Partners
-
Centrul Național al Cinematografiei
-
Goethe-Institut
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
- You are here: Home > A DEMONSTRATION
You are here
Online -
Friday, November 27, 2020 - 21:00
Cinematography:
Beny Wagner, Sasha Litvintseva
Editing:
Beny Wagner, Sasha Litvintseva
Sound:
Beny Wagner, Sasha Litvintseva
Music:
Beny Wagner, Andrew Bernstein, Eliane Radigue, Suzanne Ciani
Producer:
Daan Milius, Hans van Hezik, Guillaume Cailleau
Production:
Video Power, CaSk Films
A DEMONSTRATION lyrically unravels a fascinating moment in early modern European science, in which naturalists hastened a project that extends to the present day – that of cataloging the natural world. The taxonomies of people, plants, animals, rocks were born, and everything that couldn’t find its place in these scientific Procrustes’ beds fell under the umbrella of monsters. LITVINTSEVA and WAGNER are looking for visual remains of these taxonomies in performance halls, museums, libraries, but also in nature, a world full of small details from which the narratives and forms of monsters were built. We are challenged to resurrect ways of looking and thinking that are far away from us now, but that we can still access. (Călin Boto, BIEFF 2020)
Director:
SASHA LITVINTSEVA (Murmansk, Russia, 1989) is an artist, filmmaker, writer, and researcher, whose work is situated on the uncertain thresholds of the perceptible and the communicable, organism and environment, entropy and quantification. Her work has been exhibited worldwide. Sasha is a lecturer in Film Theory and Practice at Queen Mary University of London and holds a Ph.D. in Media, Communications and Cultural Studies from Goldsmiths.
BENY WAGNER (Berlin, Germany, 1985) is an artist, filmmaker, and writer. Working in moving image, text, installation, and lectures, he constructs non-linear narratives that investigate the ever-shifting boundaries of the human body. He has presented his work in festivals, exhibitions, and conferences internationally. He is currently a senior lecturer at Gerrit Rietveld Academy, Amsterdam.
Contact:
Claudia Sánchez Jiménez
Festivals, awards:
Berlinale Shorts 2020/ Moscow Experimental Film Festival 2020/ Vancouver 2020/ Vilnius 2020
“Creating a taxonomy and classifying the world has been the big project of modern Western science, and it still informs current modes of knowledge today. SASHA LITVINTSEVA and BENY WAGNER explore this paradigm and navigate the closed, highly structured and almost claustrophobic spaces of anatomical theatres, archives, libraries and natural science museums, all of them designed to produce, harbour and disseminate scientific knowledge. Their elaborate images of these places of wisdom and scientific progress are alternated with and dissolve into images of seemingly impenetrable forests, gardens with sculptures of mystical monsters, animals and majestic clouds to create a visual and conceptual dialectic between culture and nature. The whole is accompanied by a selected musical soundtrack that urges the viewer to keep their eyes and mind open.” (Maria Morata, Berlinale Shorts blog)