Guest curated by Bettina Johae and Elisabeth Smolarz

Metropolis | Rob Carter | 2008 | Charlotte, NC | 9:30 min
  Metropolis is an abridged narrative history of the city of Charlotte, North Carolina. It uses stop motion video animation to physically manipulate aerial still images of the city and represents a sped up urban planners ‘dream’. City development continues into an imagined hubristic future, of more and more skyscrapers and arenas, then into a bleak environmental future. Though an extreme representation of the already serious water shortages that face many expanding American cities today, this is less a warning, as much as a statement of our paper thin significance no matter how many monuments of steel, glass and concrete we build.


Born 1976, Worcester, UK. In August 2000 Rob Carter relocated to New York to attend Hunter College, receiving his MFA in 2003. Since then he has exhibited his photographs and videos in numerous locations in Europe and the USA. This year he opened a solo show of his work at Galería Fruela in Madrid, Spain. A second solo exhibit will open in October at the Fondazione Pastificio Cerere in Rome, Italy. This summer he participated in the Art Omi artists’ residency, and was recently awarded a Marie Walsh Sharpe studio space for 2008/09. He currently lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.

Untitled (The Factory) | Nuno Cera | 2006 | Ruhr Area, Germany | 4:35 min
  UNTITLED (The Factory) is a contemporary portrait of the Ruhr Area in Germany, an agglomeration of cities and towns forming an industrial landscape of unique size. It is a contemplative piece that explores the cinematic industrial landscape. It is at the same time a reflection of the environment, and of our contemporary condition.

Born in Beja, Portugal in 1972, lives and works in Berlin and Lisbon. Graduated in advertising from the IADE, Lisbon, attended the Maumaus–School of Art and Photography, Lisbon. Residencies at Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin and ISCP, NYC, grants from DGARTS, Portugal in 2007/08, scholarships from the Pépinières Européennes, the Orient Foundation and the CPF-Portuguese Photography Centre of the Ministry of Culture. Recent exhibitions include a mid-carrier retrospective at the Centro Cultural de Belém, Lisbon and solo shows in Portugal, Berlin and NYC. He was the solo artist (photography/video) in the Portuguese Pavilion at Expo Zaragoza 2008, Spain.

Modern Terminal | Jeeyun Kim | 2008 | Hong Kong | 3:38 min
  Xian Dai Ma Tou, Modern Terminal was shot on Repulse Bay, located at the south side of Hong Kong Island and depicts the dispersed landscape of Hong Kong. The waterway is situated at the entrance of Victoria Harbor, one of the busiest seaports in the world and gateway to China. While huge container ships provide the flow of goods and capital, human bodies float leisurely in the same waterway.

Born in Korea, lives in Hong Kong, Jeeyun Kim is a visual artist working mainly in video and photography. Her work has been exhibited internationally at Lowe Art Gallery in New York, the Korea Center in Beijing, Lumiere Gallery in Makati and at the Total Contemporary Art Museum, Museum of Arts in Seoul.

News From The Madhatter | Jon Rafman | 2005 | 9:29 min
  In News From The Madhatter an international businessman, for whom the elevated trains of Berlin and Chicago have become interchangeable, encounters and re-encounters an old raconteur, the unofficial chronicler of urban legends. We learn of Ukrainian dogfights, truces between the Crips and the Bloods and factory life in fin-de-siècle America.


Jon Rafman is a Montreal-born filmmaker, new media artist, and curator. He holds a MFA in Film, Video, and New Media from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a BA in Philosophy and Literature from McGill University. Jon has exhibited his work internationally at institutions including Betty Rhymer Gallery (Chicago), Gene Siskel Theatre (Chicago), Roy and Edna Disney Theater (Los Angeles), Swiss Institute (New York). He has lectured at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He is presently working on a feature length film about professional video game culture with the support of grants.

I see a lot | Gautam Kansara | 2006 | Brooklyn, NY | 2:14 min
  I see a lot was shot in 2006 from the window of my apartment in Brooklyn, New York. Peering down onto the intersection of Broadway and Bedford Avenue the piece captures an argument taking place on the street between a Hasidic man and a Dominican man. Subtitles reveal parts of the Dominican man’s ranting. The rest of the quarrel was inaudible. The animosity around the border of their two neighborhoods is apparent.


Gautam Kansara (b. 1979, London) has presented video and photography internationally in numerous exhibitions and screenings. He has shown at Museo Nacional Centro De Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid and Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin as part of Rencontres Internationales (2008); Real Art Ways, Hartford, Connecticut (2008); Kunsthaus Dresden (2008); LMAK Projects, New York (2007); Centro Nacional de las Artes, Mexico City (2007); The Bronx Museum of the Arts, New York (2006); Platform Garanti, Istanbul (2006). Gautam also received a Fellowship from Smack Mellon in Brooklyn in 2006, as well as a Swing Space award from LMCC.

