Focusing on the conservative aspects of modern cinema, Videotage and Portactif present The Reconstruction of Cinema. Do films and audio-visual productions all have a similar formula in order for it to be suitable for a movie theatre audience? Many movie and film productions that bear their own shining qualities are often labeled as ‘video works’ or ‘too experimental’, despite their intentions for movie goers.

The screening features 3 Belgian Video artists who question the grammar of film in their own unique way, which is then followed by an Artist talk and Live Stream Sound Performance. Be sure to swing by and check it out!

About the Artist:

Nicolas Provost / Stardust

Nicolas Provost (1969, Belgium) is a filmmaker and visual artist living and working in Brussels, Belgium. His work is a reflection on the grammar of cinema and the relationship between visual art and the cinematic experience. He has also written and directed several short and mid-length fiction films. His work has been broadcast, screened and exhibited worldwide on both visual art platforms and film festivals and have earned a long list of awards and screenings at prestigious festivals including The Sundance Film Festival, The Berlinale, The Viennale, The San Francisco International Filmfestival, Cinevegas, The International Film Festival Rotterdam, and The Locarno Film Festival. Solo exhibitions include The Seattle Art Museum, USA, Musée d’art moderne et contemporain, Strasbourg, France, De Brakke Grond, Amsterdam, Tim Van Laere Gallery, Antwerp, Belgium, C-Space Gallery, Beijing, China, The International Media Art Biennale, Poland, Solar Galeria de Arte Cinematica, Vila do Conde, Portugal.

Stardust is the second part of the trilogy where Nicolas Provost investigates the boundaries of fiction and reality by filming everyday life with a hidden high resolution camera and turning the cinematic images into a fiction film by using cinematographic and narrative codes from the Hollywood film language. The first part of the trilogy was the award winning Plot Point (2007) that was shot entirely with a hidden camera and turned everyday life around Times Square New York into a thriller film.

Provost’s work uses the language of film to maneuvers and influence the interpretation of images and stories. He manipulates time, codes and form, twisting and shaping new narratives and experimental sensations that tightly bind visual art and cinematography. He taps into our collective filmic memory and reconstructs it to stunning effect. Duality is intrinsic in much of his work, both literally with optical mirroring and conceptually when he toys with the blurred boundaries between fiction and reality, the sublime and the ugly, the utopian and the concrete, the marvelous and the terrible, and finally, between truth and invention. Provost is part scientist and part magician, generating a grotesque visual poetry of hypnotic beauty and macabre consequences.

Frank&Robbert / What About American History

Associative stream of images. What about history; in a personal and a general way. Identity? Questions. The past and the present. Frank & Robbert traveling through the United States. Reflection about the ‘now’: masked – unmasked; fiction – reality; … Experiment: about the form: A film – a window, the borders of the screen; How to make a movie? How can you create film? How do you tell a story? How do you present moving images? It is about playing with the format of film itself, research about film within film.

Frank & Robbert is young vibrant vitality. Eager to dive into the world and all that it has to offer. What they do as artists is not only look at the world (in a new way), but also interact with the world (in a new way). The world and all of it’s layers are a game like they say.

Frank & Robbert both born in 1989, they met each other in high school when they were 15 years old. They didn’t notice each other at first. But they grew together. When they decided to follow the same college courses in 2007, they couldn’t help but start making things together. To cluster their powers. Because in a weird, but very natural way they are fascinated by the same things but are in fact opposite personalities. It’s a ‘mix’ that works. Their friendship is the basis for their art, and their art is what makes up the largest part of their live.

Jimmy Hendrickx/ Far West

‘Far-West’ gives a silent impression of the overwhelming nature of North America. Different from the classic nature documentary we don’t see buffalos or hyenas passing by but here we see only cowboys, travelling trough enormous landscapes. Western characters that are holding still for some mysterious reason. Energetic landscapes en cowboys without words are driven to a climax.

Cinema as a playground for experiments the form and shape of cinema staid quiet similar. Like he said: “It’s time to give up the differences between, cinema, video and theatre. Not only the movie itself should me changed but the complete production process has need for a revolution.” Exclude for al these theories and statements Jimmy is also looking for an audiovisual poetry. Far West is such an example.

Blu Simon Wasem/ Sound Performance

Blu Simon Wasem (1987, Criciuma/ Brasil) is a nomade multi-media artist who dedicated himself to improvisation and experimental music. By Origin a bass and percussion player, today augmented with violin, flute, and handmade electronics.

Using The World as inspiration he is now focussing on South-East Asia where he let his imrovisations flow out of urban metropolitan experiences or his jungle escapades. Abstract and touching compositions often combined with humoristic layers leading the audience to a new concept of their musicnotions. He unites the acoustic with the electronic in an unusual way. Adventuristic soundscapes and unpredictable rhytms will abduct you in Blu’s world of soundpoetry.

Date: 7th September 2012 (Fri)
Time: 8pm (Free admission!)
Venue: Videotage
Unit 13, Cattle Depot Artist Village 63 Ma Tau Kok Road, To Kwa Wan, Kowloon