THE FREEDOM TO CONTROL – pebbles underground at visualcontainer[.box]

“How long can a moment last?

There is a constant push and pull in our lives between the conditioning to keep moving and our body’s desire to rest. The elasticity of the moment attempts to maintain this tension and extends and expands the length of a moment.

A moment can be long or short depending on our perception of it. This film is an attempt to slow down through heightening the viewer's senses.

Shot in real time, the slow movement tires the performer out as she resolves to fall asleep and just rest. Simply shot on the iPhone and breaking the boundaries of film, dance and sound, this film challenges the ways of filmmaking and invites thought.”

Bio

Navya Sah works in the realms of filmmaking, performance, sound and writing. Her work studies emotional responses by creating conflicting art on the politics of power and love. Her film work as sync sound recordist has travelled all over the world including festivals like the Berlinale, Big Sky Dock Fest, Sheffield Doc Fest 2022, London Indian Film Festival and IFFK, Kerala.

www.navyasah.com  

@lightlysessions

The feelings of both loss and desire are among the first and strongest emotions we experience as human beings. Desire is what keeps us alive, propagates us, but also destroys us. 'Hungry Ghost' is a poetic journey into the hazy netherworld of human craving, visualised through looping zoetrope animations.

Bios

Guido Devadder is a visual artist based in Leuven, Belgium, working mostly with graphic narrative and experimental animation — published, screened and exhibited internationally. His work explores the shady side of human nature and how we deal with it, often through a combination of abandoned or forgotten technology and new media.

He lectures at the Audiovisual Arts department of LUCA School of Arts in Brussels and is currently working on a PhD in the Arts.

Kaitlin McSweeney is a multi-media visual and sound artist based in the San Francisco Bay Area.  Her current work consists of recording textural samples and vocal tracks in found resonant spaces, which she then pieces together into compositions.

Directors: Guido Devadder, Kaitlin McSweeney

Music: Kaitlin McSweeney

https://vimeo.com/guidodevadder 

A music video I made for an experimental song of mine, "I Bhfad as Amharc (Out of Sight) (Outro)", from my EP "Seanchroí (Old Heart)", in which I'm exploring the topic of communication (or lack thereof), and the difficulties of trying to move away from the events, things or persons that are causing us distress. Do our efforts to move away from them mentally/emotionally and physically only result in them getting closer and closer to us?”

Bio

As a translator, writer, musician/singer and visual artist, my interests are at the intersection of music, visual art, interactive storytelling and language. I am mainly interested in using an interdisciplinary/multimedia approach to create experiences through which I am hoping to inspire others to look at reality in a different way, and notice its hidden aspects they may have overlooked before due to the mechanized everyday life.

I have always felt the need to combine different media to properly express, or rather uncover, imaginary/unseen worlds within myself and around me. The reason for this could be my eclectic educational background and interests: I have BA degrees in Nordic languages and literature and Computer Multimedia, I am working as a translator, I have learned/practiced creative writing, I am singing, writing and creating visual art and music.

https://www.kemmersound.com/  

https://www.facebook.com/kemmmer 

https://kemmmer.bandcamp.com/ 

https://soundcloud.com/kemmmer/sets/seanchroi 

A collapse of multiple lifetimes into pieces of amnesia; us, experiencing itself in dreams of life and death. A direct expression of the slow vibration as it currently is; you, a brief movement in the vestiges of nothingness.

Directors’ Statement

The film was conceived with the question, "Would you believe that a photo of the back of your head to be your very own back of the head?". With this, we explored that perceptional void, the something that exists that is far beyond common perception, the obvious that goes unnoticed.

If there's anything notable about the production, it is that it was done entirely over Zoom calls.

Bios

Kuda Bux (b. 1991) has been running around the streets of Cebu doing what he thinks is an approximation of what high-art is. Over the years he has been running near-zero budget productions with Aprum-Oves and Corner House Productions creating scrap videos and junk stories.

Eric Bico (b. 1995) is an artist who explores photography. His varied interests—from overlooked elbows and ears to everyday struggles in the urban metro—surface in his photographs, mostly in series. Beyond traditional publishing and gallery exhibitions, his photographic works are also at play with self-publishing and online collaborations. He has self-published zines through Munzinelupa and Zine Orgy.

Directors, Writers, Cast: Kuda Bux, Eric Bico
https://cornerhouseproductions.myportfolio.com/ 

Manufactured Democracy revolves around crimes against humanity and the aftermath of Iraq War atrocities. Huner collected the names of Iraqi individuals who lost their lives in the civil wars and wrote them in the shape of fingerprints to evoke a crime scene. Fingerprints are references to Iraqi elections where voters dip their index finger in purple Ink after voting: a process which was known as Purple Fingers Elections.

