mountains. An austere hotel room serves Doris Schmid as the setting for a lonely woman's spectacular end. And last but not least Mara Mattuschka, the queen of self-representation in Austrian film, directs according to someone else's performance concept for the first time in a successful joint project with choreographer Chris Haring." - Brigitte Bauer-Utzer.
MAY 3 (Sat.) INVISIBLE ADVERSARIES BY VALIE EXPORT
INVISIBLE ADVERSARIES (100 min.-1976). An early feature by one of Europe's leading feminist filmmakers is a haunting excursion into psychic disintegration and crumbling identity. It loosely covers one year in the life of Anna, a young Viennese photographer increasingly convinced that Hykos, a hostile alien force, are invading people's bodies and responsible for the decay and rising violence around her. Valie Export skillfully exploits montage and integrates video, performance and installation art with elements from Cubism, Surrealism, Dada and Experimental Cinema. "The film is a witty and visually brilliant essay on gender and experience, culture and environment…Valie Export has worked in textiles, performance art and photography as well as being a central figure in the Austrian avant-garde film movement. The focal point of her work is the changing role of the woman's body in a culture where image-making and communication increasingly displace material 'reality.' Export describes herself as preoccupied with 'the body as a canvas on which society arranges its daily slapstick.' The body-language (Körpersprache) of Export's work is an attempt to construct a feminist theory of communications by rendering intelligible the hidden processes through which identity and reality are constructed." - Alison Butler (NATIONAL FILM THEATRE, London, Program Notes). Valie Export will not be present for this program.
MAY 10 (Sat.) JÓZEF ROBAKOWSKI: THE ENERGY MANIFESTO!
Films and Videos from 1970 to 2006 - THE ENERGY MANIFESTO, TEST I, AN ATTEMPT (TEST II), VIDEO KISSES, IMPULSATOR, ATTENTION: LIGHT, I AM GOING…NEARER FURTHER, LA-LU, ABOUT MY FINGERS, ACOUSTIC APPLE, MY VIDEOMASO-CHISMS, THE MARKET, FROM MY WINDOW, BONUS TRACK FOR VALIE EXPORT.
As the title has it, this program is a manifesto. It gathers fifteen shorts from Józef Robakowski, a key figure in the Polish avant-garde. His practice has encompassed performace art, photography, gallery installations and more traditional forms as well as filmmaking. Even this latter element is strikingly diverse: from the program alone, which takes in works dating from 1970 to 2006, we find animation, documentary, structuralism, actionism, wit, humor, audio-visual interplays, happy accidents, strict formalism, an emotional register and an ironic distance. Indeed, Robakowski, it seems, could be viewed as the face of the avant-garde, an all-embracing, all-encompassing love of the experimental whether it be on video, film or digital format.
Based in Lódz, Józef Rubakowski is one of Poland's most important multi-disciplinary artists, whose internationally-celebrated career spans more than forty-five years. An art historian, professor at the Lódz Film School, and co-founder of several avant-garde groups in Poland, Rubakowski has been the key initiator of numerous, significant art events that put Polish artists in touch with projects on the other side of the Iron Curtain. During martial law, which began in 1981 and lasted until 1989, public presentations were prohibited, yet Robakowski continued to organize art events—using his apartment as a venue—incuding screenings of Paul Sharits' structuralist films. Many artists, including Robakowski, were forbidden to travel abroad, and his work was also prevented from leaving the country. Nonetheless, their creative spirit was not completely extinguished during this dark era in Polish art; production continued despite the secret police watching their every move, fearful of potential dissident activity.AND UPCOMING PROGRAMS (DETAILS TO BE ANNOUNCED) WITH DAVID BAKER, ROBERT TODD, HOWARD BETTER, THE FILMS OF GARY GOLDBERG, AND OTHERS.
From As She Likes It
From Invisible Adversaries
by Valie Export
From My Videomasochism
by Jozef Robakowski
