Issue # 03/10 : Curating Film Freely distributed, non - commercial, digital publication an artwork. The sound track (where it exists) often clashes in a disturbing manner with the other works on view in the same room. The typical cinema ar- rangement, consisting of a dark room, a film, a projection, and the audience, is so closely associated with the act of watching a film that is virtually seems like a must, and, unsur- prisingly, large, international art institutions are increas- ingly having their own cinemas built for the purpose of showing these works. The distinguished media theorist Christian Metz associates the space of the imagination, the space of pro- jection, with the present economic order: “It has often rightly been claimed that cinema is a technique of the imagin- ation. On the other hand, this technique is characteristic of a historical epoch (that of capitalism) and the state of a society, the so-called indus- trial society.”1 Scopophilia (pleasure in looking) and voyeurism are deeply inscribed in our society; in a cinema, the audience is placed at a voyeuristic distance and can unashamedly satisfy his cur- iosity. Passiveness, a play with identifications and a CONTENTS CURATING consumption-oriented attitude constitute the movie-watchers’ 01 Introduction position. Laura Mulvey moreover FILM calls attention to the fact that 02 The Cinema Auditorium the visual appetite is as much Interview with Ian White dominated by gender inequality as the system we live in.2 Natu- 04 The Moving Image rally, (experimental) films and Interview with Katerina Gregos INTRODUCTION the various art settings in which they are presented can 07 Unreal Asia and will violate the conventions Interview with Gridthiya Gaweewong and David Teh Siri Peyer of mainstream cinema from case to case. 09 Obsessed with Cinema This latest edition of Interview with Mark Webber On-Curating.org presents seven The seven interviews address the interviews with curators who question as to what constitutes 11 Forms are changing work primarily with the format and characterizes each respec- Interview with Sheryl Mousley of film and/or video. These tive style of curatorial work interviews were all conducted with the moving picture. How can 12 Film sammeln (German) in May 2009 during the the specific spatial situation in Interview mit Alice Koegel Oberhausen International Short the cinema be conceived as a Film Festival. space which evokes meaning in a 08 Suche nach idealen Bedingungen (German) special way, and what is the Interview mit Alexander Horwath In the past years, there has nature of the narrative break been an increasing presence of brought about by showing films in film and video works in art exhibition galleries? What are exhibitions. Where does it come the specific ideological struc- from, this growing predilection tures which distinguish these for a medium which is not spaces? Gridthiya Gaweewong and particularly easy to present in David Teh curated the thematic an art show setting? Film and series Unreal Asia at the 2009 video works require a darkened Oberhausen Short Film Festival. From the series It‘s Not the Homosexual Who Is Perverse, But the room and attention over a span They were confronted with the Situation in Which He Lives: kino, kunst, context now, curated by of time which far exceeds the question as to how a geographical Ian White, Berlin, March 2009. Richard Serra‘s Hands at laboratory. average duration of an exhibi- region which is home to a vast Photo: Axel Lambrette tion visitor’s stop in front of range of cultures and ways of 02 | Issue # 03/10 : Curating Film life can be represented within a for film at the Walker Arts festival; indeed, the biggest Center in Minneapolis. There an question was whether they were entire department is devoted to at all willing to adapt to this film, and operated independently parameter. For the two cura- of the exhibitions. Following tors, however, a festival can be a change of directors at the thought of as a format for Center, endeavours are now being drawing attention to film-makers made there to establish dia- otherwise unknown to the inter- logues and create synergies national art milieu. between the various departments, and coordinate their programmes Alexander Howarth is the with one another. director of the Film Museum in Vienna founded in 1964 by Peter Since the autumn of 2008, Alice Kubelka and Peter Konlechner. Koegel has been the curator of This museum is an institution contemporary art at the Staats- which, taking the idea of the galerie Stuttgart. There film 'invisible cinema' as its point constitutes an integral part of departure, places the focus of the museum’s holdings, and on the showing of films. For the individual film works are ac- museum, the exhibition room is a cordingly also shown within the cinema room whose architecture presentations of the collection. retreats into the background as Koegel is also interested in how far as possible, allowing the films and videos can be preserved visitors to immerse themselves for future generations – an completely in the film. The view- urgent issue, particularly in ers in their seats are assigned view of the fact that, due to the role of 'passive' watchers. rapid technological advance- ments, many presentation tech- The two English curators Mark niques are already obsolete now. Webber and Ian White are like- wise concerned with showing films Katerina Gregos was the curator within the cinematic space. They of the fourth Biennial of Moving conceive of the latter, however, Image taking place in Mechelen, as an exhibition space and a so- Belgium in 2009. This biennial cial space which permits a joint brings together productions of viewing experience. They show artists who work with the moving their film programmes in collab- picture and who, for the 2009 From the series It‘s Not the Homosexual Who Is Perverse, But the oration with art institutions. event, each created a new work Situation in Which He Lives: kino, kunst, context now, curated by What is astonishing here is for a specific location within Ian White, Berlin, March 2009. Richard Serra‘s Hands at laboratory. the fact that, in the experience the city. Twenty years after the Photo: Axel Lambrette of both Webber and White, their unification of Europe, the var- programmes are not understood ious works revolve around how we as part and parcel of the art as a European society conceive exhibitions, but regarded as of and record history and pass in the context of cinema, rather than in the context of an art examples of the efforts made by it on to younger generations. gallery. It shares with performance this frame and emphasis on the the art mediation department. All of the curators interviewed event, and even if projecting a film is not immediately understood The film medium is thus seen side have a common awareness of the as a live event, to me sometimes it becomes very close to being a by side, but not interlinked – media-specific qualities of the live event. That is for different reasons; sometimes it is because in terms of content – with the moving image, and a critical of the way in which the economy of exhibiting work in the cinema exhibitions on view concurrently examination of what is meant by functions, by which I mean you might show a programme of videos by in the same institution. a specific context, a concrete Martha Rosler; you would show this once and no one in London would Sheryl Mousley is responsible space for the viewing of films. show a programme of videos by Martha Rosler for another year. There is a lot of pressure on this one instant of it being created and 1 Christian Metz, Der imaginäre Signifikant, Psychoanalyse und Kino manifested. There is a very immediate and sometimes urgent engage- (Münster, 2000), p13. ment within the audience because of this very practical thing. I 2 Laura Mulvey, Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema (London, 1975). think there are other ways that live performances, artists’ film and experimental film, could be read as being similar. They have a very similar history; by which I mean a very recent history (something that is only been developed in the second half of the 20th cent- ury). So much of the broader project around both live art and experimental film is about mapping this history now. It is still something that is undecided in a way. There is something that is THE really quite unique about showing work in this context. The history is being constructed in a collective way. That it is part of this thing that we choose to do together and we think about 'together' CINEMA AUDITORIUM in terms of 'we' being a projectionist, and me, and an audience. I read the cinema auditorium as both a discursive space and a social space, in which there is some kind of shared experience, the op- Interview with Ian White, by Siri Peyer (SP) and Wolf Schmelter (WS) posite of a modernist cinema. I do not read it as an authoritarian or even a pedagogic space. SP: You work as a curator and also as an artist, how do those two practices relate to one another in your work? A lot of my curatorial work also involves understanding the cinema auditorium as a very particular kind of exhibition space, which is Sometimes they are very close to each other – sometimes they are why this unique event, in this architecturally defined fixed space, almost interchangeable, but not all the time. Mainly I earn my is able to function like an exhibition. My artistic practise and living from working as a curator and as a writer and I teach as my curatorial practise can be very separate too, mainly when the well.