3.9 paths and spirals
He has lost the motivation to read. He remembers the stories of good will and warmth from his childhood. He remembers the stories of heroism and self-sacrifice from his youth. He remembers the stories of historical moments that have rendered the future anew. He remembers the stories of personal struggle, of failure and of righteous revival. He remembers the stories of secrets and of wanting. He remembers the stories of stories, stories for the sake of stories, stories and only stories and stories forevermore. He remembers the stories and how they formed him. He remembers the day he was sitting at the window, looking out, clouds drifting above. The clouds, weighing hundreds of tons, yet seemingly weightless. He hasn’t been able to read ever since.
program 9 of 12
February 2 – February 14
Vote for your favourite experimental film or video art piece between February 2 and the last day of the screening, February 14. Rules.
artist response
Ahmad Salaj responded to 3.9 paths and spirals with a video! You will see another work by Ahmad, “Zajr”, in program 11, beginning on March 4.
For this edition we invited selected artists to respond to one of the 12 programs in the medium of their choice. Thank you to all the participants, we are endlessly humbled by your contribution.
program
Peace | Lemon – Sayaka Katsumoto
9:49 · Japan · 2020
Following WWII, on May 3 1947, Japan received a new constitution which was heavily influenced by U.S. policy makers, specifically General Douglas MacArthur, and in 1952, a second security treaty was signed which allowed for the housing of U.S. military bases within Japan. The U.S.-Japan relationship, although today widely accepted, was heavily contested during these post-war years. Detractors, like those within the student movement and the New Left, warned of the treaties leading to a great doorway of the supposed Japanese Diet, as well the potential involvement of Japan Self-Defense Forces alongside U.S. armies. These movements which began with demonstrations gradually became more and more radicalized, with Molotov cocktail attacks, bombings, plane hijackings becoming key factors of protest before gradually shifting underground. Japan was, during the 1970s, an advanced country in the field of terrorism, starkly contrasting its current image of low crime and safety. Big bomb terror occurred throughout the decade where the Japanese Red Army for example engaged in international coordination between terrorist organizations with several countries, a common tactic employed by 21st century international terrorist organizations.
“Peace | Lemon” explores these stories through a word association game that surrounding two motifs: a can of tobacco and a lemon. The video is accompanied by a subtitle track explaining the two motif’s unique historical contexts. Meanwhile, the artist interprets the fantasy and fetishistic world of post-war Japanese protestors, moving through images and sound in a ‘satisfying video’ style. The video is further accompanied by ASMR dubbing, recording binaural triggers in viewers.
Rotten Fruit – Lyr Casper
6:32 · USA · 2020
An audiovisual poem exploring time, gender, origins, transformation, and self-actualization.
It’s Stonewall in My Navel – Laurel Beckman
7:35 ·USA· 2016
AThe impulse to daydream (causing impatience or disassociation in 1st part of video) is met with a forbidding twitch towards darkness that denies the benefit of getting lost in your mind. In the video, the navel-gazing subject travels inside and outside her body, where her navel plays host to revelers at Stonehenge and Stonewall. Uncertain histories, monumental status and ritual are teased and morphed between the two sites. The Stonewall Inn, site of the liminal 1969 Stonewall Rebellion, was a dance bar. Such places concretize dreams and consequences of queer-dom in the 20th century and beyond (see Pulse slaughter, 2016). Stonewall itself is modeled here based on first person accounts of the iconic bar, where against the full-moon early morning hours of June 28, 1969, queers raged against oppression. They threw pennies, bricks, beer bottles, a trash-can, and a parking meter. In the video they, we, and those tools of rebellion dance, affirming that past, present & future, celebration and protest, are not mutually exclusive.
Inês – Alice Besen
23:17 · Brazil · 2020
Motivated by congressman Jair Bolsonaro’s homage to the torturer Carlos Alberto Brilhante Ustra, during president Dilma Rousseff’s impeachment hearing, Inês, a 69 year-old actress, starts a fragmented narrative of her own history, reinterpreting the memories from her youth as an artist and guerrilla fighter during the military dictatorship. The character restructures her memories, transforming them into theatrical performances, in which she transmits her perceptions on the relations between art and politics.
Cabo Tuna or The Management of the Sky – Unidad de Montaje Dialéctico (UMD) art collective
6:23 · Mexico · 2020
“Cabo tuna or The Management of the Sky” is a materialistic re-reading of the history of artificial satellites and digital surveillance which, using exclusively footage found on YouTube, intertwines the origins of the Nazi and Soviet arms industries with the digital surveillance systems used in the Mexican context of the war on drugs. This narrative arc allows for an exploration of the Mexican government’s failed attempts to create its own aeronautical rockets, the growing dependence on technology from foreign powers and companies, the privatization of space, and finally, the contemporary strengthening of the state’ s military control.
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Program 9 Vote: [Title of Work]
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