Image: from “Work, Why, Why not” 2008. A project by Emily Roysdon, performed at Weld, Stockholm.

In November 2007 the Office for Contemporary Art Norway held a three-day seminar in Oslo that brought together artists, critics and theorists to articulate or respond to the ways in which we might understand film to be a critical practice. It was accompanied by a film programme curated by Ian White.

Six Tuesdays After Film as a Critical Practice is a series of ‘talks’ that further explores the same proposition from international and intergenerational perspectives and extends the idea of ‘critical practice’ to incorporate the structure of the event itself.

It includes a continued enquiry into the work of three artists whose films and videos were also shown in Oslo: Emily Wardill interviews Peter Gidal and Emily Roysdon presents a specially conceived performative work.

Rosa Barba’s two-projector scultpure/sound work Western Round Table 2027 is shown alongside a selection of original recordings from the 1949 Western Round Table on Modern Art featuring contributions from Marcel Duchamp, Frank Lloyd Wright and Arnold Schoenburg.

There is an interactive presentation of the German television programme Reformzirkus (1970) in which the celebrated German filmmaker, writer and thinker Alexander Kluge intervenes to expose not only the construction of the programme itself but also cultural and social prejudice and radical, revolutionary ideas about the function of the medium that assault the established order.

Artist Cerith Wyn Evans makes a special live event and the series begins with writer and academic Tom Holert’s presentation of his recent video Ricostruzione: Dissertori/Libera (Towards a Historical Fable about Modernist Architecture and Psychology) (2007, co-authored with Claudia Honecke, commissioned by  Manifesta 7) www.ricostruzione.isvc.org. He discusses the relation between the critical practices of writing and art making, or working as a critic and as an artist making critical video, the coexistence and the navigation of these things.

Tues 3   Feb     Tom Holert
Tues 10 Feb     Cerith Wyn Evans
Tues 17 Feb     Rosa Barba / Western Round Table
Tues 3   Mar    Emily Roysdon
Tues 10 Mar    Reformzirkus
Tues 24 Mar    Emily Wardill & Peter Gidal

All events start at 7pm and are held at LUX 28, 28 Shacklewell Lane, Dalston, London E8 2EZ
Admission Free, booking essential as places are limited, to book please email salon@lux.org.uk

14 November - 19 December 2008
Steve Reinke: Hobbit Love is the Greatest Love
LUX 28, 28 Shacklewell Lane, Dalston, London E8
Opening hours: 12 - 5, Wednesday - Friday. 12 - 6, Saturday
Other times by appointment, please ring 020 7503 3980.
Preview: Thurs 13th November 7 -9pm
Free Entry

LUX 28 presents a new solo exhibition by Canadian artist Steve Reinke.

Steve Reinke is best known for his video work. Often outrageous, yet nonetheless engaging and even titillating, his themes range from introspective anxiety to bemused and appreciative voyeurism. Reinke’s voice is articulate and literate and often speaks in the voice of academic or cultural authority. His work diverges into absurd, unexpected directions — paradoxes, non-sequiturs, inadequate hypotheses, cruel jokes, and contorted metaphors – delivered in Reinke’ inimitably laconic and dispassionate tones.

Reinke’s work also often invokes the idea of the anthology, along with the taxonomical urge to exhaustively catalogue existence. The exhibition at LUX 28 will present a kind of anthology of Reinke’s video work to date. This will include the ambitious project, The Hundred Videos (1989-1996), a six-year project Reinke stated would constitute his work as a young artist, and recent works such as My Rectum is Not a Grave (To a Film Industry in Crisis) (2007), Boy/Analysis: An Abridgement of Melanie Klein’s ‘Narrative of a Child Analysis (2008) and Final Thoughts, an ongoing series that will only be completed at the moment of Reinke’s death.

Alongside projected works and an extensive video library the exhibition will also present a number of his wall pieces including The American Military Casualties of the Second Gulf War for Whom Photographs Were Available as of November 6, 2006 Arranged by Attractiveness and Guernica (2005). Reinke’s disquieting combination of light and playful monologues, laced with an acid humour, prods and pokes at the sub-conscious underbelly of everyday life.

