Think:Film No.2: What do we know when we know where something is?

In Zusammenarbeit mit der Allianz Kulturstiftung präsentiert Forum Expanded die Konferenz Think:Film No. 2 – What Do We Know When We Know Where Something Is? Galerie, Museum, Theater oder Kino – die Diskussion über das Verhältnis von Film und den anderen Künsten orientiert sich zumeist an Fragen des Raums und des Orts. Wo kommt ein Film her und wo wird er gezeigt? Die Frage wird nicht nur im Bezug auf das künstlerische Umfeld gestellt, sondern auch im Hinblick auf nationalstaatliche Zuordnungen. Hybride Formen, transnationale Koproduktionen, historische und politische Umwälzungen öffnen die Frage für neue Bedeutungen. In seinem Eröffnungsvortrag untersucht Vinzenz Hediger den Begriff 'Weltkino' und auf Orten basierte Zuordnungssyteme. Tarek Elhaik, Jahman Anikulapo und Viola Shafik diskutieren Bedeutungsproduktionen vor dem Hintergrund der regions- und genre-spezifischen Organisation von Kino und Kunst. In ihrem Video reflektiert Rania Stephan die Schwierigkeit, ein Interview zu führen, während die Autorin und Aktivistin Samar Yazbek über Schreiben und Bilder, Leben und Tod in Zeiten der Revolution und die Erfahrung von Exil spricht. Laura Mulvey entscheidet sich in einem gemeinsam mit Mark Lewis und Faysal Abdullah produzierten Video für die „talking-head“-Situation um sich an das Problem der Darstellbarkeit von tödlicher Staatsgewalt heranzutasten. Sie wird mit Gertrud Koch diskutieren. Gregor Stemmrich, Henriette Huldisch und Jörn Schafaff diskutieren den Begriff der Heterotopie und fragen, was passiert, wenn Begriff an unterschiedlichen Orten auftauchen. In diesem Fall sind die Orte kulturpolitischer Natur, wie etwa die Filmwelt oder die Kunstwelt, inklusive der akademischen Positionierungen, die sie implizieren. Heinz Emigholz und Bettina Steinbrügge weiten diesen Gedanken auf die Raumerfahrung in Architektur und Film aus. Ala Younis nimmt uns mit in das Unsichtbare. Was passiert, wenn ein Film in der Wüste projiziert wird, ohne Leinwand. Heba Amin arbeitet mit Tonaufnahmen, um ihre Bilder hervorzurufen, während Maha Maamoun Liebespaare im Park belauscht. In einem Panel zu queeren Räumen verbinden Marc Siegel, Renate Lorenz und Nanna Heidenreich Geopolitic, Begehren und soziale Praktiken. Cinematheken gelten als Orte, die dem Kino Nachhaltigkeit verleihen. Zwischen Festivalkultur und dem Internet scheinen sie zu verschwinden, doch ihre Vermittlungsaufgabe ist wichtiger denn je. Die Cinémathèque de Tanger, die Cimatheque – Alternative Film Center Cairo, die Film Society of Lincoln Center in NYC und das Arsenal – Institut für Film und Videokunst in Berlin tauschen ihre Erfahrungen aus. Im Anschluss an eine Abschlussrunde wird in Zusammenarbeit mit der Allianz Kulturstiftung erstmalig der THINK:FILM AWARD verliehen. Der Preis beinhaltet Präsentationen des ausgezeichneten Werks in Berlin und Kairo. Die Gastgeber sind das Arsenal und seine Partnerinstitution, die Cimatheque – Alternative Film Center Cairo.

Alle Vorträge, Diskussionen und Präsentationen sind in englischer Sprache

Mittwoch, 12.2.2014, Berlinische Galerie

12:30 Eröffnung

13:00 Vinzenz Hediger: What Do We Know When We Know Where Something Is? World Cinema and the Question of Spatial Ordering
The concept of World Cinema emerges in a moment when cinema, as defined by film theory and as understood in film culture, appears to be in crisis. This crisis may be described as a problem of spatial ordering. The place of cinema, understood as a medium, a cultural institution and a canon of films, is in doubt – a problem that the concept of World Cinema appears to solve by proposing new modes of spatial ordering.

13:30Tarek Elhaik: Post-Mexican Assemblages
Taking cue from the provocative "post-Mexican condition" diagnosis and from ongoing farewells to Sergei Eisenstein's unfinished QUE VIVA MEXICO!, the talk meditates on the dissolution of nationalist and cosmopolitan frames in the work of four contemporary experimental media artists in Mexico.

14:30Jahman Oladejo Anikulapo: Nollywood - Exploding the myth of a people‘s cinema
At this time of global economic depression, which has led to dwindling economic fortune for the creative industries world-wide, especially that of film, this presentation aims at understanding how this alternative cinema voice represented by Nollywood could help to trigger a new, more dynamic film industry with a more democratic means of production, distribution, exhibition/expression, and consumption. The lecture highlights that progression of the cinema in any given society is a function of the democratic journey and the various shades of socio-economic transformations of the society.