The ‘Purple Fingers’ are a metaphorical spotlight, a testimony, and the evidence of a crime, where the perpetrator left behind fingerprints. It is manufactured delinquency against humanity, and innocent Iraqis, committed by the superb Uncle Sam. It is proof of human greed and inanely cruel nature. The massive fingerprints consist of the microscopic names of civilians who lost their lives since 2003 because of the international war in Iraq. The lines represent insignificant mass and the loopholes of remorselessness of the politicians. The names are collected by a non-profit organization called Iraqi Body Count. The names in the IBC organization list are in the English alphabet, and Huner transferred them back to Arabic as a form of repatriation. Manufactured Democracy is an example of a human’s savage attitude that has never learned from history lessons and only became more pronounced as knowledge and science advances. It is an expression of frustration and pain when the collective human conscience has been murdered by a handful of selfish malevolent cancer cells. 

Bio

Huner Emin is a stateless multimedia Kurdish artist. He grew up in south Kurdistan/northern Iraq and is now based in Bloomington, Indiana. After leaving Iraq in 2013, Huner has never returned due to political and social issues. His work since has continued to comment on his lived experiences and broader concerns in the Middle East, including honor killing traditions in the art project Blood Washing in 2017; the Baath regime’s 1987-1989 genocide campaign against Kurdish communities called 180,000 Seconds made in 2016; and crimes against humanities and aftermath of Iraq War atrocities in his art project Manufactured Democracy 2021-2024.

Performing/editing/ directing - Huner Emin
Camera and filming - Ayesha Cheema
Language Editing - Micheal Semyan
Names resources: Iraqi Body Count (IBC) non-profit 

https://www.huneremin.com/manufactured-democracy.html

There is no water in the river.

2022 the year of the drought. Italian alps, kilometers of river without water. I decided to walk inside the empty bedriver and wave a blue flag. The result of this performance is a video and a series of 35 photos.

www.pietrogardoni.com 

@pietrogardoni

-In other places and in another way

Nomadism, temporal connection and new feminine longings. Of this alternative "world" that seems to open up when dancing: It is about its temporary nature. The "other place".

This "world" that is known to be temporary, in which relationships with others seem to become more intense and important precisely because of its temporary nature. An instantaneous and ephemeral community: It is there and it is then. That's it.

Bio

Caraqueña & nomad by nature, Maria has lived and worked in 9 cities in the last 20 years. Artist & organizer she merges creative expression, critical thought and self ♫ proposing participatory, collaborative/experimental experiences that incorporate performance video/sound. Currently based in Caracas Venezuela.

Director, Sound design: Maria Bilbao·Herrera
Sound creation source: ritual music of African women, and indigenous women
Visuals: Found footage

www.mariabilbaoherrera.com

@mariabilbaoherrera   

PHANTOM REQUIEM unfolds in the desolate expanse of an abandoned factory, where shadows and silence are the only remnants of a once-thrumming industrial heartbeat. In this spectral setting, a coterie of puppets emerges—ethereal figures, each step and gesture echoing the dissonant unraveling of a viewer ensnared in a psychotic fugue. Rendered in austere black-and-white, this stop-motion film marries the macabre grace of desolation with the intimate terror of mental dissolution, crafting a visual poem that is both stark and sublime.

Bio

Zazie Productions, Asheville's clandestine autistic polymath, seamlessly shifts between roles as a multi-instrumentalist, avant-garde composer, sound artist, graphic designer, and off-kilter short filmmaker. Zazie's singular vision is evident in every facet of his creative output, as he personally conceives and executes all elements of his projects. From direction to cinematography, production, animation, editing, sound design, and composition, each component is infused with his distinctive touch. His films venture into the uncanny valley, transforming the mundane into the grotesquely surreal and are designed to be experienced as much as viewed, extending beyond conventional sensory perception. He is a hymn to the discordant beauty that resides on the fringes of the contemporary artistic landscape.

Director, artist, producer: Zazie Kanwar-Torge (A.K.A Zazie Productions)

https://linktr.ee/zazieproductions

https://zazieproductions.bandcamp.com 

Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/episode/1fvq4kF8w6ew8IllOLf5yn?si=n4ZA1PN5R2mF-1pzZADjsg

A ketamine-Western in the style of Godard and Malick’s early work.