‘There is no such thing as self-esteem. I don’t trust anyone who doesn’t have frequent bouts of self-loathing…Whenever I hear the word ‘culture’ I think of bacteria mutating under an ultraviolet light and I’m happy again for a while. Within the Petri dish: unfettered, egoless desire, the proliferation of new possibilities, ideas made flesh, uncaring and finally airborne. Empathy is a tool for making the cruelty more precise. Beauty is independent of taste; the sublime only works for suckers. Whenever I laugh I feel guilty.’ Reinke

Artist Talk: Saturday 15th November at 3pm. Steve Reinke in conversation with Adrian Rifkin, to book email salon@lux.org.uk

2 November 2008. 12 - 5pm
LUX 28, 28 Shacklewell Lane, Dalston, London E8 2EZ

Free at the Point of Interest
An afternoon’s screening and discussion looking at class and culture.

Taking the work of sociologist Pierre Bourdieu as our starting point we will look at the discreet social rules that govern the cultural arena, what purpose they serve and the possibilities and implications of change.

Pierre Bourdieu (1930-2002) was a sociologist whose research included studies of the art world, the literary sphere and academia in France. Sociology is a Martial Art (Pierre Carles, France 2002 146 mins) follows Bourdieu over a period of 3 years as he lectures, attends political rallies, travels, meets with his students, staff, and his research team. During the course of the film some of his difficult ideas and concepts are revealed clearly through the discussions and interactions he has with other people.

His work has been influential on current critical contemporary art, partly because it looks at the relationship between art and market forces, but it also contains a far more uncomfortable class critique of art and intellectual activity, that has largely been ignored:

“Art and cultural consumption are predisposed, consciously and deliberately or not, to fulfill a social function of legitimating social differences.”
Pierre Bourdieu, Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste (1979)

When asked for a practical suggestion for how to make up for inequalities in what he called cultural capital, Bourdieu suggested that schools should incorporate teaching on the often hidden social rules and niceties of art and culture - things that are normally passed down to better-off children at home - to help disadvantaged kids get the measure of their peers, and feel more confident in getting involved in cultural activity. More recently, the UK government suggested all schools provide 5 hours of culture per week to make up for a lack of arts education in schools.

There will be a screening of Sociology is a Martial Art (Pierre Carles, France 2002 146 mins) followed by a group seminar with special guests Sonya Dyer - artist and author of the ‘Boxed In’ report and Nirmal Puwar - senior lecturer in sociology at Goldsmiths College.

‘Free at the point of interest’ is organised by Tom Roberts and Jackie Holt. If you would like to participate please email tom@lux.org.uk or jackie@lux.org.uk

http://caughtlearning.org/free_at_the_point_of_interest/

Image: Capuslar 2 (2006), Herman Asselberghs
Courtesy the artist

2 October - 1 November 2008
Correspondence, Auguste Orts
LUX 28, 28 Shacklewell Lane, Dalston, London E8
Opening hours: 12 - 5, Wednesday - Friday. 12 - 6, Saturday
Other times by appointment
Preview: Thurs 2 October, 6-8pm
Free entry

Auguste Orts is a Brussels-based collective of four artists – Herman Asselberghs, Sven Augustijnen, Manon de Boer and Anouk De Clercq – who all work predominately with the moving image. They describe their practice as ‘…at the crossroads of cinema, video, visual arts, documentaries, experimental films… where media and disciplines cross-fertilize each other.’

Auguste Orts is interesting as a working model for addressing the particular issues associated with artists’ working with the moving image. As well as facilitating their own projects the organisation attempts to address a wider discourse through supporting other artists by organising an inclusive talks and screening programme. This desire to generate a critical discourse around their own work, and in doing so embrace the work of others, relates very closely to LUX’s origins in the London Filmmakers’ Coop, which was an inclusive forum for dialogue and exhibition as much as hub for production.

At LUX 28 August Orts will install a video library and reading area for the public to explore the group’s work, influences and interests. To further elucidate their ideas the group will enter a correspondance during the summer and these letters will be available in the reading area. Films, books and other sources mentioned in the letters, will be on display and will complete the dialogue.

Alongside the video library and reading room, the artists have asked Scanner to re-mix the soundtracks of their video work into a new composition. The resulting will be presented as a sound work in the exhibition space at LUX 28 and broadcast on Resonance FM and to open the exhibition there will be an accompanying screening at Tate Modern.

