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directors lounge monthly screenings
james edmonds
the material question
Thursday, 24 November 2016
21:00
Z-Bar
Bergstraße 2
10115 Berlin-Mitte
Materialism? Alright.
Provided it is dialectical enough.
Meaning it will know how to juggle heart and mind,
Body and soul, life and death
That it won't avoid questions about ultimate things,
And will accept as equals the arguments of believers and non-believers alike.
(Czeslaw Milosz, Novemember 28, 2002)
"The cinema of James Edmonds (1983) explores the complexities of the real not as a mere substance named "reality"
but in its most fluctuating and Turnerian correlation, in those uncertainties that make it impossible to fix it in any
specific point in space.
..The segmented and associative montage of Edmonds is not governed by cuts seeking to connect signifier and signified
but rather by a lacanian capitoné point (or cushioning ). This is an anti-representational and anti-narrative knot, which
makes the signifier/signified relation a more dynamic, fluid one, and which does not work with a descriptive language
but institutes a topography of desire a fabric weaving itself with an already existing one. A flux as infinite as desire. A
ramification through the frame of windows that open wide the splitting of Being, as in a work in progress Sternwarten
der Welt . It is not in any case a form of welding a simple intersection organized around anchor points but rather a
collage inspired by Burroughs' cut-ups.." (Toni D'angela, La furia umana 28, 2016)
Movement and Stillness, 2015, super 8, 11min, colour, silent
Quiet observations, variations of light, from strong amber glows to diffused greys, intermittently entering the windows
of an internal world. A film about coming home, archetypal images where the eternal meets the temporal. Calm
reflection interspersed with travel and the endless search for significant forms, personal chapters of collage and
remnants.
Inside Outside, 2008/2015, super8, 6min, colour, soundtrack
A fictional architecture of interiors and exteriors made through intuitive observations with the lens. The juxtaposition of
the two spaces act as both metaphor and experiential resonance for the inner and outer worlds of the self, as well as
being a quietly autobiographical documentation of a life between two places.
Sternwarten der Welt / Sun Documents, 2010-11/2016 (in progress), super8 double projection, 6min, colour,
soundtrack
Various thoughts and reflections about life at its points of juncture. Symbols, delusions, loves and despondencies,
arising in a wave of the unknown.
Sun Doccuments resulted from a journey to find a half remembered man-made lake on the edge of a city. Shot on
outdated celluloid, its images are awash with hues of translucent blue and green, white-outs and heavy indigo shadows.
Appearences of a sun dial, an observatory, as symbols in this personal journey, along with animals, nature, leading the
way ahead, to continue to doccument the light.
OVERLAND, 2016, super 8, 22min, colour and black+white, soundtrack
Structured in three parts, Overland evokes an enigmatic landscape of forms, substances, creatures and memory through
a hand-edited super8 colour collage of personal material shot over one year..
A fragment of memory is briefly evoked. The memory of a boat journey, of traveling as a child.
The child is born into the universe in a flurry of images which constantly shift between modes of chromatic reality.
The substances of the earth and it's elements circulate and accumulate in material fluctuation.
The flora and fauna give way to the human. The glimpses of lives as portrait - the concrete, the societal, the ritual of the
everyday - a short series of episodic documents.
This moment again gives rise to other realities. Signs, symbols, silence and stillness animated through the uncertainty of
image.
In intervals of darkness, light is shed as flashes of remembrance, traces of something long ago.
A series of follies appear as history.
Patterns of Summer, (in progress), super8, 3 mins, colour, silent
Flesh of time, string of present, strands of momment.
James Edmonds is an artist filmmaker from the UK living in Berlin and London. His practice centers on a personal
poetics in which the nature of recording, when approached from the materiality of analogue film, offers a tangible
surface for what is intangible and fleeting - our personal experience, inner worlds, thoughts and reflections. He has
presented screenings and exhibitions at various venues, project spaces, galleries and cinema events, including Fronteira
Festival Brasil, The Temenos Screening Kino Xenix Zurich, Another Vacant Space Berlin, Mystetskyi Arsenal Lavra
Kiev and ACCEA Armenia. Since 2015 he also curates the monthly film series Light Movement in Berlin.
PROGRAM
Movement and Stillness, 2015, super 8, 11min, colour, silent
Inside Outside, 2008/2015, super8, 6min, colour, soundtrack
Sternwarten der Welt / Sun Documents, 2010-11/2016 (in progress), super8 double projection, 6min, colour, soundtrack
OVERLAND, 2016, super 8, 22min, colour and black+white, soundtrack
Patterns of Summer, (in progress), super8, 3 mins, colour, silent
Artist Link:
http://jamesedmonds.org
http://light-movement.blogspot.de
Press Links:
Z-Bar - http://www.z-bar.de/
Directors Lounge - http://directorslounge.net
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