Animal Gaze
At the end of the credits for Animal macula, we read: "Work in progress. By this I meant that the process begun with the film was not yet complete, and that reflection was still evolving.
The opportunity offered by the present Escale allows me to extend the work in another way. The films I've chosen raise fertile questions about our relationship with animals and their representation. One of my preoccupations during the editing of Animal macula was to find a space of freedom or a possibility of liberation for the animals represented by the images. How can we reconcile ourselves to their original strength, so as to reverse the fate reserved for them by the films, while at the same time allowing us to witness their real condition? The four films presented here are, each in their own way, driven by these same concerns.
Ressources by Serge-Olivier Rondeau and Hubert Caron-Guay opens up to the silent grievances of those involved in slaughterhouse production. Karl Lemieux's Western Sunburn brings the beasts to the fore, pulverizing the iconic figures of the American western. Charles-André Coderre's Particles is both a call for liberation and a celebration of living forms. Muriel Pic's Bêtes en miettes plunges into the archives of the last century, seeking to restore a true existence to animals trapped by our hold on them and their representations.
Muriel Pic's literary work has been a source of inspiration for me, especially her book En regardant le sang des bêtes, the last chapter of which is devoted to editing. This luminous text must be read in its entirety. I'll just quote two short sentences:
"Editing thus calls on everyone's divinatory skills, soliciting our capacity to reveal what is latent. [...] It develops in us the ability to recognize what undermines the integrity of beings, and reactivates in man that animal faculty which is the intelligence of peril."
The films in this cycle are driven by this intelligence, which makes them sister films. Although they take place on distant continents, they all invite us to grasp our power to act in the face of animals, their singularity and their destiny.
Work is in progress. You are invited to take part.
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Beasts in Bits and Pieces
Winter 2018, Amsterdam, constellation of the Dog. I scour seventeen kilometers of archives in search of the beasts. Six hundred and eighty-three fragments of silent films, anonymous images collected by the EYE Film Institute under the title _Bits and Pieces_. But for me, these are the crumbs from our feast of beasts.
Western Sunburn
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_Western Sunburn_ is a "rephotography" in video of material that was originally used in a performance during which Karl Lemieux, painted, scratched and burned film loops from an old western 16mm film. Traces of an impossible past and future collide in a trajectory where the present unravels.
Resources
In an employment assistance community organization, asylum seekers are offered jobs in slaughterhouses that will allow them to restart lives they were abruptly forced to leave behind. On a livestock farm, cows, pigs, and farmers are subjected to the rhythm of an industrial agricultural model. Outside, only the corn plants that serve to feed the animals pierce the aridity of desert-like soil. _R...
Animal Macula
Subscription access
_Animal Macula_ plunges us into the heart of a sprawling and winding network where animals transform as they move from one sequence to another, all drawn from 125 years of cinema. An enigma is contained in each image where an animal appears, diffused in the signs that he sends us in silence. Through archaeological work and collage, it is to this enigma that the film seeks to approach. By lett...
Beasts in Bits and Pieces
Winter 2018, Amsterdam, constellation of the Dog. I scour seventeen kilometers of archives in search of the beasts. Six hundred and eighty-three fragments of silent films, anonymous images collected by the EYE Film Institute under the title _Bits and Pieces_. But for me, these are the crumbs from our feast of beasts.
Western Sunburn
Subscription access
_Western Sunburn_ is a "rephotography" in video of material that was originally used in a performance during which Karl Lemieux, painted, scratched and burned film loops from an old western 16mm film. Traces of an impossible past and future collide in a trajectory where the present unravels.
Resources
In an employment assistance community organization, asylum seekers are offered jobs in slaughterhouses that will allow them to restart lives they were abruptly forced to leave behind. On a livestock farm, cows, pigs, and farmers are subjected to the rhythm of an industrial agricultural model. Outside, only the corn plants that serve to feed the animals pierce the aridity of desert-like soil. _R...
Animal Macula
Subscription access
_Animal Macula_ plunges us into the heart of a sprawling and winding network where animals transform as they move from one sequence to another, all drawn from 125 years of cinema. An enigma is contained in each image where an animal appears, diffused in the signs that he sends us in silence. Through archaeological work and collage, it is to this enigma that the film seeks to approach. By lett...
