video feature
Marseille
Festival Images Contre Nature
Marseille
Today, the Marseille based festival of experimental video “Image Contre Nature” opens with the “carte blanche” screening of CologneOFF IV – Here we are! Wilfried is for the 2nd time in Marseille and for the 2nd time attending the festival – directed very intuitively by Helene and Claude (Ciccolella). Marseille is quite a sympathic city, deeply rooted in the European history, located within the beautiful landscape of Southern France. So. not only the city, but also the whole region is worth to be visited, and for how long one is standing here – for some days or several weeks the time is much too short for exploring the cultural richness.
Wilfried was attending the festival in 2007 for the first time, when he stayed at the home of Isabelle,
(Schneider) , who is collaborating with the festival. The 2nd time in 2009, Wilfried has another accomodation, a private flat, not far from the city centre, within a few minutes he is at the famous harbor with the view on the beautiful Notre Dame basilica.The festival has quite an intimate and very personal atmosphere, it is the contrary to when Wilfried was once attending the more famous Videoformes Videofestival in Clermont Ferrand, which had a cold and anonymous atmosphere.
While during the day, Wilfried has free time to explore the city and the surrounding Mediterranean coast, in the evening the festival attendees are meeting, have a common dinner and screening, and afterwards time for discussions and private talks. So, these actually are ideal holidays in the hot sun of Southern France. One of the days, Wilfried wil be visiting Arles and the Camarque. But the week is very short, as well as the festival. In total, Wilfried is participating eight (8) times, the last time in 2014. The festival in Marseille was the last one Wilfried was submitting to as an artist after 2010, the magical date when Wilfried decided to focus mainly on curating, a kind of compensation after his partner’s Micha death. So, after 2014 the contacts were discontinued, unfortunately. Later Wilfried heard, however, that the festival stopped its activities after the 2018 festival edition, so even if Wilfried would want to participate again in this very nice video festival and visit Marseille, he would not be able to do so. So, let’s be happy today and enjoy the festival opening on 19h!
Digital video inspired by a visit of Thessaloniki.
The work describes the principle of “code” or “coding” in form of an allegory, a metaphoric story as a ritual of meeting, dominating and resigning. The code is identified as a state of the static, dogmatic and conservative, which asks for obedience, but gives no chance to escape.
La vidéo numérique est inspirée d’une visite en Thessalonique. Le travail décrit le principe du «code» ou du «codage» sous la forme d’une allégorie, d’une histoire métaphorique comme le rituel d’une réunion, en se dominant et en se résignant. Le code est identifié comme un état statique, dogmatique et conservatif, qui exige l’obéissance, mais ne donne aucune chance à l’échappatoire. Voix et performance sonore Agricola de Cologne. Le film est monté, réalisé et produit par Agricola de Cologne.
The moving picture takes the classical theme of the “nude” in a contemporary interpretation as a psychological condition.
The viewer is confronted with different levels of movements of baring/exposing.
He becomes very quickly aware, that he did not enter a peep-show, but is disturbing intimacy, the process of emptiness. Emptiness in the sense of meditating.
The nude is a metaphor. The Inability of Being Nude becomes the inability of exposing one’s entire internal to other people, including those who are most intimate and this could be the viewer himself. This inability is in the same way protecting as separating.
Dans une interprétation contemporaine, le film reprend le thème classique du “nu” comme une condition psychologique. Le spectateur se confronte aux différents stades des mouvements se dénuder/s’exposer, mais en perturbe l’intimité, le processus du vide. Le vide dans un sens de méditation. Le nu est une métaphore. “The Inability of Being Nude” devient l’incapacité de s’exposer intégralement face à d’autres personnes, y compris celles les plus intimes, comme pourrait l’être le spectateur lui-même. Cette incapacité protège autant qu”’elle sépare.
1mn couleur stéréo 2010 Allemagne
de Wilfried Agricola de Cologne
“Trauma” tourne le dedans vers le dehors, et donne à voir les traces intérieures de la violence, de la douleur, de la rage et de l’impuissance.
1mn couleur stéréo 2011 Allemagne
de Wilfried Agricola de Cologne
Le titre fait autant référence à la révolution sociale de 2011 dans les pays arabes, qu’à celle des pays européens, comme en Grèce. Les citoyens ne pourront plus accepter très longtemps la situation actuelle, qu’elle soit sociale, économique ou politique. La volonté de changer de gouvernance se transforme en une escalade d’émeutes et de violence hors de contrôle. Chaque sacrifice est-il justifié ??
Memory Game – 7mn40 couleur stéréo 2010 Allemagne – de Wilfried Agricola de Cologne
Five friends meet each other once a year at another place on the globe for one day and play their memory game. In 2010, they meet in Berlin, a place where countless strings of memory come together at the focus of one place which is standing for the more than 6 millions of murdered Jews, the Memorial for The Murdered Jews in Europe.
The video was filmed in Berlin, Budapest and Auschwitz and is released on occasion of 65th return of the Liberation of the Concentration Camp Auschwitz on 27 January 2010.