Director Statement

This is a much more comedic and absurd piece in comparison to my other AI work; with “Sheriffs Station” I wanted to use the lowest-common-denominator tools at my disposal, with a loopy and bizarre script which constitutes a lot of drafts and bits from previous work that had never fit in for one reason or another. I am very happy with how “Sheriffs Station” came out, especially throughout the edit, and I hope you all enjoy!

http://www.dogma25.com 

@jcbstwsk

It’s a self-examined process to assess your present time. In the regular bass sound surround space, you could find a few teenagers having a crazy house party, and there’s a girl awake but exhausted from being there. There’s a slight smog or light gently but regularly moving in the space. The smog represents a spirit inside a space. It could be you or others. It’s like you are just in a conference or a party and suddenly there’s something that pulls your spirit away from your body. It makes you look at yourself in a different angle, but you’re still in the group. What would you do and what’s the connection between you and others?

If the smog was another you – a same existence from another world to look at your body in this group full of chaos and desire. However, there’s nothing you can change as a member in this group. All you can do is silently look down at your body, and move away quietly.

If the smog wasn’t you, it was an outsider of this whole group of people. You are paralyzed to make any specific change in the group although your body is still in there. What you should do and what would you do? You are just there and silently away from all these scenes made by human beings.

There’s certainly no right or wrong answer. This just points out the way you look at yourself. It’s a discussion about the existence of yourself. What makes you becomes the present existence, and what track you would leave in your life.

Bio

Tseng Yu Chin is a video art-based artist, all his artworks, from the use of media to the form of presentation, are based around the thinking of video art, all of which can be discussed in relation to the proposition of moving image itself. Express the political embarrassment of the body's presence but the absence of the spirit.  This is what often fascinates him and keeps searching for it, a photograph, a text, an image, a sound, an illustration, an installation, all of which he can't stop gazing at and making. 

https://tsengyuchin.com/  

@howl__konig

“Silence IV” (Լռության կաթիլային) is a short video poem, shot entirely on cellphone. The video was created in April 2023, during the nine-month blockade of Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh). Between the alarming and scary news coming from home, and the calm reality of every-day life abroad, I was trying to make sense of my two realities through art. Playing with lights on interior surfaces I’m working through the conflicts between my immediate surroundings and split identity. In September 2023, Azerbaijan launched another full-scale military attack on the civil population of Artsakh, leading to the ethnic cleansing of Armenians from their ancestral lands.

Bio

Anna Grigorian is an experimental artist from Armenia, whose art practice is currently based between Canada and Armenia. With a background in sculpture, literature, and photography, her current chosen medium is moving image.

Director, concept, sound, editing: Anna Grigorian

https://annagrigorian.art 

Vimeo

This film is a contemplation of life through the prism of war. It is a premonition of global world changes... and a hope for the prudence of humanity.

Human beings live in a world of memories, fears and passions, dreams and hopes. In our memories, we increasingly want to return to the world of childhood - summer, where joy and light reign, as opposed to cruel reality, loneliness and existentialism. But it is becoming more and more difficult to get into this world, to dissolve at least mentally in the sun's glare.

This film is about man in nature and nature in man, about cyclicality, the beginning and the end - the path to eternity. Autumn is heading towards winter, and we are so eager for light.

Director Statement

To destroy a nation, you need to destroy its culture.

This film is about horrors and hopes, anxieties and expectations, delusions and dreams. The film features a poem about nature (about an autumn forest), which is particularly relevant to our current state of affairs. The author of the poem is Vasyl Stus, one of the most prominent Ukrainian poets of the 20th century. Vasyl Stus was imprisoned in the Kolyma camps for his views and his defence of Ukrainian art and freedom. He was and is the voice and conscience of the Ukrainian people.

In 1965, at the premiere of Serhiy Parajanov's film Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors, Stus was among those who protested against the arrests of Ukrainian intellectuals. He was expelled from his postgraduate studies and was unable to publish two collections of poetry (the second was self-published and published in London). In 1972, Stus was arrested and sentenced to five years in camps and three years in exile. From the Magadan region, he appealed to the Supreme Soviet of the USSR to renounce his citizenship ("To be a Soviet citizen is to be a slave"). He was refused, which is not surprising, but, oddly enough, he was allowed to return to Kyiv, only to be arrested again a few months later as a member of the Helsinki Human Rights Group, i.e. a repeat offender.

In 1985, he was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature and in the same year he was killed in his cell – the prize is not awarded to the dead.

We wanted to make a film with the hope that this war would end soon and that people would see the light, as if after a big rain. So that the voice of our people (the poet) could be heard again and others could hear it.

Bio

Oleksandr Stupak works in the field of monumental and easel painting, graphics and sculpture, and audiovisual art.

Born on February 13, 1984 in Kyiv, Ukraine.

Director, producer: Oleksandr Stupak
Cast: Solomiya Kyrylova
Music: Terry Riley. License: Wise Music Group

Review: Stoos Center

Trailer

@solomiyakyrylova