COOP ~ Curating Positions: Logics of Montage. In Between the Cinematic Apparatus and the Exhibition from Month to Month
Seminar 6: 15 - 18 April 2019
Session 6 of Curating Positions: Logics of Montage. In between Cinematic Apparatus and the Exhibition, will be led by Marwa Arsanios, Leon Filter and Miren Jaio.
Monday, April 15:
19.30-22.30: Screening of Bete & Deise *, 2012 By Wendelien von Oldenborgh (proposed by Marwa, Leon and Miren)
Tuesday, April 16:
10.00-13.00: Session led by Miren Jaio
13.00: Lunch
14.00-16.00: Reverse Location Scouting
16.00-18.00: Continues session led by Miren Jaio with exercise on writing as a montage
18.00-19.00: Dinner
20.00 - 22.00: Presentation conclusions of exercises on writing as a montage and Final Project feedback with Marwa, Leon and Miren
Wednesday, April 17:
10.00-13.00: Final project
13.00-14.00: Lunch
14.00-18.00: Final project
18.00 -19.00: dinner
20.00-22.00: Final Project feedback with Marwa, Leon and Miren
Thursday, April 18:
10.00-13.00: Face to face
* Bete & Deise (2012), Wendelien van Oldenborgh
duration: 41 min.
The film Bete & Deise stages an encounter between two women in Rio de Janeiro: Bete Mendes and Deise Tigrona. These women have – each in their own way – given meaning to the idea of a public voice. Bete Mendes has continued to maintain a political career alongside her acting career in popular television since the 1960s. Mendes was involved in the armed resistance group of the student movement against the dictatorship, and was part of the labour movement in the 1970s, co-founding the working party Partido dos Trabalhadores at the close of the decade. Deise Tigrona is one of the most powerful voices in the Funk Carioca movement. Growing up and performing as a singer in the impoverished community of Cidade de Deus, she rose to great international popularity when her song "Injeção" was used as the basis for M.I.A.'s popular hit "Bucky Done Gun". She was forced to take a step back when it became too burdensome to combine her music career with her tough family life in Cidade de Deus, but came back to performing again more recently.
Together these women talk about their experience with performance and their position in the public sphere, allowing for the contradictions they each carry within themselves to surface. Through a montage that evocatively combines the voices of the women with their image, van Oldenborgh confronts us with considerations on the relation between cultural production and politics and the potential power that is generated when public issues intersect with the personal.
With: Bete Mendes, Deise Tigrona
Camera: Heloisa Passos
Direct sound: Marcos Cantanhede
Sound finishing: Charlie van Rest
Bete & Deise was commissioned by If I Can’t Dance, I Don’t Want To Be Part Of Your Revolution, and is financially supported by the Netherlands Foundation for Visual Arts, Design and Architecture and Wilfried Lentz Gallery, Rotterdam. With thanks to Capacete Entretenimentos, Rio de Janeiro.
Seminar 5: 10 - 13 March 2019
Session 5 of Curating Positions: Logics of Montage. In between Cinematic Apparatus and the Exhibition, will be led by Marwa Arsanios and Leire Vergara. Our week will revolve around the logics of montage from the perspective of the exhibition. So far, we have worked mostly from the cinematic apparatus, but we would like to take the opportunity of being at the Bauhaus of Dessau to design an exhibition model with the accumulated ideas developed within the student-led sessions. This prototype can help us to envision the final project and think the cinematic apparatus from the format of a small scale exhibition.
Sunday, March 10:
19.30-22.30: Reverse Location Scouting by Clara Saito and Vinita Gatne. Chronicle by Maxime Gourdon and Vita Buyvid
Monday, March 11:
10.00-12.00: Session led by Maxime Gourdon
11.00-12.00: Collective work on the exhibition model and Face 2 Face with Marwa Arsanios and Leire Vergara
14.00-18.00: Collective work on the exhibition model and Face 2 Face with Marwa Arsanios and Leire Vergara
20.00-22.00: Session shared with COOP study group Peekaboo - Looking Askance At Issues of Childhood Connected to Nation. Ruth Noack will talk about Scenes of a Theory an exhibition she curated in the 1990s and we have proposed to watch together the film Where Does Your Hidden Smile Lie? (2001) by Pedro Costa.
