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Kutlug Ataman - Flying Circus Project 2009/10 Platform 02

Curated by Ong Keng Sen

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Screening, Talk

Wednesday, 18 & Thursday, 19 November 2009, 8pm

Free admission 

 

Fresh from the London Film Festival (Oct 2009) at the British Film Institute, Kutlug Ataman's recent film Journey to the Moon (79mins, with English subtitles) will be screened at 72-13. 

 

Often funny and evocative, this film, of 4 villagers' quest to travel to the moon, has been shown in the Moscow Film Festival 2009 and under the Official Selection 2009 International Istanbul Film Festival. It was originally part of the Mesopotamian Dramaturgies series of visual works, a major solo exhibition at Linz09, European Cultural Capital this year. 

 

Journey to the Moon explores an urban myth that in 1957 a group of villagers from Turkey's remote Black Sea coast were conned by a local politician into believing he would build a spaceship factory in cooperation with the US, in return for their votes. At that time, Turkish villages were actively encouraged to modernise. Ataman's film examines the idea that these naive villagers were the victims of American-style westernisation in Turkey in the late 50s and perhaps amongst the first unsuspecting victims of the early stages of globalisation. 

 

Artist Talk 

 

As a filmmaker and a contemporary artist, Kutlug Ataman will present a special talk on his previous works. His works, examining the ways in which people create and rewrite their identities through self-expression, blurring the line between reality and fiction, will be shared amongst audiences. 

 

Audiences will be able to experience and understand Ataman's work philosophy that circles around strong characterisation and humanity. 

 

A nominee for the prestigious Turner Prize in London during 2004 and winner of Carnegie Award in the US in the same year, Ataman will occupy audiences with his thoughts, ideas, experiences and philosophies. 

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Click here for the full biography of Kutlag Ataman.

 

Main funding from The Ford Foundation, Asian Cultural Council with special funds from The Rockefeller Foundation. With support from National Arts Council, The French Embassy, Lee Foundation, Arts Fund and Goethe-institut Singapore. With additional support from Double Six Press Pte Ltd, Perfectus AV Pte Ltd and Webvisions. Official Hotel: Copthorne King's Hotel Singapore.

Kutlug

Boris Charmatz / Musée de la Danse (Donna Miranda / Francois Chaignaud / Heman Chong / Joavien Ng / Mette Ingvartsen / Ong Keng Sen / Padmini Chettur / Torrance Goh-FARMWORK / Yves-Noel Genod) - Flying Circus Project 2009/10 Platform 01: expo zéro

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Exhibition 

Saturday, 7 – Sunday, 8 November 2009

1pm – 6pm

Free admission

 

The search for the “centre”.  For a dancer, this word resounds first physically.  Not so long ago, the dancer, when he was training, was systematically told to "find his centre".  But today, it is generally acknowledged that the body has no centre, and he doesn't miss it.  The body of modern times has no need for a centre, because that absent centre, the core which would enable one to feel reassured, isn't there, has ceased to be there.  For in the void of a body expropriated of all centre, there is room or dance.

- Boris Charmatz, choreographer and dancer

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The first-ever dancing museum in Singapore hosted by the Flying Circus Project, expo zéro is a unique exhibition without objects conceived by acclaimed French choreographer, Boris Charmatz and Musée de la Danse.

 

An "exhibition" project with no photographs, no sculptures, no installations, no videos. Zero things, not one stable object. But artists, and areas occupied by gestures, projects, bodies, stories, dances which everyone will choose to imagine.

 

In the process spirit of the Flying Circus Project conceived and curated by Ong Keng Sen, expo zéro is a kind of think tank through analysis, description, performance, movements and ideas which each guide-artist will develop with the audience. This comes at a timely occasion as Singapore has no dancehouse (tanzhaus, dansens hus, centre chorégraphique national), a question which TheatreWorks 72-13 is presently pondering about.

 

expo zéro is headed by Boris Charmatz in collaboration with dancers- choreographers, Francois Chaignuad, Mette Ingvartsen and actor-director Yves-Noel Genod. In Singapore, it collaborates with Asian artists, architects, theorists of Flying Circus Project 2010 like Padmini Chettur, Heman Chong, Torrance Goh-FARMWORK, Donna Miranda, Joavien Ng and Ong Keng Sen. 

 

Visitors will experience these individuals' visions, subjective and utopian, of what a dancing museum can be. 

