Artists' Film International

November 21-24, 2013

Istanbul Modern hosts Artists’ Film International program that showcases contemporary video, short film and moving images from across the globe. Every year, each program partner selects one or more videos, films, or animations by an artist from their country in order to create an international pool of videos. Curatorial works on these videos then materializes in screening programs and / or exhibitions held at the partner institutions.

Having invited Bengü Karaduman’s video installation We Are All in The Same Boat for this year’s program, Istanbul Modern also presents the screening of a larger selection of the artist’s videos. 18 other videos selected by the international partners are grouped in four thematic programs that take their cue from the definitions and concepts in Sigmund Freud’s seminal work Civilization and Its Discontents. Moreover, Istanbul Modern celebrates the program's 5th year by screening for the first time all four video works by artists from Turkey that participated in the program in previous years.

The screenings are at Istanbul Modern Cinema during November 21-24.
The exhibition is on view at the pop-up exhibition area until February 23.

Programmers: Çelenk Bafra (Curator), Senem Sekban (Assistant Curator)

2013 Program Partners

Whitechapel Gallery, UK

GAMeC / Galleria d'Arte Moderna, Italy

Fundación Proa, Argentina

Ballroom Marfa, Texas, USA

City Gallery Wellington, New Zealand

San Art, Vietnam

Para/Site, China

Belgrade Cultural Centre, Serbia

Cinémathèque de Tanger, Morocco

New Media Center, Israel

Neuer Berliner Kunstverein Video-Forum, Germany

Istanbul Modern, Istanbul, Turkey

Centre for Contemporary Arts Afghanistan, Afghanistan

KINOKINO Centre for Art and Film, Norway

Project 88, India

Hanoi DOCLAB, Vietnam

THE GUEST OF 2013: BENGÜ KARADUMAN

Born in Germany in 1974, Bengü Karaduman graduated from the Department of Costume and Stage Design, Mimar Sinan University, and went on to study New Media Arts in Saarbrucken, Germany. In her works, Karaduman shows the multilayered nature of the perception of reality: how the concrete situations we face in everyday life are individually redefined in our conscious and unconscious minds. Influenced by the indefinable and variable structure of reality, Karaduman reflects on the way that perception both sees and sorts our experiences.

The video We Are All in The Same Boat consists of two video layers on top of each other. On the top layer, we see a ship representing the current political economic system which erodes our planet and its creatures, exhausts our natural resources and uses despair as a mass destruction weapon. The ship carries the products and its production practices of this system. On the bottom layer, we see horses swimming under water. This theme is based on the real story of the phaeton horses from the Princes’ Islands in Istanbul, who are harnessed for work under poor conditions and consequently when they die, thrown into the sea and replaced by new ones. In this sense, the political economy of our time exploits not only the labor of the living beings, but also their lives as well. We Are All in The Same Boat is a requiem for our not knowing how to face the mechanisms sustaining this monetary system.

BENGÜ KARADUMAN RETROSPECTIVE (during November 21- 24)

Nightpole, 2013, 7' 50''

Daypole, 2013, 5' 18''

Sketch For a New Body As a Performance, 2012, 3' 48''

We Are All in The Same Boat, 2012, 3' 22''

Outside of My Skin, 2010, 3’ 1’’

Mirror Shadows, 2007,5’ 15’’

5th YEARSPECIAL SCREENING (during November 21- 24)

For the 5^th year of the Artists’ Film International, Istanbul Modern for the first time presents the videos of four prominent video artists from Turkey invited to date.

Ali Kazma, Jean Factory, 2008, 11’40”

Ergin Çavuşoğlu, Empire (after Andy Warhol), 2009, 9:43’

Sefer Memişoğlu, Breeze, 2011, 8’ 18’’

Bengü Karaduman, We Are All in The Same Boat, 2012, 3' 22''

THEMATIC PROGRAMS: CIVILIZATION AND ITS DISCONTENTS

Weakness Of The Body

58’ 10’’

The program explores the body’s weakness in the face of life, the limitations of its movements, and the human being’s control over his/her own body. Included among topics covered in the videos are human will, which decides on how people use the space they occupy within contemporary society, and their ability to situate their presence while creating areas in which they can move.

Kaia Hugin , Five Parts – a Motholic Mobble (part 5), 2011, 08’50’’

Katarina Zdjelar, My Lifetime (Malaika), 2011, 5’37’’

Alix Pearlstein, The Drawing Lesson, 2012, 7’13’’

Nasan Tur, Berlin Says…, 2009, 6’30’’

Marinella Senatore, ROSAS - The Attic#2, 2012, 30’

The Superior Force Of Nature

49’ 57’’

Freud states that one of the factors that civilizes humans is the suffering caused by their inability to control nature. While nature forces us to submit to the inevitable, in effect it also points out the direction for our efforts. The program features videos about humankind’s struggle to come into their own in the face of nature.

Neha Choksi, Sweetheart, 2010-2011, 6'12"

Neha Choksi, Minds to Lose, 2008-2011, 11’54’’

Murray Hewitt, The Downfall of Light, 2011, 14’

Murray Hewitt, Smoke rises around the silent sea, 2011-2012, 5’41’’

Jessica Warboys, Pageant Roll,2012, 9’10’’

Morgan Wong, Plus-Minus-Zero, 2010, 3’

Prosthetic God

54’ 45’’

According to Freud, another consequence of the solutions developed by humans to adjust their mutual relations is that by becoming civilized, humans have, as it were, become “prosthetic gods.” The videos in the program focus on the mode of communication individuals establish with passive forms of being “the other” in urban life, regarded as the pinnacle of civilization. While offering their cultural and socio-political observations of relations that touch one another in a public space, the videos reflect on the language of communication that is developed during the process.

Rahraw Omarzad, Gaining and Losing, 2012, 6’13’’

Ana Gallardo, Don Raul, 2012, 9’20’’

Ana Gallardo, Estela, 1946-2011, 2012, 6'24"

Hong-An Truong&Dwayne Dixon, The City &The City, 2010, 18’

Einat Amir, I will be your guide for this session, 2013, 14'48''

Becoming Neurotic

64’ 29’’

It was found that men become neurotic because they cannot tolerate the degree of privation that society imposes on them in virtue of its cultural ideals.
Sigmund Freud

The videos explore the effects on individuals and the transformation into collective memory of beliefs and behaviors, which, through the spirit of unity, turn into customs during the process by which a small community becomes a society.

Eric and Marc Hurtado, Jajouka, Something Good Comes toYou,2012, 50’39’’

Rahraw Omarzad, Third One, 2005, 13’50’’