In Where Does Your Hidden Smile Lie, the Portuguese director Pedro Costa filmed the personal and professional life of the Straub-Huillet duo. Through his camera, we are afforded a professional and personal portrait which reaches beyond the lights and the cameras. Pedro Costa´s film focuses on one of the Straub-Huillet creations: Sicilia! The director takes a look at the editing process for the third version of the film. Costa is known for his unique approach to experimental film and docufiction. One of the hallmarks of his work is the use of lightweight digital video cameras which facilitate his style: direct cinema, filming reality at first hand and in the sincerest way possible.
Tuesday, March 12:
10.00-13.00 Collective work on the exhibition model and Face 2 Face with Marwa Arsanios and Leire Vergara
14.00-18.00 Collective work on the exhibition model and Face 2 Face with Marwa Arsanios and Leire Vergara
20.00-22.00 Opening of the exhibition model.
Wednesday, March 13:
10.00-13.00: Round and Final Project
Seminar 4: 10 - 13 February 2019
Session 4 of Curating Positions: Logics of Montage. In between the Cinematic Apparatus and the Exhibition will be led by Leon Filter and Leire Vergara and will count with the participation of our guest Jon Mikel Euba who will develop the exercise “29 Conditions for a Self-Imposition: Setting of a Body that is Made Available for Writing” and will contribute with a teaching session on the notion of montage. Jon Mikel Euba together with the tutors will also participate on an open face to face session with all students. This week seminar will be completed with a film screening, three student-led sessions, reverse location scoutings and a night-walk with a Listening Group Session introducing our final readings.
Sunday, February 10:
19.30-22.30: Film-Screening:
-Cancelli di Fumo (storie dalia minifatura tabacchi di Cagliari) by Francesco Bussalai
The documentary about the Exmanifattura Tabacci in Cagliari we found at the Cineteca Sarda Società Umanitaria
-Operacion H (1963) by Nestor Basterretxea
In 1963, the businessman Juan Huarte Beaumont, art patron, collector and founder of X Films, a film production company based in Madrid, invited the Basque artists Néstor Basterretxea and Jorge Oteiza to make a promotional short about his companies. Certain conditions were attached to the commission: the artists were each to present finished scripts without any contact with each other about them. Huarte chose Néstor Basterretxea's script, and Basterretxea directed the film, which was given the title Operación H in postproduction.
-A movie will be shown without the picture - Un Giorno in Barbagio - Vittorio de Seta
An application of the work “A movie will be shown without the picture” by Louis Lawler
Monday, February 11:
10.00-13.00: Reverse Location Scouting with Dina Mohamed and Vita Buyvid
Documentation: Sara Cattin and Raphael Daibert
13.00-14.00 Lunch
14.00-18.00: Exercise led by our seminar guest Jon Mikel Euba:
29 CONDITIONS FOR A SELF-IMPOSITION - Setting of a Body that is Made Available for Writing.
“A list of questions about basic issues organized into sections so participants could better take into consideration the different elements that concur in the act of writing. An exercise in self-awareness proposed as a calm light listening, in which questions resonate within the listener, inviting them to deepen in the question itself, rather than answering it for somebody else.
This exercise is a negative self-portrait, a double proprioceptive exercise. Its configuration has firstly required to shape — question by question — a specific body (my own) to then remove it from its location to allow the inclusion of any other body. All of this in the hope that this move of individualisation will provide whoever listens to it with an image of their own body in the act of writing. An exercise in contrast. An enhanced accuracy in the levels of differentiation”.
Jon Mikel Euba
“The behaviour of human beings is firmly based on the image they have created of themselves. Consequently, if one wishes to modify one´s behaviour, one must necessarily modify one’s self-image”.
Moshé Feldenkrais.