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What would be your museum of dance?
How would you use it?
Which pieces should it receive, host?
How would it function?
What dance / performances would you do in this museum?

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In his application to become its director, Boris Charmatz proposed a change of name from Centre Chorégraphique National Rennes to Musée de la danse / dancing museum.  His aim is the wish to receive and reflect dance in a different way, being aware of the antagonism to place an ephemeral art form into a permanent showroom/exhibition space, and that the body and its radius is the ultimate “museum space”. The most important part of the museum stays the body and its memory of movements.

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Click here for the manifesto of Boris Charmatz.

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Click here to learn more about the artists.

 

Main funding from The Ford Foundation, Asian Cultural Council with special funds from The Rockefeller Foundation. With support from National Arts Council, The French Embassy, Lee Foundation, Arts Fund and Goethe-institut Singapore. With additional support from Double Six Press Pte Ltd, Perfectus AV Pte Ltd and Webvisions. Official Hotel: Copthorne King's Hotel Singapore

Bori
Rudi

Rudi Skotheim Jensen - Goldfish Is Meant For Dying

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Residency

September 2009

Free admission

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With support from 72-13.

Jonathan Seow / Woods & Woods - Resuscitation

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Residency

Thursday, 2 – Wednesday, 8 July 2009

 

Jonathan Seow, Creator-in-chief of fashion label, Woods & Woods, is one of 72-13's Creatives-in-Residence for 2008/2009. 72-13 will present Jonathan's RESUSCITATION from 2nd to 8th July 2009. Our collaboration with Woods & Woods / Jonathan Seow clearly embraces 72-13's philosophy of the arts engaging with the creative industries to generate new ideas and new creative strategies. The CIR is an organic interface between art and the creative industries. 

 

An anti-thesis to the homogeneity of fashion. 

 

Jonathan Seow wants to bring forth the meaning of fashion and its relevance to visual arts, design, and music. He wishes to rediscover and in the process redefine the state of art and fashion in Singapore today. 

 

Through a series of art installations that take the form of photography; live presentations; sounds; and clothing objects nonetheless, Jonathan puts together RESUSCITATION — an art / fashion exhibition brought forth by 4-representations. It points out pertinent social issues that art and fashion stand for and speaks also of the spillage over into other art forms such as music, photography and video works: eventually questioning new standards and interpretations of what is contemporary fashion. 

 

It can be said that the exhibition serves as a rhetorical rebute, a social enquiry, a state of being, a call to action and a piece de resistance that attempts to make sense of our multi-disciplinary universe — in turn working, collaborating and participating with like-minded creatives and newer talents uncovered from the woodwork.

 

As part of the process, emerging fashion design talents are invited via a submission call to contribute their individual artistic interpretations of a fashion brief in addition to the criteria of introducing used-clothing in their creations. RESUSCITATION will select six emerging designers to continue with the process, whereby their designs will be created and showcased during the 7-day art/fashion exhibition at 72-13. 

 

RESUSCITATION is made possible by 72-13 Creative-in-Residence: JONATHAN SEOW 1 WOODS & WOODS, artistic coordinator TERRY ONG, art-direction & photography by MARK LIM and IVANHO HARLIM, art-direction & graphic design by 2MANYDESlGNERS and creative-direction & shop design by WORK. 

 

Project Collaborators: Theseus Chan (WORK), Mark Lim, Lizzy Oppenheimer, Ivanho Harlim, Terry Ong, Jasper Chia (FULJR) Teo Ying Hui, Anastasia Hoeng, Melvyn Lim (2Manydesigners), Hywel Davies, Holly Pereira, Liu Xuan, Sunny Lim, Yun Ting, Lisa Teng, Shanna Goh, Mae Pang, Charlotte Wang and Basheer Graphic Books. 

 

Partners: TheatreWorks 72-13, Design Singapore Council, Asia Pacific Breweries Singapore (Tiger), Bacardi Martini (Bombay Sapphire), Doc. Martens, Basheer Graphic Books, Toni & Guy, Division Communications, MAC.

 

Programme

 

Thursday, 2 July 2009 

RESUSCITATION opening reception for press & media + public 

  • "The Shop" Installation 

  • "look back away from the glare" Exhibition

 

Friday, 3 – Wednesday, 8 July 2009 

Exhibition opens daily for press & public members 

  • "The Shop" Installation 

  • "look back away from the glare" Exhibition

 

 

Tuesday, 7 July 2009 

  • A workshop conducted for all participating designers that include both selected & non-selected candidates, & all are welcome to come round for a final de-brief & discuss about the selected works that were presented. 