1 October 6.30pm: Screening of selected Auguste Orts films followed by artists in discussion. Tate Modern, London

20 October 8pm: Auguste Orts/Scanner broadcast on Resonance FM

Exhibition supported by The Elephant Trust and Vlaams Ministerie van Cultuur, Jeugd, Sport en Media.

18 – 28 September 2008
Stephan Dillemuth – Selected Films
LUX 28, 28 Shacklewell Lane, Dalston, London E8
Opening hours: 12 - 6, Wednesday - Saturday
Free entry

A rare opportunity to see the recent films of Munich-based artist Stephan Dillemuth presented for the first time with English subtitles.
Curated by Anja Kirschner.

Stephan Dillemuth is an artist who sees art as a tool for artistic research and critical reflection on the circumstances of contemporary life. His inquiry into recent changes in the idea of the public sphere takes place against the backdrop of our globalised, localised and fragmented publics. Considering the impact of ‘lifestyle’ as a new ideology of self-fulfilment and liberation, Stephan Dillemuth has investigated the German Lebensreform movements at the turn of the 19th to the 20th century. Avoiding didactic explanations or direct comparisons with the present, Stephan Dillemuth’s work settles in the gap between a contemporary and a historical reading.

Opening event: Thursday 18 September 7pm, admission free to book a place email salon@lux.org.uk
Screening of Lichtmenschen im Sumpf der Sonne – Studien zur Lebensreform (2002)(Sunpeople in the Slush of the Light - Studies on the Reform of Life) followed by Q&A with Stephan Dillemuth

Double bill screening: Saturday 20 September 4pm, admission free to book a place email salon@lux.org.uk
Screening of Elbsandsteingebirge 1789-1848 (DE, 1994, 54mins) and Gesetzt nämlich, dies wäre wahr, wäre es damit auch schon wünschenswert? (DE, 1998, 62mins)(Assuming then, this would be true, would that make it desirable also? - A Video about Richard Wagner and his Circle) followed by Q&A with Stephan Dillemuth

Lichtmenschen im Sumpf der Sonne – Studien zur Lebensreform
People of Light in the Slush of the Sun Studies in the Reform of Life
‘In Germany, around the turn of the century, a number of groups were formed that can be subsumed under the term ‘Lebensreform’ (Life Reform). These part utopian, revolutionary, reactionary and reformist approaches characterised the most varied attempts to break free from the Empire of the day: the nationalistic, capitalistic and monolithic Wilhelminian Reich. Other groups were, on the contrary, persecuted by the society of the Third Reich, and incorporated or forced into line, which again produced another monolithic homogeneity.’

‘The video that Stephan Dillemuth attempted to make about these matters was bound to fail in the face of their very complexity. Instead of presenting a refined and finished product, he confronts us with the assembled rubble of his investigation… a performance?’

Elbsandsteingebirge 1789-184
The bizarre landscape of the Elbsandstein mountains south of Dresden, served as the repository for the motives of nearly all German Romantics. Their paintings have shaped our romantic view of the time between the French Revolution and the March Revolution in Germany. In a journey through images, movies and texts, and a trip in the Elbsandstein mountains themselves we see ourselves confronted with our own projections: Was the Romantic political? Or were the politics romantic?

Gesetzt nämlich, dies wäre wahr, wäre es damit auch schon wünschenswert?”
Assuming then, this would be true, would that make it desirable also? - A Video about Richard Wagner and his Circle
‘Richard Wagner was a despot, anti-Semite and racist. Despite these warnings Stephan Dillemuth undertakes a diving attempt to seek the Rheingold in the sediment of a bygone century. But instead the failed revolutionary Wagner introduces him to a nationalistic culture and the the musty retauration climate of the Wilhelminian era.
A familiar scene.
But how can one dare to make an escape in the different costumes of this epoch?
Siegfried, Marx, Nietzsche and King Ludwig, on the whole pleasant people…
When he surfaces from a parallel period Delmont finds himself in the bourgeois prison of the multi-nationals. Can we dance on this stage? Discover it for yourself!’

