Session II
Anna Baumgart, Dzienniki z podrozy (EN A Travelogue), HD, 2020, 10:26 min
The video is an experimental portrait of Mieczysława Nogajewska, a photographer and owner of the famous “Foto-Elite” photographic studio in Gdynia (Poland) of the 1930s.
BIO
Anna Baumgart (born 1966) – post-conceptual artist, director, and set designer. Doctor of Arts. Multiple scholarships of the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage. Her video, performance, and sculpture works were shown at numerous exhibitions, among others at the Brooklyn Museum of Art, the Jewish Museum in New York, the Neuer Berliner Kunstverein in Berlin, the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw. Furthermore, her works were exhibited at festivals, including the Videobrasil in Sao Paulo, the Videonale in Bonn, Monstrainvideo in Milano, Nowe Horyzonty and Docs against Gravity. Her works can be found in numerous Polish and international collections, including Hauser & Wirth, the FRAC Poitou-Charentes, the Zachęta National Gallery of Art, National Museum in Warsaw, the European Parliament in Strasbourg. From 2000 to 2006 she ran the Baumgart Café at the Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle, which was an artistic and activist project and a cult place on the map of Warsaw at the time.
Alex Morelli, ALL YOU WANT IS GREECE, HD, 2021, 3:45 min
Through datamoshing and remixing, Greece’s COVID-19 tourism ads offer glimpses of anti-migrant measures and reveal the contradictions of travel. Produced in the context of “Peripheral Vision,” a workshop organized by the Syros International Film Festival.
BIO
Alex Morelli is an artist, filmmaker, and educator based in Chicago, IL. Drawing on personal, observational, and archival practices, he makes films that explore intergenerational memory, carceral landscapes, and the relationship between place and identity. He fell in love with documentary while a student of Robb Moss, Ross McElwee, and Alfred Guzzetti at Harvard and later completed an MFA at Duke. His work has been supported by the LEF Foundation, the Puffin Foundation, the Flies Collective, and the Film Study Center at Harvard. When he’s not teaching or working as a cinematographer and editor, he enjoys organizing community screenings.
Laura Pietiläinen & Sara Pathirane, Seahorses, HD, 2021, 4:40 min
Seahorses belongs to new wave contemporary dance video series Under the Stars, a collaboration between choreographer and dancer Laura – The Light of All and visual artist Sara Pathirane. Videos of this series are shooted in Finnish nature with its spirits in four different seasons. Seahorses depicts a dance of seahorses being born in ancient times in mythological land. Later far-away in the future the seahorses wake up from their fossil bodies and through metamorphosis they achieve Rambo-like powers on a sandy beach.
Choreography & dance: Laura – The Light of All, cinematography & post-production: Sara Pathirane, dance & co-creation: Salla Oinas & Heidi Wennerstrand, music: Kaino Kim Vieno, costume design: Salla Oinas, jewelry: Sielunkuu Tiina Pitkänen, production: Tähtisilmät 2021
BIO
Laura Pietiläinen (Laura – The Light of All) and visual artist Sara Pathirane work together to develop New Wave dance videos as an art form into a performance-like, multi-level space that is physically breathable and energetically impressive. We are creating a new language for the dance video field that stems from strong intuitive knowledge that has evolved from both artists own years – long artistic process, at which point we now encounter with common inspiration. They started New Wave dance video practice the year 2019. We have shown works together in Palazzo Lucarini Contemporary Trevi, Italy 2019, Central library OODI, Helsinki 2019, Gallery Sinne, Helsinki 2020, HAA Gallery as part of the Helsinki Biennial programme summer 2021 and Textile 2021 exhibition at Creation HQ Lahti, Finland, Motileart 2nd international online exhibition 2022 and Finnish Museum of Photography 2022. A live dance performance by Laura – The Light of All is often featured in the opening of the exhibitions.
Monica Duncan & Senem Pirler, Confessions on a Transmission Line, HD, 2022, 6:15 min
In the Confessions on a Transmission Line, we wanted to explore the audiovisual process of feedback as a spiritual practice in relation to Camp and queer potentiality. Using real-time signal processing tools and improvisational strategies, we set up a performance space where our persona interacts with a discarded megaphone. By re-using this object as a tool and instrument to both project and receive transmission frequencies, we are searching for a way to communicate with our queer ancestors and those yet to be born.
