NIGHT VISION
An evening on… illuminating darkness
Thursday 18 March 2010, 20:00. Vooruit, Gent.
Program produced by Courtisane as part of the Courtisane Festival 2010 (Gent, 17 – 21 March 2010)
The night is not a black mass that blinds our sight. It’s not a substance, but an event, pure depth that surrounds and swallows us, infiltrating us through our senses. In the dark hours when we must sharpen our eyes and ears, when night comes to life, nothing seems what it is. This programme presents a series of performances, films and an installation which attempt to capture this event in all its obscurity, somewhere between light and darkness, visible and invisible, seeing the night and seeing in the night.
INSTALLATION
Disinformation
The Origin of Painting. 2000, optokinetic / autodestructive, luminous graffiti, shadow & electromagnetic sound installation. Starting from 19:00 ! (installation photo © Duncan Shephard 2003)
The Disinformation project goes back to 1995, when it was still a vehicle for their experiments with electromagnetic and radio phonic sounds. In the meantime, their research into electronic, sonic and optokinetic phenomena has found itself a place in the contemporary art world. The Origin of Painting is a key work in Disinformation’s oeuvre, a literally impressive sound and light installation which allows visitors to make an impression of their silhouette. This work not only refers to the myths associated to the creation of painting, but also to the atomic shadows on the walls of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. “A dark writing was born. A secret writing, written in the dark, with darkness itself. In the atomic night and on the human surface, a dark, corporeal surface appeared.” (Akira Mizuta Lippit)
PERFORMANCE
Phantom Limb & Earth’s Hypnagogia
In Celebration of Knowing all the Blues of the Evening. slide projections, Hammond B3 organs, turntables
Behind this tongue-twister of a name are Jaime Fennelly and Shawn Hansen, a duo of multi-instrumentalists whose many projects (among which Phantom Limb and Peeesseye) explore the borders of drone, noise and improvisation. With their joint project In Celebration of Knowing all the Blues of the Evening, they examine, both with sound and image, the ephemeral dynamics of twilight, the moments between light and dark, “entre Chien et Loup”. For their performance at Courtisane they’ll use two Hammond organs and a series of images made in collaboration with visual artist Nate Miner.
SCREENING
Jeanne Liotta
Observando El Cielo. 2007, 16mm, colour, sound, 19’
According to Paul Virilio, “it is no longer only the night sky that is threatened but indeed the night itself, the great night of interstellar space; that other unknown quantity that, nonetheless, constitutes our only window on the cosmos.” What is left to us of the nightly celestial roof after years of light contamination is made clear in this film, the result of seven years of field recordings. The soundtrack, a composition of VLF (Very Low Frequency) radio recordings, is the work of Peggy Ahwesh.
SCREENING
Deborah Stratman
In Order Not To Be Here. 2002, 16mm, colour, sound, 33’
A nocturnal study of the suburban and corporate landscapes of the Unites States, revealing how much the collective trust in surveillance and security determines our living environments. An everyday horror film, which mercilessly addresses the feelings of moral failure, spiritual emptiness and isolation-based paranoia which are proper to our post-industrial consumption society. The night has become the perpetual twilight; it no longer reflects the fear of the unknown, but of ourselves.
PERFORMANCE
Pieter Geenen
nightscape (3). 2005, binaural sound, 15’10”
The work of Pieter Geenen focuses on uncanny landscapes that without calling for analysis, emotion or transparence, slowly find their place in the imagination of the viewer. The attention is sharpened, the experience slows down. In nightscape, a series of nocturnal soundscapes, we become – devoid of the usual visual intellectual framework – completely dependent on our hearing. “It is no coincidence that the night seems to be the favorite time of this anti-reporter: in the dark hours, when we have to focus eyes and ears, nothing seems what it is. ‘Believe that anything is real you can imagine’”. (Herman Asselberghs)
PERFORMANCE
Paul Clipson + William Fowler Collins
Lightmaze. Super-8 projections, guitar
The ravishing super 8 films of Paul Clipson are lyrical explorations of light and movement. His images, mostly edited in-camera, reveal the energy and sensuality of the everyday that we often fail to see. At the invitation of the Courtisane festival, he has assembled a selection of night shots which will be accompanied live by William Fowler Collins and his pitch black guitar drones. His recent mind-blowing album Perdition Hill Radio was released by the renowned Type label.