11 August: Documenting the Undocumented

Leaving everything behind you in the hope of a better life. The films in this programme highlight the history of migration based on clips from EYE’s collection and recent productions.

The programme includes films by contemporary artists such as The Bureaucracy of Angels by Oliver Chanarin and Adam Broomberg. Also featured is Joost Conijn’s Good evening welcome to the people living in the camp (2018), plus a clip from Transit Levantkade (1990, Rosemarie Blank), with archival footage of East-European migrants around 1900.         

In collaboration with Nathanja van Dijk (director A Tale of a Tub).

This screening is programmed in combination with the film good evening welcome to the people living in the camp.

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17 July: The Wall: Crossing Borders

The Wall: Crossing Borders

The wall between Mexico and the US, the Israel-Gaza strip barrier, the Berlin Wall and the Chinese Wall: they are iconic symbols of oppression and the fear of the other.

The Wall explores the meaning of borders and the tangible consequences for anyone having or wanting to pass them. The programme includes short films by Josh Begley (Fields of Vision, based on Google Maps), Hamza Halloubi’s A Letter to Aura (2012) and The Lovers: Great Wall Walk (Abramovic/Ulay, 1988)

 In collaboration with Nathanja van Dijk (director A Tale of a Tub).

This screening is followed by the feature-length documentary El mar la mar (2017) by Joshua Bonnetta & JP Sniadecki, about the scorching desert route migrants take to get to the United States.

 

3 July: Virtual Reality and the Myth of Total Cinema

Film lecture on the visual language of artistic virtual reality, by William Uricchio.

Are cinema and virtual reality fundamentally intertwined? Or are we pushing familiar content into emerging technologies, just as theater once pushed its way onto early film screens? Drawing on deep historical precedent together with VR’s fast changing technological horizon, William Uricchio will explore the uses and abuses of cinema with VR.

William Uricchio is Professor of Comparative Media Studies at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and founder and principal investigator of the MIT Open Documentary Lab.

This screening is followed by a screening of Russian Ark (2002, Aleksandr Sokurov).

26 June: Keep an Eye IP // Perspectives on (Artistic) Research in and through Cinema

A two hour event for professionals on the use of artistic research in/through cinema.

With the Master of Film we propose that we as filmmakers invent and explore different approaches to research. Approaches can be playful, inventive, at times unexpected and mostly rooted in practise. We do believe that the methods, insights and outcomes of our research could be relevant for the development of the field of film and for other disciplines.

This event functions as a practical investigation of these statements. It is a moment of exchange: How can artistic research in and through cinema be relevant to the field of cinema and other fields, and vice versa? Could we build bridges between artistic and scientific research?

On the basis of two exemplary projects two panels of film experts, curators and social scientists will discuss specific methods of working and share insights into the exchange between their research and practises. By doing so we aim to uncover similarities and differences in approaches and gain insight into the ways these different fields relate to and nourish one another.

Opening Up The Archive

The first panel focuses on the ways filmmakers and scientists work with archives and create structures or patterns to organise and activate archival footage within different contexts. Filmmakers Bram Loogman and Pablo Nunez Palma, makers of Eye Filmmuseums first Robot Employee www.jan.bot, will engage in conversation with artist and filmmaker Joost Rekveld and Mark-Paul Meyer, senior curator of Eye Filmmuseum. They will discuss their different approaches to opening up the archive and/or using AI and the challenges these approaches bring along.

Performing Work

In the second panel, theater director and filmmaker Agnese Cornelio shares excerpts from her newest film Fondata Sul Lavoro. These excerpts function as a starting point for a joint conversation between Agnese Cornelia with, amongst others, editor Menno Boerema on the role of the performance, the physicality and gesture of re-activating memories of migrant workers and the innovative approach Agnese has to filmmaking.

The moderator of the evening is Eyal Sivan.

19 June: Het leven is niet normaal

How do you address the work of an artist who defies definition? To mark Van Warmerdam’s solo exhibition L’histoire kaputt, writers and poets ponder the multidimensional oeuvre of the filmmaker, theatremaker, writer and painter Alex van Warmerdam. With Maria Barnas and Dirk van Weelden.

