Antoni Muntadas Films October 7, 2010

Manga Films

In conjunction with the exhibition Discover Manga! between October 5-17 İstanbul Modern Cinema presents a selection of three major manga heroes’ adventures on screen. Including three episodes of the television serials Naruto, One Piece, and Dragon Ball, the program awaits manga enthusiasts in the cinema hall.

İstanbul Modern Cinema hosts Spanish-born artist Antoni Muntadas, one of the prominent names in the field of video art. The premiere of his film On Translation: Açık Radyo, made for the 2010 İstanbul Capital of Culture program, will be held on the evening of October 7. This will be followed, on October 8, by the screening of three additional films from the series On Translation.

Thursday, 7 October: 19:00
On Translation: Açık Radyo
Myths and Clichés
This film is a product of Muntadas’ work on İstanbul, which he has been carrying out since January 2009 within the scope of the project Lives and Works in İstanbul, and will be screened for the first time. Working on a concrete project which explores how İstanbul is represented and constructed by the media and which also scans the myths and clichés produced by insider and outsider points of view, Muntadas places Açık Radyo within the project’s ‘landscape.’ He renders visible, and thus documents, the functioning of the philosophy and ethical and aesthetic values of Açık Radyo as an alternative and independent initiative on the one hand, and on the other, through a series of programs he has carried out, he lays the groundwork for dialogue among ‘İstanbulites’ on how myths and clichés about this city are produced and consumed.

Until now, for the İstanbul film Antoni Munderas has conducted interviews with Atıf Akın, Gülden Kalafat, Ferda Keskin, Feride Çiçekoğlu, Korhan Gümüş, Murat Güvenç, Nezih Erdoğan, Ömer Madra, Şevket Şahinbaş, and Tuna Erdem; he has scanned close to 150 feature films that include İstanbul, and has done shootings in İstanbul and at Açık Radyo. Within the scope of the project, four radio programs entitled On Translation: Myths and Clichés were aired on Açık Radio and moderated by Yahya Madra.

Friday, October 8
A Selection of Films by Antoni Muntadas

On Translation: Miedo/Fear, 14.00
2005, 30’
The first screening is of a film dealing with the theme of fear which presents a series of interviews conducted on the border between Mexico and the USA. Including clips from the news and from feature films, the video project is divided into different sections. The project starts with an exploration of the relationship between fear and concepts such as emotion and sensation, and is followed by mutual connotations: Fear of the other, fear of the stranger, fear toward illegal immigrants; as the film progresses, in light of the sociopolitical reality of the people interviewed, it gives way to the fears of those who believe they have the right to lead a better life.

On Translation: Miedo/Jauf, 15.30
2005-2008, 52’
Actually Antoni Muntadas had conceived the second video for local television. Just like the first video, this one also shows that fear is not a primal emotion for human beings but a concept that has become a cultural and sociological structure reflecting political and economic classes. While the media’s general tendency is to foster either violence or pity, this film differs from this phenomenon taking a different expressive path: Interviews conducted with 30 people who are connected to the Straight of Gibraltar are combined with archive footage.

...and Political Advertisement, 17.00
2008, 75’
In ...and Political Advertisement Muntadas has created a collage from presidential campaigns from the 1950s to 2004, thus documenting the shifts in political strategy and the development of marketing techniques. With no additional comments the film calls attention, in the midst of complex visual material, to the sameness of political issues while rendering visible how the American presidency has become a marketable commodity.


Digital Heritage: Video Art in German from 1963 to the Present

RECORD > AGAIN!

İstanbul Modern Cinema, with the collaboration with the Goethe-Institut İstanbul, investigates the history of video art in Germany from its beginnings in the 60s and 70s to the early 21st century. The video exhibition RECORD > AGAIN! – 40yearsvideoart.de aims to render visible audio-visual materials from the past decades.

There are a great many antiquated videos which are mostly forgotten in museum depots and artists’ studios and have no chance of being watched. In 2004 the Center for Art and Media in Karlsruhe has processed approximately 50 videos from the last 40 years in its lab and brought them light. This selection, which reflects video art in Germany through various examples, includes the famous boxing match that Joseph Beuys presented at documenta 5 in 1972; Wolf Kahlen’s work Schafe (Sheep) which was shown on six monitors and was last screened in 1976; early video synthesizer works by Walter Schröder-Limmer; Medienhaus (Media House) by HA Schult from 1978; a virtually unknown work by Ulrike Rosenbach and Klaus vom Bruch from 1977; and an installation by Michaela Buescher and Gerd Conradt with an interview from 1985 of Gretchen Dutschke, wife of Rudi Dutschke who was the leader of the student movement in the 60s. Also presented will be works from the television gallery of Gerry Schum with Klaus Rinke and Ulrich Rückriem, as well as a documentary about Anna Oppermann from 1977, and previously unscreened video material from the 1981 ‘Festival Genialer Dilletanten’ in Berlin’s Tempodrom.