May 2012, arsenal cinema

Seminar Events

FUSES, 1965-68

Although celluloid is now becoming less and less significant in industrial film practice, the question as to its potential as an artistic working material remains. To accompany the UdK seminar "Celluloid as a Medium", 16 films provide examples of applications immanent to the material itself. Celluloid can be exposed, illuminated, edited, cut into pieces, stuck, painted, scratched, burnt by acid or buried. Classics, precursors and boundary pushing examples of this tendency will all be shown. Experimentation with celluloid – a timeless genre that continues to form a vital practice. (May 3, introduction by Björn Speidel)

As part of the "Written on the Wind – Cinema and the Weather" seminar at Potsdam University, we are showing James Benning' sky study TEN SKIES (USA 2004, May 23, introduction by Uli Ziemons). Perhaps the most minimalist film in Benning’s oeuvre shows ten minutes of sky ten times over: ten static shots which capture constantly changing cloud formations linked to soundscapes that give hints as to the off-screen landscape.