15:00Viola Shafik: Notes on Arab Cinema
In the 1970s film critics from the Maghreb such as Férid Boughedir, working in association with Guy Hennebelle, introduced the term "les cinémas arabes" in the plural. Since that time, it has not become any easier to define the identity of so-called Arab film, which is not so easy to pluralize in German and English. In her talk, Viola Shafik will outline some of the reasons for this.

15:30 Roundtable with the speakers. Moderator: Stefanie Schulte Strathaus, Anselm Franke

17:30 Counter Narratives 1: Samer Yazbek Interviewed by Rania Stephan (Lebanon 2013, 35') followed by a conversation with Rania Stephan and Irit Neidhardt on filming and writing.
In her video Rania Stephan reflects on the difficulty of conducting an interview, while the Syrian writer and activist Samar Yazbek speaks about writing and images, life and death in the time of revolution, and the experience of exile. The video is commissioned by Ashkal Alwan in Beirut as part of the mulitidisciplinary platform Home Works 6.

19:00 Counter Narratives 2: 23rd August 2008 (Laura Mulvey, Faysal Abdullah, Mark Lewis, UK/Canada 2013,22') followed by Laura Mulvey and Gertrud Koch in conversation 
23rd AUGUST 2008 consists of two shots. A brief opening shot, intercut with intertitles, of the famous Al-Mutanabbi Street book market in Baghdad is followed by an unbroken eighteen-minute monologue, shot from a single, still camera position. In it, Faysal Abudullah gradually builds a portrait of his relationship with his younger brother, Kamel, and in the process evokes the lives of Iraqi intellectuals of the left, driven into exile in the early 1980s by Saddam Hussein’s regime.

Donnerstag., 13.2.2014, Berlinische Galerie

11:00 Heterotopias 1: What happens to terms and definitions when they appear in another place? Gregor Stemmrich and Henriette Huldisch in conversation. Moderator: Jörn Schafaff Art institutions, it could be argued, nowadays serve as heterotopia, as counter-placements to the culturally dominant forms of film presentation, namely the cinema. The increasing presence of film in exhibitions has been accompanied by a transfer of the terminology of cinema to art criticism. Discussing cinema and the museum as inter-related discursive spaces, Gregor Stemmrich, Henriette Huldisch, and Jörn Schafaff explore the difficulties and possibilities that such a transfer provides for making and thinking about films.

12:00 Heterotopias 2: "All architecture is what you do to it when you look upon it." (Walt Whitman) Heinz Emigholz in conversation with Bettina Steinbrügge
„Architecture projects space into this world. Cinematography translates that space into pictures projected in time. Cinema then is used in a completely new way: as a space to meditate on buildings.“ (H.E.) Heinz Emigholz and Bettina Steinbrügge talk about connections between architecture, autobiography, and world history.

13:00Ala Younis: Invisible Film. Followed by a conversation with Heba Amin and Maha Maamoun
Ala Younis speaks about various invisible places where cinema exists: some films belong to non-exiting entities, others are dropped after journeys of circulation, and some of them have established a way of viewing/making other images although they have gone invisible since then. She also speaks about the idea of screening in/to the void, and how some audiences have disappeared. Afterwards she will speak with artists Heba Amin and Maha Maamoun about images which are constructed in the artist’s or viewer’s mind, based on sound.

14:30 Politics of Queer Spaces. Marc Siegel, Roy Dib and Renate Lorenz in conversation with Nanna Heidenreich
Queer spaces have largely been considered in relation to issues of inside/outside, public/private, and in/visibility.  More recently, queer theory has responded to the pressures of globalization by investigating the imbrications of gender, sexuality, and desire with such issues as nationalism, diaspora, tourism, and migration. This panel will take up these debates by addressing the limits of vizualisation and articulation, of projections and soundscapes across national borders.

15:45 Manifesto for a new Cinematheque Bouchra Khalili, Dennis Lim, Tamer El Said, Birgit Kohler, Stefanie Schulte Strathaus
The cinémathèque is traditionally a place that provides a home for cinema, that fosters and presents national and international film history, and that takes on the task of showing films that otherwise would not be seen. It opens up room for discussion and helps to create knowledge. What might this mean in a time when the cinema is becoming decentralized? Or to put it another way: What do we know, when we know where something is? Two younger and two older institutions, all charged with the tasks of a cinémathèque, ponder this question.

17:00 Wrap up with the participants and book launch: “Zeitgenössische Künstler aus der Arabischen Welt - Positionen 7“, eds. Johannes Ebert, Günther Hasenkamp, Johannes Odenthal, Sarah Rifky, Stefan Winkler, Verlag: Steidl Göttingen 2013.

Followed by THINK:FILM AWARD CEREMONY
The Think:Film Award, established in cooperation with the Allianz Kulturstiftung, honors a work that creatively uses its medium in order to grasp and reflect geopolitical contexts artistically, to broaden the space of aesthetic experience, and to encourage mental changes of perspective. The award, chosen by a three-member jury, includes travel to and accommodations in Berlin and Cairo, where the selected works will be presented. Jury: Mohamed Beshir, Marcel Schwierin, Ala Younis