2mn40 couleur stéréo 2010 Allemagne – de Wilfried Agricola de Cologne
The video is a metaphoric view on the predator in each of us
telling the everyday life story when youth gangs are attacking other people at lonesome locations without any witnesses. The predator as the victim of the circumstances. While acting as a social being, each of us uses its potential of aggression in order to impose one’s will, and mostly by doing anything to achieve one’s end, no matter how the consequences may look like.
The video is based on three individual video sequences recorded from acting experiences with the performance artists group “The Acting and Noise Company”.
Festival Image contra Nature – Marseille/F – 14-17 Jaly 2010
Silent Cry is the visualization of an internal cry happening all the time, when society does not allow to show deep emotional affection. The silent cry is always present caused by never ending traumatizations during decades hidden behind the facade people wants to see. And even if the cry would be be seen or heard, people would refuse to face it. The work release is giving sound a particular relevance.
The hairdryer becomes a symbol for desire.
1mn30 couleur stéréo 2008 Allemagne – de Wilfried Agricola de Cologne
Love is a burning phantom – it appears unexpectedly and is vanishing without any warning.
Burning Phantom
1mn couleur stéréo 2009 Allemagne
de Wilfried Agricola de Cologne
L’amour est un fantôme de feu – il apparaît de manière inattendue et disparaît sans avertir.
8mn couleur stéréo 2007 Allemagne
de Wilfried Agricola de Cologne
Un être humain est obligé de passer au moins un jour de sa vie sur Mars. Mars la désertique planète rouge, Mars le dieu de la guerre. Mars peut être n’importe où, à n’importe quel endroit assimilable à l’inhumanité, à la violence, à la haine, à la fureur, à la vengeance et au désespoir.
de Wilfried Agricola de Cologne
Cette vidéo expérimentale est dédicacée à la mère agonisante de l’auteur, offrant la vision intime d’une relation marquée par la distance géographique et la familiarité affective.
The experimental video is dedicated to the artists dying mother. It offers an intimate view on a relation based on a deep emotional closeness and long distance.
Festival inauguration – 7 July 2009
CologneOFF IV – 4th Cologne International Videoart Festival
Coagulate” by Mihai Grecu (2008, 5:56, Romania)
“Etude” by Dario Bardic (2007, 3:20, Croatia)
“JOINED AT THE HEAD” by David Jakubovic (2008, 4:40, USA)
“The Occidentialist” by Daniel Slåttnes (2007, 1:18, Norway)
“Meeting Florchen Gordon” by Grace Schwindt (2008, 4:29, UK)
“J.F.’s Toolbox” by Virginie Foloppe (2004, 5:50 France)
“Foreigner-Straniero” by Giuseppe Girardi (2008, 6:56, Italy)
“El Camino-The Way” by Felipe Matilla Alonso (2008, 12:00, Spain)
“Africa” by Ane Lan (2007, 4:34, Norway)
“Fashion Death” by Daniel Rodrigo (2007, 4:53, Spain)
“Spaghetti” by Carla Della Beffa (2007, 2:42, Italy)
“Anatolia” by Sinasi Günes (2006, 2:18, Turkey)
“Switch” by Yu Cheng Yu (2008, 4:32, Taiwan)
“A Growing White Stone” by Shoko Toda (2008, 14:34, Japan)
The experimental film tells the story of a homeless person, who lost its identity in all the traumatic experiences it was undergoing. Again, Agricola de Cologne uses the form of the allegorical representation for pointing to essential questions of human existence. All people are homeless in on or the other way, most however, suffer from it without being aware of it. The film is a mirror of our time which has lost its roots.
Ce film expérimental raconte l’histoire d’une personne sans foyer, ayant perdu son identité dans des expériences traumatiques vécues. De nouveau, l’artiste emploie la forme de la représentation allégorique pour pointer les questions essentielles concernant l’existence des hommes. Chaque personne vit sans abri, ou dedans, ou dessus ou de toute autre manière ; cependant, la plupart en souffre sans s’en rendre compte. Le film est un miroir de notre temps aux racines perdues.
8mn couleur stéréo 2007 Allemagne
de Wilfried Agricola de Cologne
Un être d’humain est obligé de passer au moins un jour de sa vie sur Mars. Mars la désertique planète rouge, Mars le dieu de la guerre. Mars peut être n’importe où, à n’importe quel endroit assimilable à l’inhumain, la violence, la haine, la fureur, la vengeance et le désespoir.
The house of tomorrow is the house of one’s identity, it does not need to be a concrete house or building, but represents a secure and protected place where people can stand for what they are and represent, a human being. And this human may have many identities in different fields, the sexual identity represents only one among many others.
“House of Tomorrow” est le lieu de notre identité. Il ne s’agit pas d’une maison en béton, ou d’un immeuble, mais d’un endroit sûr et protégé où l’on peut être soi-même, en tant qu’être humain. Cet être peut avoir des identités différentes dans des domaines différents – la sexualité n’en étant qu’une parmi d’autres.