18.00-19.00 Dinner
19.00- 22.00 Night Listening Group Session (Camera Obscura and “Perspectivism and Multinaturalism in indigenous America”)
Tuesday, February 12:
10.00-13.00: Session on montage led by our seminar guest Jon Mikel Euba
13.00-14.00: Lunch
14.00-16.00: Continues Session led by our seminar guest Jon Mikel Euba
16:00-18.00: Student-led session led by Vinita Gatne
18.00-19.00: Dinner
20.00-22.00: Student-led session led by Raphael Daibert
22:00-23:00 Feedback session
Wednesday, February 13:
9.00-11:00: Student-led session by Maxime Gourdon
11:00-13:00: Student-led session by Vita Buyvid
Bibliography:
-Barthes, R, Camera Lucida, Reflections on Photography (1980)
-De Castro, E. V. , Perspectivism and Multinaturalism in indigenous America, in: The Land within, indigenous territory and perception of the environment (2005)
-Lütticken, S. A movie will be shown without the picture (If I can’t Dance I don’t want to be part of your Revolution, 2014)
Seminar 3: 13-17 January 2019
Session 3 of Curating Positions: Logics of Montage. In between Cinematic Apparatus and the Exhibition, will be led by Marwa Arsanios, Leon Filter and Leire Vergara. Our week will revolve around Gramsci's text "The Southern Question" that will be practiced through different reading methodologies, focusing on reading and writing tools adapted from key montage concepts. We will take the opportunity to work in the different locations that will potentially be used in our final project in Cagliari. Leon Filter will introduce thoughts around "the situated image" which will transform our classroom into a Camera Obscura for the Participants' led sessions. This weeks seminar will be accompanied by film screenings, the student-led sessions, reverse location scouting walks and face to faces.
Sunday, January 13:
19.30-22.30: Film screening: Teorema (1968) by Pier Paolo Pasolini (with COOP The Immemorial Body: Betraying Carmelo Bene in Nine Acts)
In the Hostels’ cinema
Teorema is the first non-realist movie made by Pasolini and it was released in 1968. It is related to the political and social context of the industrial North of Italy and depicts and fractures the codified language of capitalism and family values through silence and body language. In a very Pasolinian manner, it is also a meditation on the disappearance of the sacred and vernacular mysticism from the fabric of modern/capitalist societies.
Monday, January 14:
10.00-10.45: Introduction by Leon to the Camera Obscura room (situated image)
11.00-13.00: Session led by Clara Amaral (followed by reflection round)
Will be sharing a practice for the eyes and body. The software\hardware of closing\opening the eyes will allow us to experience the eyes as the first technology that interacts with image. The eyes as the first window to the outside and to the inside. When our eyes are open, images travel inside and follow through to our brains giving us access to the real. I would like to purpose the body as the first place for the camera obscura. The room>>>The camera obscura inside the room>>>The body inside the room>>>The body inside the camera obscura>>>The body with closed eyes>>>The camera obscura inside the body. In this working session we will be exploring different kind of gazes and how these different gazes can inform our bodies and also our understanding of the real.
14.00-16.00: Session led by Livio Casanova (followed by reflection round)
Based on the ‚Camera Obscura setting‘ suggesting two possible positions: the ‚inside‘ and the ‚outside,‘ or the ‚real‘ and the ‚constructed.‘ Looking at it from a rational point of view the outside is the ‚real,‘ and the inside is the ‚image,‘ of the ‚real.‘ Contrary, from an imaginary point of view, both, the inside and the outside, are connected to each other by the sun and, in our case, possibly by our respective bodies and imaginations. At this point I’m interested into how to make visible or blur connections and conjunctions between the ‚inside‘ and the ‚outside‘ by the means of our ‚bodies‘ and imaginations. With examples from film and artist video, plus group ‚choreography’.
16.00-18.00: Session led by Ciaran Wood (followed by reflection round)
Working inside the camera obscura turning it into a live video production, incorporating the idea of ‘dancing with the camera’ in direct communication with the performers. As if an imaginary piece of string was tied between the camera, operator and performer. Incorporating examples from artist film, technique and discussion, combined with a group live performance filmed and projected in real time. The montage and edit happens in camera and in-situ with all involved partaking. With links to Livio’s session with regards the sun, movement and objects in light. Bringing my question of montage, through the use of a single shot as opposed to editing. Considering the final result of group collaborative project (our COOP) offering this as an exercise as way of cutting and montaging method together.