This evening, De Gids editors Dirk van Weelden and Maria Barnas invite writers and poets to provide a literary perspective on the work of Alex van Warmerdam. Wherein lies his striking versatility? Poets and writers who identify with Van Warmerdam’s original and maverick attitude will talk about his work.

Dirk van Weelden is a writer and philosopher. In 1987 he and Martin Bril debuted together with Arbeidsvitaminen. Het ABC van Bril & Van Weelden. Van Weelden was awarded the Multatuli Prize for his novel Mobilhome in 1992. Among his other novels are Tegenwoordigheid van geest (1989), Oase (1994) and Looptijd (2003). His most recent novel is Het middel (2007).

Maria Barnas is a poet, writer and visual artist. Her novel Altijd Augustus was published by Van Oorschot in 2017. She writes about art and literature for a number of magazines, including De Groene Amsterdammer, Vrij Nederland and De Gids.

12 June: EYE on Art X Robotanica

Transnatural presents an evening dedicated to nature and robotics. We explore the rise of a natural reality driven by technology on the basis of short films, interviews, performances and project demonstrations. A preview of The Man Machine programme offered by Eye from 18 October to 13 November.

 

Programme EYE on Art X Robotanica:

Plasm
Tez (NL/IT)
A performance by artist Tez on Alan Turing’s research into morphogenesis – spontaneous pattern formation in the natural world. Movements and body sensors are translated into sound by means of artificial intelligence. Plasm immerses us in the ever-evolving environment of living cells, tissue and organs.

Harvest
Hertog Nadler (NL/IL)
The story of a rebellious olive tree causing a riot. Whilst the spontaneous protest grows, the riot police start searching through the landscape seeking to suppress the rebellion. The story is inspired by the aggressive ways in which olive branches are harvested.

Staphyloculus
Theo Triantafyllidis (US/GR)
This Virtual Reality experience attempts to recreate the first known outbreak of Polywobbly Fervenitis. Due to exposure to the desert sun, a VR headset had a chemical reaction that somehow started a computer virus. The computer virus managed to mutate itself into a strain of bacteria and is now known as Staphyloculus – a virus that is spread through the use of Virtual Reality headsets. The phenomenon greatly puzzles the scientific community, which is anxiously looking for a cure.

Mother Earth Network
Elise Marcus (NL)
What if our planet could tell us what it needs? The Mother Earth Network offers a new way to feel empathy for our planet through artificial intelligence. A kit consisting of data collectors that can measure water, air, soil, and plants, allows people from all over the world to upload data into the Mother Earth Network. When we feel more connected with our surroundings, will we be motivated to live in a more sustainable way?

About Transnatural

From 1-15 June Transnatural presents an open-air exhibition in Amsterdam’s Tolhuistuin exploring the introduction of robotics in the natural world. Robotanica focuses on theimminent period of ‘a new natural world’, with a wilderness of technological creatures emerging. In great and small ways, the new complex of technology and ecosystems can have a positive influence on the Anthropocene – the term coined for the present period in which human activity negatively impacts on all earth systems. Are we dealing with a new evolution now that robotics are introduced in the natural world? Are species on the verge of extinction replaced by artificial ones to keep the ecosystem in check?

5 June – Bas Jan Ader, Ger van Elk, Ulay/Abramovic. Film as a visual medium in the early seventies.

Show in Dutch.

Op deze avond staat een groot aantal korte films centraal van Nederlandse kunstenaars die in hun werk experimenteren met dit voor hen nieuwe medium. Er is werk te zien van kunstenaars als Ger van Elk, Jan Dibbets en Bas Jan Ader en films van Jan van Munster, Mari Boeyen, Peter Struycken, Hans de Vries en andere Nederlandse kunstenaars. Inleiding door freelance curator en kunsthistoricus Nathalie Zonnenberg, die gespecialiseerd is in conceptuele tendensen in de jaren zestig en zeventig.

In de vroege jaren zeventig ontdekken veel kunstenaars de mogelijkheden van het medium film voor hun beroepspraktijk. Aansluitend op belangrijke tendensen in de kunst van de jaren zestig wordt het kunstwerk opgevat als een ‘aan de tijd onderhevig werkelijkheidsfragment’. Film is het medium bij uitstek om ‘bewegingen, handelingen en veranderingsprocessen’ in de tijd zichtbaar te maken.