In 1998, Agricola de Cologne became a victim of a terror attack. The video is the attempt to make the traumatic experiences perceivable via metaphoric images on an emotional level .
The artist’s voice performing one of his musical compositions uses sound instead of words in order to symbolize the speechlessness and inability of the people surrounding him to react properly.
Distortion Projected (Déformation projetée)
4mn50 couleur stéréo 2005 Allemagne – de Wilfried Agricola de Cologne
Festival Images Contre Nature
Marseille/F -7-11 July 2009
–>CologneOFF partner festival 2009
–>festival location
Introduction
One day aliens decided to multiply on earth. Sumatrans tell this saga on their clay tablets. They are the only ones who have done so. In fact, aliens landed between the Tigris and the Euphrates. Right away, we can see in the aforementioned a tendency towards pleasantry. They designate a planet of the solar system as their star of origin. A big gassy one which smokes a bit of sulphur and ammonia by swirling its cloud masses. The aliens are afraid of nothing and resist everything.
Only beasts in the universe that no law of physics can restrain, they are also beings of taste, sensitive to oxygenated atmospheres rather than hydrogenated. They love green, pastoral and restful expanses. Their size is that of giants. The Sumatrans teach us about this subject as well. A bas-relief representing one of these visitors sitting in profile on a throne, to which two men standing before him, show homage. Considering the average size of a Sumatran as round about 1m70, the alien, once standing would measure 3 meters. There we have the first definition of giants and it’s wrong. He is far too small.
–>festival reception
A closer look, they’re all too small. There isn’t one to adore the other, not one to lay out his formidable power. Their bodies are stylised the same. To this resemblance is added an evident will, in the scenic composition, to not diminish the stature of the three characters, which would have been the case with a realistic representation : he who sits would have been smaller than those standing. The position badly accommodates the symbolic power of the throne. Subterfuge of proportional relations, they appear to us aligned. A sovereign receiving ambassadors? The figure of a sun surrounded by eleven stars and planets precise the date.
Which leaves the aliens who correspond so much to us. They mewl with the cats, on the roofs, towards those far stars. We invent gods and devils that are within our reach and images within our measure. Images Contre Nature, international festival of experimental video, proposes some of these forms that resemble us through its programmes and its events.
–>screening space
Programmes
Six programmes – space, identity, movement, perception, senses and time – present the selection. Once again, it is the formal research which captures our attention : rhythm, framing, editing, colour, incrustation, superposition, voice over, music. If there is a story, the narrative framework is not one of fiction or documentary (it is however difficult to establish borders). We obtain sometimes abstract films, sometimes very politically committed films. In the same way that we organise fiction by genre : historical epic, western, detective, space opera, heroic fantasy, road movie, gore, science fiction, pornography, horror and catastrophe, it is possible to differentiate several tendencies with experimental film. There is moreover enough for the word “experimental” to not be unanimous and it does not designate the same practises. We propose one view point amongst the many different ones that exist.
—>video installation
Video libraries
A video library a la carte allows the free consultation of films received which have not been included in the programme selection. They are not all experimental, from our point of view at least. The diversity of films sent remains important. We find animation, fiction, documentary and numerous forms of visual experiences. This video library is at the heart of festival, the principal matter upon which we elaborate our thinking.
A second video library is open to the public all year round for free. It contains marvels and can be found at the Vidéodrome in Marseilles, one of the rare art and art-house video clubs in France.
This video library is, as a majority, composed of films retained as experimental from each festival edition. Another section is dedicated to the association’s productions.
The films can be seen on site and are archived on DVD. A catalogue is available, indexed by author and film, with synopsis’s and technical information. This is also downloadable from our website.
–> festival audience
Events
Different events are organised around the film programmes. Paintings, performances, music, theatre, dance, readings, photography, installations : the word “image” saturates it’s domain by definition. It’s framework stretches to representation, to sound, to the verb and to the warmth of bodies.
The festival also invites other structures to present their programming : Libellule, Vidéochroniques, Polly Maggoo, XHX, the Festival Tous Courts, the CINEDIF, les Inattendus, la F+F Schule für Kunst und Mediendesign de Zurich, the CologneOFF.
It also turns specifically towards the work of certain film makers : Takahiko Iimura, naufragés volontaires cie (Winnie J and Jean-Luc Gergonne), Augustin Gimel, Emmanuelle Sarrouy and Coralie Amédéo, Pierre Merejkowsky, Véronique Duhaut, Jean-Paul Noguès.
–> 2007 festival poster
Images Contre Nature was born in 2001, for the sportive eye.
Trailer 2009 with selected video extracts : http://icn09.p-silo.org/bandeannonce09.php
P’Silo / Festival Images Contre Nature
7 rue de l’Arc
B.P. 12116
13203 Marseille Cedex 01 France
t/f +33 (0)4 91 42 21 75
icn@p-silo.org
www.p-silo.org
–>end of a festival day: the common diner