BIO:
Monica Duncan and Senem Pirler have been collaborating since 2017, creating audiovisual performances that investigate everyday objects, concepts of agency and queer potentiality. Their collaborative work has been shown in numerous festivals and venues such as Revolutions Per Minute, Kuala Lumpur Experimental Film, Video & Music, Transient Visions, Light Matter, and Athens International Film + Video festivals. They have been artists-in-residence at Signal Culture (Owego, NY), PACT Zollverein (Essen, Germany), and Institute for Electronic Arts (Alfred, NY).
Jacs Yim, Escape, SD, 2022, 3 min
I’ve moved from places to places throughout my whole life. Part of the reason was to escape from the hopelessness I felt in Hong Kong. After the Hong Kong protests in 2019, anxiety took over me and became everything I felt. Escape is the documentation of that constant fearful state and the final transformation of understanding fear.
BIO
Jacs Yim is a multimedia artist from Hong Kong who is now based in Toronto. She formerly lived in the UK and Germany and is heavily influenced by both cultures. Coming from a fine art background, she began her journey by exploring art direction in moving images. With 5 years of experimentation and on set experience, she’s maturing into an all-rounded filmmaker. Her work seek to push visual boundaries and often discuss the themes of alienation, political suppression and self-exploration.
Emanuele Dainotti, Night Days, 2k, 2021, 15 min
Beirut, year of grace 2021. Lebanon is facing one of the most devastating crises in the history of mankind. Violence appears silent and invisible in the form of cuts and shortcomings. The explosion in the port on August 4, 2020 has been compared to the American 9/11.
BIO
Emanuele Dainotti (b. 1987 in Milano, Italy) is an artist and filmmaker. Recent exhibitions and festivals include: Museum of the Moving Image (USA); Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro (Brazil); Het Nieuwe Instituut (Netherlands); Haus der Kulturen der Welt (Germany); Beursschouwburg (Belgium); Rencontres Internationales Paris/Berlin (France); Tel Aviv Museum of Art (Israel); Museu Nacional de Arte Contemporânea (Portugal); Reykjavík International Film Festival (Iceland); Hudson Valley MOCA (USA). Emanuele lives and works between Antwerpen and Milano.
Ebba Jahn, SOLOS FOR ENCAUSTICS, HD, 2021, 5:30 min
A women’s arts interplay of images and music / sound recordings by the Oxford Improvisers in the UK, who play solo inspired by encaustic paintings from German artist Ulrike Hasenburg from Grevenbroich in NRW.
BIO
Ebba Jahn graduated from the Film and TV Academy Berlin (DFFB). New York City from 1991 until 2010, where a.o. she studied again towards a BA in Fine Arts. 2018 focus shift to the creation of short video collages with original sound and improvised music, own and found footage, artworks, photos and poetic texts. Collaborations with other artists developed online. Her experimental, musical, and poetry films are shown by international film festivals, video programs and in art exhibitions. 2021 the Berlin Senate Department for Culture and Europe has awarded EJ a juried work scholarship for female film/video makers which enabled the video collage IDEA – Miniatures by Improvisers, 67 min., 2022.
Aquarius Funkk, Deep Fake, HD, 2020, 10:51 min
Deep Fake is a multi-layered conceptual exploration of the anxiety of pandemia. 2020 was a year of uncertainty and upheaval. The crux of society’s most prevalent issues – racial tensions, social inequality, environmental collapse, political corruption, corporate greed, moral bankruptcy – were exposed and heightened during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. Deep Fake melds these themes with the personal stories of the artist, resulting in a dystopian mind trip that challenges the viewer to question, what is real? What is normal?
Deep Fake was developed in conjunction with the Summer School of Performance Dreams and Psychomagic, a virtual performance workshop in August 2020, presented by radical performance art troupe La Pocha Nostra.
BIO
Aquarius Funkk (they/them) is an interdisciplinary artist and performer, who works primarily in live performance, digital mediums, video, and wearable art. Aquarius seeks to embody the intricate nature of intersectionality, in all its complexities and oversimplifications. They explore gender identity, racial politics, religious idiosyncrasies, social structures & societal norms from a non-binary, queer, Afrofuturist (and AfroRetrofuturist) perspective. Originating in Portland, Maine, and currently residing in Guadalajara, Mexico, Aquarius has been developing their practice since 2010. First working as a burlesque dancer, model, and makeup artist, as well as in graphic design & photography, they began exploring the realm of radical performance art in 2016. They have worked extensively with international performance art troupe La Pocha Nostra in the US and Mexico, as well as virtually.