20.00-22.00: Film screening: Banditi a Orgosolo (1961) by Vittorio De Seta
Banditi a Orgosolo is a film that follows the ethnological field research (published under the same name) of Franco Cagnetta in Sardinia which focused on the emergence of bandits in the region of Orgosolo as a way of resistance against governance/occupation of the ruling states. De Setas film, which is realized exclusively with amateur actors from Sardinia, focuses on a shepherd who loses his flock through a coincidental witnessing of the murder of a policeman and in the aftereffects of the event, becomes a bandit himself.
Tuesday, January 15:
10.00-11.45 Montage Workshop with the southern question
12.00-13.00 Meeting with Cinema Odissea
14.00-18.00 Montage Workshop with the southern question
20.00-22.00 Montage Workshop with the southern question
Wednesday, January 16:
10.00-13.00: Speculation for the final project
14.00-17.30: Reverse Location Scouting with Sara Cattin and Ciaran Wood
Documentation: Clara Amaral
19.00-22.00: Reverse Location Scouting with Livio Casanova and Raphael Diabert
Documentation: Clara Saito
Thursday, January 17:
10:00- 13.00 face to face
Readings:
-Acker, K. (1995) „Paragraphs“, in The Journal of the Midwest Modern Language Association, Vol. 28, No. 1, Identities (Spring, 1995), pp. 87-92
-Acker, K. (1995) „Writing, Identity and Copyright ins the Net Age“, in The Journal of the Midwest Modern Language Association, Vol. 28, No. 1, Identities (Spring, 1995), pp. 93-98
-Kathy Acker, (1987) „Lulu“, in Performing Arts Journal, Vol. 10, No. 3 (1987), pp. 102-117
-Kathy Acker, Against ordinary language, the language of the body
-Gramsci, A., (1926) „some aspects of the southern question“, in Selections from political writings (1921-1926)", translated and edited by Quintin Hoare (Lawrence and Wishart, London 1978)
Seminar 2: 9-12 December 2018
Session 2 of Curating Positions: Logics of Montage. In Between the Cinematic Apparatus and the Exhibition, will be led by Beatriz Cavia and Leire Vergara. Beatriz Cavia will introduce some connections and assemblies between Social Science and Contemporary Art. We will approach with her some references and tools from Visual Anthropology through a selection of ethnographic cinema, the concept of “drama” (Erving Goffman) and the notion of performativity (Judith Butler).
The session will also involve a series of students led parts and face to face meetings.
Sunday , December 9:
19.00: Film screening of Chronique d’un été directed by Jean Rouch and Edgar Morin in 1961. (90 minutes) and The Question Would be The Answer to the Question, Are you happy? (2009-2012) (41 minutes) by Sarah Pierce.
Chronique d’un été (1961)
Following the sociological/anthropological approach of the makers, the film is an example of Cinema Verité and deals with issues of performativity in front of a camera.
The Question Would be the Answer to the Question, Are you happy? (2009 – 2012)
Four channel synchronised video with single channel audio. Simultaneous translation in English, Danish, French, Irish. Shown on four flat screen monitors or as a single projection.
For each chapter of this four-channel video work, Sarah Pierce visited specific locations where she invited small groups of local university students from various fields to view the film Chronicle of a Summer (1961) by the French filmmakers Jean Rouch and Edgar Morin. The screenings were followed by a recorded conversation motivated by a set of five questions asked to each group at each of the locations. Soon the students realise they are the subjects of a conversation that ensues about language, colonialism, nationhood, and happiness. In each chapter the discussion takes place in a language other than English (Spanish, French, Danish and Irish, respectively). A translator, present on the day, performs simultaneous translation in English. The final work shows all four conversations at the same time, so that the translators dominate as they perform their daunting task. They are the real subjects; their faltering exposes an impossibility of identification that runs through each country’s narrative.
The screening will be shared with COOP: The Immemorial Body: Betraying Carmelo Bene in Nine Acts.