  • The Showroom; the show location at SPACE 2 will be reconfigured into a showroom presenting Woods & Woods A/W 09-10 collection, where the press are invited to take photos of the collection, reminiscing an old-world couture, where garments are represented in an intimate environment (by invitation only). 

 

Wednesday, 8 July 2009 

~ The Showroom; presenting Woods & Woods A/W 09-10 collection at SPACE 2 

~ The Show Representation; presenting Woods & Woods A/W 09-10 collection (by invitation only)

Ho Tzu Nyen - HERE

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Residency

Saturday, 20 June 2009, 3pm 

 

Come hear Ho Tzu Nyen speak on the making of HERE focusing on how his work in theatre influenced and aided his film-making process in HERE. Tzu Nyen will also show clips from the film before its premiere in Singapore on 25th June at the Picturehouse, The Cathay. 

 

As one of the Creatives-in-Residence (CIR) at TheatreWorks, Ho Tzu Nyen developed HERE during the CIR programme. TheatreWorks is also the Associate Producer of HERE.

 

One of the most buzzed-about names in contemporary art in 

Singapore, Ho Tzu Nyen has piqued, entertained and infuriated his viewers since '03 with his installations, videos, performance lectures and grand opuses of anti-theatre (e.g. "Utama: Every Name in History is I" (various incarnations); "The King Lear Project" (various incarnations); "The Bohemian Rhapsody Project"; "The House of Memory"; "4 X 4: Episodes in Singapore Art".) 

 

Born of four production companies (Ho's Tzulogical Films, Borgia's Akanga Film Asia, Oak 3 and M'GO Films), the film also involves sound artist George Chua and sound designer and mixer Charles Lee. It is largely financed by the Singapore-based Canadian company gsmprjctºmédia and stars Singapore's most visibly invisible actor (and visual artist) John Low. 

 

HERE with Ho Tzu Nyen by Ng Yi-Sheng 

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1. Tell us about HERE. What's it about? 

HERE, as its title suggests, is really about what it means to be "here". The characters being "here" on screen, captured by a camera and forever alienated from the "live" spectators. But the film is also about the spectators being "here" in the cinema — their eyes open to the constant flux of images unfolding on the screen, and the whole of their bodies a giant ear for sound vibrations. HERE is also a love story, and a story about the idea of "Amor Fati". It is also a film about self-consciousness in its endemic form as self-awareness, but also self-consciousness in an atrophied state — paranoia. 

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There's a saying in the film business that if you can't sum up your film in a key punch line — you've got a problem. I'm happy to say that we seem to have this problem. 

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2. Why did you, a visual artist, suddenly decide to create your first feature film? 

Next to music. the cinema has always been my greatest love. I think I have wanted to make a film for a long time — but with HERE, all the correct conditions were in place — people, money, ideas... 

 

3. What are the ideas, inspirations and influences behind HERE? Does it embody any specific theory or philosophy? 

HERE is a coagulation of my interests over the last ten years — so it does not embody a specific theory. I am not sure that listing out my references here is interesting for anyone — but anyway here goes. 
 

One of my main interests over the last few years has been the phenomenon of self- consciousness as a "movie-in-the-brain". As the neurologist Antonio Damasio said, the fascinating thing about self-consciousness is how the brain also generates the sense that there is an owner and observer for that movie. 

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Another key idea in the film is that of repetition (and differentiation). In HERE, this is tied to Friedrich Nietzsche's idea of "Amor Fati" or love of fate — in which the test of an affirmative life is that of someone who is willing to live his life over and over again, without making a single change. 

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I should add that for me, the process of embodying a philosophical idea or theory into a work of art is justifiable only if it is open to mutation and distortion. To embody an idea is to give it mass, weight, clumsiness, awkwardness — to transform a concept into a sensation or an effect. Such a notion of embodiment is also what I am really interested in. 

 

Other than that, HERE can also be understood as a recollection of fragments of my favourite films, paintings and music that have haunted me for a long time. I believe this practice introduces a different kind of duration into the film — the virtual time of remembering, which I think has to be related to my interests in a certain line of French philosophy stretching from Henri Bergson to Gilles Deleuze.

 

Last but not least, HERE is also a love story. 

