Séances: Guest lecture

Sunday, 6 November 2011

Guest lecture Ivo Blom

On Wednesday Ivo Blom will talk about the Filmliga's séance practices (at the VU). There is no required preparatory reading, but a relevant text is Tom Gunning, "Ontmoetingen in verduisterde ruimten. De alternatieve programmering van de Nederlandsche Filmliga," in: Céline Linssen, Hans Schoots, Tom Gunning, Het gaat om de film! Een nieuwe geschiedenis van de Nederlandsche Fimliga, 1927-1933 (Amsterdam: Bas Lubberhuizen, 1999), pp. 217-263. A highly bizarre interview with co-authors Linssen and Schoots, who seem to confuse the project of a critical historical reexamination with some kind of juvenile debunking exercise, is here.

A good general introduction is still provided by Jan Heijs' inleiding to SUN's 1982 reprint of the Filmliga magazine, which is here.

Thursday, 20 October 2011

Guest lecture Tina Bastajian

On November 16 we will welcome an additional guest lecturer: Tina Bastajian, a filmmaker and media artist who is also a participating researcher in the "Imagined Futures" project co-founded by Thomas Elsaesser. Tina Bastajian will talk on Electric Cinema, a platform for experimental film and expanded cinema practices in the Netherlands during the early 1970s.

A report by her on a 2007 program of films and performances associated with Electric Cinema can be found here.

Image: Valie Export, Abstract Film no. 1, 1967 (performance).

Séances Fall 2011 MA Seminar

Séances is the title of an MA seminar by Eric de Bruyn (Leiden University) and Sven Lütticken (VU University). This blog serves to inform students about the program and any program changes that may occur. Reports on various activities, presentations and essays may also be posted here.

Séances takes its name from the French term for film screening—une séance de cinéma. Contemporary artists frequently organize screenings of films or compose film programs, either in art spaces or in cinemas (often in conjunction with one of their exhibitions). The practice has become so established that it seems to have become one more tool in the contemporary artist’s toolkit, albeit not always used with great discrimination.

However, the more interesting examples can also be seen as reflections on the screening session as a medium, or rather as a model of artistic practice that tries to go beyond dominant and oft-criticized forms of movie consumption. The screening event can be a performative exploration of alternative modes of mediation, operating directly on the present by reworking the past in an attempt to foster different relationships between audience and screen.