 

22 May: Too Far/Too Close: The Screen as Mediator

Various films from the recent EYE on Art ResearchLabs held in February 2018 dealt with the notion of the screen. Master students from the University of Amsterdam’s MA seminar ‘Curating the Moving Image’ have put together highlights of the recent ResearchLabs, combining them with material from the EYE Collection. An investigation into the relationship between the screen, the human flesh and the environment.

The screen functions as a mediator altering the relation between the human and its surroundings. In the digital age we need to confront certain questions: where does our body end and the screen start? How do the screen and technology limit or extend our human being? How do we deal with present versus absent actors?

When looking at the screen, a laptop or a mobile phone, one might not notice the surroundings anymore. Yet the screen functions as a window to other spaces or the bygone. The word ‘television’ originates from seeing things on a distance. The screen helps us to see the unseen. This is exactly what Michiel van Bakel investigates in his Forest Paths.

With the blank screen of Kees Hin and K. Schippers, we ask ourselves if the screen is merely a neutral surface on which images are projected. Or is it an active agent, framing how we relate to the contemporary world, as Sophie Dixon’s Untitled 2016 shows? How do we frame the world and what do we choose to archive? Rossella’s The Splintering Sun also reflects upon the ruins of time. What remains of our lifetime on earth if we can store our memories on a digital drive?

‘The screen’ is both an extension of the human body as well as its replacement. It blurs the distinction between the here and now and absent people, times and places. This theme becomes apparent in the video Zuidoost-Noordwest by Oded Rimon, a poetic dialogue between a projection and urban Amsterdam, visually bringing neighborhoods together.

 

Please find here the reviews of the Research Labs programs of 17 February 2018 by the Master students from the University of Amsterdam’s MA seminar ‘Curating the Moving Image’:

 

Review St. Joost

Review RUL 1 [1]

Review RUL 1 [2]

Review PZI & UvA

Review PZI & UvA Part 2

Review VJ Rubin

Review Sandberg

 

 

15 May: Cuba & Che: ¡Hasta la revolución siempre!

A Cuban evening starting with a look at Che Guevara, the revolution’s poster boy in 1968. Demonstrators carried his image with them, shouting that they would continue the revolution in his name. Unique footage of Che, who perfectly embodied the wild appeal of insurrection with his longish hair, his baret and his cigar. The programme also features Memories of Underdevelopment, a compelling portrait of the young Cuban intellectual Sergio: how does he relate to Castro’s regime? The film won the Camera d’Or at Cannes. Introduction by Gert Oostindie.

8 May:Earthrise + Planet of the Apes

An evening on the iconic first colour picture of the earth – better known as Earthrise – taken from space during the Apollo 8 mission. The image showed the earth as a vulnerable planet and led to widespread environmental awakening. With an introduction by curator Vanina Saracino and a performance by artist Bjørn Melhus. Followed by Planet of the Apes, a planet where apes rule a world destroyed by humans.

600 million people were made aware that the earth is a vulnerable and isolated planet through seeing the Earthrise image on TV. The image went against the dominant anthropocentric view of our planet and created a new awareness about our life on this planet. The first environmental movements followed not long after.

Earthrise also offered a new perspective on our societies: the political and religious divides on earth were impossible to distinguish ‘from God’s eye’. People were now only a fragile element in an immense and unknown universe. The Cold War and the ensuing Space Race suddenly seemed less significant: “What began in deadly competition has helped us to see that global cooperation is the essential precondition for our survival.” (Carl Sagan).

programme

Bjorn Melhus performance (c. 30′)
The artist Bjørn Melhus is the self-appointed commander of spaceship Earth. Dressed in a space suit, he shows clips from films about space travels and YouTube videos of the international space station.

Planet of the Apes Franklin Schaffner US 1968
The astronauts returning from a long space travel in 2013, Charlton Heston among them, no longer recognize the earth in its present desolate state. Humans turned the earthly paradise into a desert and have paid a high price. The apes are now the ruling class: conservative, aggressive, religious, hierarchical and relentless. Planet of the Apes has uncompromising criticism to deliver on the discrimination of immigrants and reflects the anxiety about the nuclear age. As such our vulnerable planet earth also features in this film.