 

4. Could you tell us more about your cinematic inspirations? 

In cinematic terms, I see HERE to be the result of my longtime fascination in what I hold as the two valid extremes of filmmaking, the first represented by the late works of Andrei Tarkovsky and the second by the late works of Jean-Luc Godard. I believe Tarkovsky's later films to be the perfection of an organic line of filmic possibilities, in which the durational experience of cinema has been sculpted into a kind of continuous and seamless unfolding. Godard on the other hand, represents all the possibilities of cinematic modernism — in which rhythm has become disjunctive. and the image is opened up on all sides, allowing it to engage in an instantaneous and critical dialogue with the world at large. But I should also add that the early films of Alain Resnais and Jacques Rivette were important to me in making this film, as were some of Alexander Sokurov's films. 

 

 

Finally, I believe that every film should be about "film-at-large" — or the history and future possibilities of film. In this way, HERE is inspired by what is inherently fascinating about the filmic process — how a spectator makes sense of images as well as the combinational process of attaching sounds to images. I think that because of the inherent "humanistic" bias of vision over sound. film sound has not really been stretched as much as techniques in film images have been advanced. I would say that HERE is an attempt to translate some of my experiences with how sound is mixed in the "live" performances of progressive bands such as OM and My Bloody Valentine, into film. I should add that for me, the process of embodying a philosophical idea or theory into a work of art is justifiable only if it is open to mutation and distortion. To embody an idea is to give it mass, weight, clumsiness, awkwardness — to transform a concept into a sensation or an effect. Such a notion of embodiment is also what I am really interested in. 

 

5. How did your CIR with 72-13 help in the creation of this project? 

I believe that it is a testament to the foresight of the folks at 72-13 that they contributed funding support to HERE while staying clear of its production process. I am saying this because a film, by its economical infrastructure is subject to a host of complexities foreign to either the practice of the visual arts or theatre. The less interference we have from funding bodies, the more freedom we have in executing the project. I think that 72-13 was able to see that it was in the best interest of HERE to render help to us from a distance, and I am highly appreciative of that. 

 

6. Would you like to make a comment on the state of visual arts and/or film in Singapore at the moment? 

I think we are barely beginning. And the thing that we all need to do — is to recognise this as a fact. In general, I feel that our level of visual and audio culture is still quite primitive. As such, films are composed without taking into account the revolutions in visual thinking achieved through painting in the last few hundred years. Likewise, sound is deployed in the cinema in a manner that is deaf to developments in progressive music over the last one hundred years. 

 

7. What projects do you envision for the future? 

The next major "visual arts" project that I am involved in is an adaptation of Friedrich Nietzsche's Thus Spoke Zarathustra. I am also working on a second feature film, called Endless Day. 

Andy Lim / Choy Ka Fai / contact Gonzo (Yuya Tsukahara, Keigo Mikajiri, Itaru Kato) / Li Xie / Mohd Fared Jainal / Patricia Toh / Robin Loon / Zulkifle Mahmod - RPM

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Performance

Saturday, 23 – Monday, 25 April 2009

8pm / 3pm matinee on Monday, 25 April 2009 

Advisory: Some Mature Content (For 16 years and above) 

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"Does your life really flash before your eyes before you expire? 

What will you see? 

Will you like what you see?" 

 

One accident; Two parties; Three versions. 

 

RPM is a dramatic musing on collision: what happens when lives, bodies and memories plough into one another. One high-speed motorcycle totals itself, taking an unsuspecting pedestrian with it while an incredulous passer-by witnesses the whole event. 

 

RPM, a performance-sound installation, will see Choy Ka Fai collaborating with contemporary dance collective, contact Gonzo from Osaka, Japan! 

 

RPM distends this point of impact into a series of tectonic vignettes; making this an intensely warped encounter with the uncontrollable conditions of velocity.

  

RPM is conceived and directed by Choy Ka Fai, who also contributed multimedia design, performed by contact Gonzo (Yuya Tsukahara, Keigo Mikajiri, Itaru Kato), Li Xie, and Patricia Toh, with lighting design by Andy Lim, text and dramaturgy by Robin Loon, set design by Mohd Fared Jainal and sound installation by Zulkifle Mahmod.

 

With support from National Arts Council, Arts Fund, Design Singapore, Hong Leong Foundation, Lee Foundation, Double Six Press Pte Ltd, Webvisions, POWER 98FM.

jon Seow
HoTzu Nyen - HERE
RPM
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