More of Stephan Dillemuth’s work can be viewed at www.societyofcontrol.com

image: Mast Qalandar (2005), Till Passow

26 JUNE - 26 JULY 2008
Archivos OVNI
LUX 28, 28 Shacklewell Lane, Dalston, London E8
Opening hours: 12 - 6, Wednesday - Saturday
Free entry

Opening event, Thursday 26 June 7.30pm
Toni Serra/Abu Ali and Xavi Hurtado, founders of Archivos OVNI introduce the ideas behind the project and present selected works from the collection. Admission free, to book a place email salon@lux.org.uk

Founded in 1993 Archivos OVNI (Observatorio de Video No Identificado) is an independent artists’ video archive project based at the Centre for Contemporary Art in Barcelona. The aim of the archive is to collect and disseminate works that challenge prevailing western mass media representations of the world and give a voice to unrepresented people and cultures. The archives are unique in that they cut across moving image disciplines: from video art to independent documentary and mass media archaeology, they draw together extraordinarily diverse works which share a commitment to personal expression.

The Archives are the core of the OVNI project, but rather than being a static resource they are conceived of as part of a dialogue which aims to encourage an ongoing critique of contemporary culture and society. This dialogue is realised through the collection and dissemination of works; through the screenings and debates which OVNI hosts; through the collaboration with other agencies and the staging of aspects of the project across the world in places as disparate as New York, Amman, Casablanca, Istanbul, Amsterdam, Bogotá, Buenos Aires, Mexico, Tijuana, Marseille, Paris, Stuttgart, Graz, Brescia, Lecce, Madrid, Lugano, Valencia and Seoul.

Archivos OVNI presents the project for the first time in London with a specially curated selection of works presented at LUX 28 in the form of a video library and weekly screening programme (see below). The selection particularly focuses on questions of exodus and resistance, two principal themes within the archive, and the tensions that draw a line from subjective experience to specific social and political realities.

Over 100 works will be presented, including Xavi Hurtado’s Nawpa [0.1] which explores indigenous resistance to western interests in Ecuador, Calle y Media Cooperativa’s Abajo el COLONialismo, a documentary about anti-colonialism in Venezuela, Nahed Awwad’s Lions, an eye witness testimony of the invasion of Ramallah, Dallia Ennadre’s El Batalett which follows a group of Moroccan women in Casablanca’s old Medina and Electronic Lebanon’s From Beirut to… those who love us, a series of broadcasts from Beirut during the 2006 bombings.

For a downloadable pdf of the full listings of all the films available to view, click on the link below:

Archivos OVNI Library List

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WEEKLY SCREENING PROGRAMME
26th - 28th June
PROGRAMA 1. 80’

En Décimas las Propiedades del Limón
USA / Colombia / Spain, 2000, 8′
Xavier Hurtado
A map of healing territories, Brooklyn (New York) - Bogota (Colombia). Conversations with Hector Malabé, a homeless Puerto Rican from Greenpoint, and the Spanish/ritual/spiritual properties of the lemon, sung by an anonymous Afroamerican from Colombia’s caribbean coast

El Río de las Estrellas
Colombia / Spain, 2002, 25′
Xavier Hurtado
A succession of mysteries are repeatedly ordered and observed. A ritual for creating meaning. Dreaming, a daily exercise in the free interpretation of reality.

Nawpa [0.1]
Ecuador / Spain 2004-2007, 13′14”
Xavier Hurtado
In Ecuador, the indigenous movement has one of the longest and most intense traditions of resistance in the history of modern Latin America. Cesar Pilataxi, a Kichwa man from the Andean region, explains the reasons behind the confrontation between his community and Western interests

Abajo el COLONialismo
Venezuela, 2005, 30′
Calle y Media Cooperativa
A thirty minute documentary that captures the actions of the Caracas peoples’ movements that pulled down the detested statue of Christopher Columbus (Cristobal COL”N in Spanish) in Plaza Venezuela on the 12th of October 2005. Through its simplicity, this small but historic event opened up new paths in the anti-COLONial subjectivity of the people by provoking a controversy that led to complex debate. Their action opened up thousands of discussions, not just about the depth of the COLONial aculturalisation that we have been subject to as peoples, but also about the danger that the Bolivarian Revolution be used as an alibi by the bureaucratic processes that deny the people their collective and sovereign power to act. This documentary gives voice to the people’s struggle for autonomy and continental rebellion that has been gestating for centuries in the belly of Pachamerika.

