Influx - Lumière Curated by Video Power
On the 4th of December, Lumière hands over the stage to Video Power, a production platform for audiovisual arts in Maastricht. The 90 minute program, consisting of four short films made by contemporary artists, introduces you to the video art scene in the region. INFLUX is the first edition of the yearly LUMIÈRE CURATED BY VIDEO POWER program.
INFLUX opens up questions about authority and the representation of power. For thousands of years, authorities have used images to create common values and instil respect in their subjects. Those with access to the arts and the distribution of images were also those able to obtain and maintain power (the church, kings, aristocracy, etc.). But the world is changing. The performance and distribution of our most personal experiences in the form of images have become part of our everyday life. Cheap mass media have ushered in a new era in which ‘home-made’ pictures flow unrestrained. Faster than ever, images are stripped of their context, acquire new meanings, disseminate new values and instil new respect. INFLUX explores different layers of contemporary image production and its role in the affirmation of existing power structures.
Program
19.15 Doors open
19.30 Introduction by Video Power
19.40 Screening Eye Farm
20.00 Screening Déploiements
20.16 Screening Hello Joe
20.35 Screening Complete Dynamics
21.55 End
Eye Farm by Beny Wagner (2016)
The Netherlands, 2016, 20 min., English spoken, no subtitles
In Eye Farm the old proverb “we are what we eat” takes on a new meaning. Wheat, we are informed, supplies us with a yellow pigment that protects the human eye and enables vision. What starts as a video essay about the chemical relation between agriculture and the human eye turns into a reflection on the relationship between image production, private property and the affirmation of existing power structures.
AVANT PREMIÈRE: Déploiements by Stéphanie Lagarde (2018)
France, The Netherlands, 2018, 16 min., French spoken, English subtitles
Ever since Thomas Hobbes’ Leviathan, “the monopoly on violence” has been considered the defining concept of a state. Governments deploy whatever means necessary to protect this monopoly, be it physically or symbolically. Déploiements shows the role images play in the imposition and affirmation of power. The video draws a parallel between two types of simulation: a team of fighter pilots mentally preparing for an air show, and a piece of software that simulates the behavior of an angry crowd.
AVANT PREMIÈRE: Hello Joe by Graham Kelly (2017)
The Netherlands, 2017, 19 min., English spoken, no subtitles
Images of power do not only inhabit the public realm. As we have seen in Inner Sanctum, they can become part of our unconscious and therefore of our private experience. Filmed overnight in several Airbnbs, Hello Joe, reveals how the corporate world can creep into peoples homes. It is like a hymn to the borders that are blurring between the private and the public, the domestic and the corporate. We see everyday objects accumulate new layers of meaning. A simple stove, a unicorn fountain or a rabbit cage are not only regarded as utilities or personal ornaments, but have now become content to be exploited by big multinationals.
Complete Dynamics by Diogo Baldaia (2017)
Portugal, Belgium, The Netherlands, 2017, 20 min., English spoken, no subtitles
As the active exchange of images has become an important aspect of both social and economic life, resistance has become a difficult course of action. The only way to escape the constant flow of images is by turning away from public life, detaching from the private sphere and turning off your mind, that is to say, by sleeping. But what happens when one cannot sleep? Suffering from insomnia himself, Diogo Baldaia imagines sleeping as a way of resistance; as the only way of turning off our materialistic impulses. Insomnia provokes a state of being in which the mind is not able to escape a reality overpopulated by commercial images. Complete Dynamics presents a new service for those who can’t sleep. From now on, pre-fab images enter the subconscious, take the place of one’s most intimate memory and offer complete depersonalisation. A perfect tool for those who desire to escape themselves.