Monday, December 10:
10.00-13.00: Session by Beatriz Cavia
13.00-14.00: Lunch
14.00-17.00: Reverse Location Scouting led by Clara Amaral and Maxime Gourdon
17.00-18.00: Continues session by Beatriz Cavia
18.00-19.00: Face to Face (with Beatriz Cavia and Leire Vergara)
Tuesday, December 11:
10.00-13.00: Student-led session by (Clara Saito, Dina Mohamed and Sara Cattin)
13.00-14.00 Lunch
14.00-18.00: Continues Student-led session (Clara Saito, Dina Mohamed and Sara Cattin)
20.00-22.00: Face to Face
Wednesday, December 12:
10.00-13.00: Time for the final project
Readings:
-Butler, J. (2015) "Gender politics and the right to appear", in Notes toward a performative theory of assembly. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. pp. 24-65.
-Clifford, J. (1981) "On Ethnographic Surrealism", in Comparative Studies in Society and History, Vol. 23 Nº 4. pp. 539-564.
-Goffman, E. (1956) "Framework", in The presentation of self in every day life. Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh. pp. 152-162.
Seminar 1: 12-15 November 2018
Seminar 1 of Curating Positions: Logics of Montage. In Between the Cinematic Apparatus and the Exhibition, will be led by Marwa Arsanios, Leon Filter and Leire Vergara, who will each introduce a position in respect to the logics of montage from a curatorial perspective. The introductions will define a form of teaching as an operation of montage that will be developed across the year.
The session will also involve presentations by all the participants, who will be asked to introduce their practice in respect to their interest within the thematic of the study group.
Finally, during this first session we will test the methodology of Reverse Location Scouting.
Please bring headphones and a portable device to play audiofiles. A smartphone with Whatsapp would be sufficient.
Readings:
- "The Articulation of Protest", Hito Steyerl
- "Soft Montage", Harun Farocki
- "Montage my Fine Care", Jean-Luc Godard
Monday, November 12
19.30-22.30 Film screening of Pasolini Pa* Palestine, video, 51 minutes, 2005 by Palestinian artist Ayreen Anastas.
Pasolini Pa* Palestine is an attempt to repeat Pasolini's trip to Palestine in his film, Seeking Locations in Palestine for "The Gospel According to Matthew" (1963). It adapts his script into a route map superimposed on the current landscape, creating contradictions and breaks between the visual and the audible, the expected and the real. The video explores the question of repetition.
Ayreen Anastas is looking for a biography that is easily translatable. Her name is this and she does such and such. She thinks or she does not think this and that. She is today this one she is tomorrow that one. What is the use of writing if it were without echo without meaning without delirium. Write write and fill the page with words. A life, a path, a biography, a with. A thought, a with. A feeling, a with. A shadow, a light, a fog, an image, a with. A thread, a mountain, a sea, a word, a with. A forgetfulness, a glimpse, a meaning, a with. A breath, a now. A together. A with them. A with you.
Who is she? Who are you? Who are we?
Tuesday, November 13
10.00-12.00: Introduction by Leire Vergara
12.00-13.00: Debate
14.00-16.00: Introduction Leon Filter
16.00-16.30: Break
16.30-18.30: Introduction Marwa Arsanios
20.00-22.00: Debate
Wednesday, November 14
10.00-13.00: Presentations by the participant students (open face to face)
14.00-18.30: Presentations by the participant students (open face to face)
20.00-22.00: Distribution of the different students-led parts (“reverse locations scoutings”, distribute the different roles according to film production (camera, sound editing), curatorial/montage sessions led by the students, face to face).
Thursday, November 15
10.00-13.00: First test for the Reverse Location Scouting led by artist and former DAI student Auremnari Ee.
Areumnari Ee is a multidisciplinary artist from South Korea. She obtained her BFA from Konkuk University, Seoul, South Korea and MA from Dutch Art Institute, The Netherlands. Her works stem from everyday surroundings and personal stories as well as from imagination, and are embodied through digital media. By adding literature and theoretical texts, poetic expressions and performative settings, she creates multi-sensory experiences within her singular way of working. Her films and performances have been presented in many different countries including South Korea, The Netherlands, Greece, China, Philippines, Ecuador and Uruguay.