—

2nd - 5th July (late opening till 8pm on 3rd)
PROGRAMA 2. 60’

Lions
Palestine, 2002, 10′
Nahed Awwad
This film takes you to the city of Ramallah during the 2nd-and not last ? invasion by Israeli troops in April 2002. It is what I saw, heard and experienced starting from neighborhood moving to the city destruction.

Meen Erhabe (Who is the Terrorist?)
Palestine / USA, 2003, 5′
Jackie Salloum
Video footage questioning who is the terrorist and why. Reflection on the daily conflict in the occupied territories accompanied by Rap music produced by youth under occupation and inspired by the Intifada.

From Beirut to… those who love us
Lebanon, 2006, 5′
Electronic Lebanon
Video letters from Beirut to the World. July 21, 2006. Calling outside Lebanon, the bombings in 2006

July Trip
Lebanon / France, 2006, 35′
Wael Noureddine
Beirut, July 2006. Israeli bombings strike the city. While Beirut is still on fire, the filmmaker starts a journey across his native land. The film is not a documentary - although the images are burningly real - but an essay. Using two complementary techniques, 16 mm film and HDV, the artist questions the deep foundations of the documentary genre. The eye of the cameras goes through a country in a state of terror, it records the immediate effects of war when it touches civilians.

—

9th - 12th July
PROGRAMA 3. 60′

El Batalett – Femmes de la Medina
Morocco / France, 2002, 60′
Dalila Ennadre
We follow the director’s camera into the kitchens and living rooms of a community of Moroccan women. inside the walls of their apartment in Casablanca’s old Medina, the women cook, clean, take care of their families and help each other. With their hands in the dough, in the soap whilst washing the laundry, doing the house chores, in the market or at the hammam, between laughter and tears (”We are housewives, that’s all. … Our sport? House cleaning!”). These courageous women, proud of their role, talk about their miserable lives (?) with a great sense of awareness, but without self-pity. They show a surprising vitality, curiosity for life and solidarity. These house-proud housewives may not all know how to read, but they know exactly what would improve their lives: equal rights for women and men, more money, and a better future for their children so they wouldn’t have to emigrate to support the family. A sense of hope and the possibility of change radiate out of the everyday lives of these heroines (”batalett”).

—

16th - 19th July
23rd - 26th July
PROGRAMA 4. 70’

Texas Sunrise
USA / Spain, 1991, 20′
Lluís EscartÌn
On a dusty road, somebody talks about the ideal of freedom, the horizon of the American dream. Images of the desert and metallic ruins.

City of Saba.
USA, 2007,9 ‘
DJ Kadagian – Four Seasons Productions.
City of saba has as a base a radical poem of Jalal-ud-din Rumi mixed with images of contemporary political and economical power. The richness as a subtle disease.
This work is part of a video compilation designed to challenge, provoque and inspire, these films hit on a broad spectrum of social, political and spiritual issues while effortlessly cutting across traditional lines of gender, race, religion and ethnicity.

Last Night Dikr
Morocco, 2005, 7′
Abu Ali
VideoSeries: El Hamdulillah Tapes.
The search for water, the descent deep into the well of the heart. Based on a 12th Century Persian poem by Najmudin Kubra.

Mast Qalandar
Pakistan / Germany, 2005, 30′
Till Passow
Above all, Mast Qalandar (Ecstasy) is a look at heterodoxy and a celebration of its existence. Qalandars are a Sufi brotherhood of roaming dervishes who once ranged through an arch that crossed Asia, from Turkey to Pakistan and India. They are characterized by extreme mystical devotion and their revolutionary and anti-dogmatic attitudes within Islam, such as use of hachis and the rejection of alcohol and free submission to Haqq, the truth, which they see as the absence of limits rather than something which narrows and defines horizons. “Mast Qalandar” immerses us in the ritual encounter of these dervishes around the grave of the brotherhood’s founder in Pakistan. A vision of heir devotion to “the beloved” that leads them into trance and ecstasy, where death means simply to “draw aside a veil”.