 

Weites Land | Berit Hummel 2007 | Berlin, Germany | 10:38 min
  The episodically structured video Weites Land is a variation on the idea of conquering a foreign land. Typical behavior patterns of classical Western-movies are simplified in a way that the whole plot stages male rituals of rivalry in an exemplary way. The scenes are set on locations in urban space, where modern architecture and public parks form a surreal symbiosis. The artificial nature idyll becomes the stage for two men in dark suits.


Berit Hummel, born 1975 in Leipzig, lives in Berlin, studied at the HGB Leipzig and at the University of the Arts, Berlin. 2007, cultural exchange stipend of the Berlin Senate for Moscow, 2005, Artist in Residence, Hull Time Based Arts, GB. Installations, video, performance, photography, drawing, projects in the public realm, since 2000. Since 2001 solo and group exhibitions.

Asian Shooting | Hermelinde Hergenhahn | 2007 | Gouda, The Netherlands | 3:22 min
  Asian Shooting is part of the ongoing series AnyoneAnywhereAnytime and an excerpt from the Archive of the Private in Public. On a dark December afternoon, in the backspace of an insurance company, four young Asian tourists find the space to perform a short choreography of their relation to each other, the grey pavement and the rushing crowd.


Currently based in Amsterdam and Frankfurt, Hermelinde studied at the Städelschule, Frankfurt and earned a postgraduate degree at the Jan van Eyck Academy, Maastricht. She has shown extensively in Europe. Recent exhibitions include “500 km”, Kunsthalle Mainz, “Proposal for Bagman and Straight Ladies”, Location One, New York (2008) and “AnyoneAnywhereAnytime”, Nidwaldner Museum, Stans, Switzerland (2007)

Third Ring Road | Mathieu Borysevicz | 1994| Beijing, China | 11:43 min
  Third Ring Road documents the construction of Beijing’s Third Ring Road; and it’s influence upon the daily flow of public life. The footage covers the project's inception to its grand crescendo - the bridge's opening ceremony (February - October 1994, the middle stages of China’s great economic reform). The three separate films reflect the triadic site itself with three major roadways converging causing confusion and drama around the site. The videos examine a community's adaptability to the structural change of its environment. In 1994 the Third Ring Road was the outermost highway in Beijing, today the Eighth Ring Road is being built.


Mathieu Borysevicz, artist, critic, curator and filmmaker, splits his time between NYC and Shanghai. His photography and film work has been shown internationally at venues such as The Tribeca Film Festival, ICA London, the Bauhaus, Duolun Museum Shanghai, the Bronx Museum, Artists Space NY, Center for Contemporary Culture, Barcelona and the Israeli Center for Contemporary Art, Tel Aviv. His writings have appeared in ART FORUM, Art in America, ART Asia Pacific, WORLD ART, Yishu Journal and tema celeste. He is currently ART FORUM’s correspondent in Shanghai. He has also curated and consulted for numerous venues in the US, Europe and China.
 
Berliner Blicke - Zoo | Rick Niebe | 2004 | Berlin, Germany | 1:00 min
  Berliner Blicke – Zoo is part of a suite of four 1-minute videos about Berlin. Each video consists of a sequence of still images, downloaded from the web and processed in Italy. The audio tracks are sonic montages of field recordings from public records archives, issued online under Creative Commons licenses, and “cut-ups” from several movies. Berliner Blicke is an investigation of the technological-disciplinary gaze as a new model of an entire social regime and of the actual urban condition-perception of spaces and urban landscape. Berlin is here seen as a sort of paradigm city of a new global model crossed by conflicts and contradictions.


Rick Niebe is a visual artist with a degree in Semiotics of Cinema from Pisa University. His research as a video-artist is based on a minimal and epigrammatic experimental re-use of audio / visual found materials. In the last years he directed: "Totem-Tanz" (2002); "Simsons Youth" (2003); "Zoo" (2004); "Monitor" (2005); "Empire" (2005); "Target" (2005); "Teresa" (2006); "Ekstasis" (2007); "Private Eye / I" (2007) "Hall of mirrors" (2008). His works has been shown in numerous international festival and exhibitions in Europe, Australia and the USA.

The Door Keeper | Sharon Paz | 2006 | Berlin, Germany | 2:45 min
  The Video The Door Keeper shows a man walking through the city while carrying a door on his back. On his way he passes construction sites, abandoned places and destroyed buildings. “The Door Keeper” guards a door that does not lead anywhere, a door to a house that no longer exists.


Sharon Paz was born in Israel, received a MFA from Hunter College (2000). She now lives and works in Berlin and Israel. In 2007 “Be-Longing”: Video and Performance, was part of “The Acco Alternative Festival” and was supported by the Goethe Institute, The Rabinovich Foundation and the Lottery Art Council in Israel. In 2005 Paz received the “Hauptstadtkulturfond” - an exclusive grand from the city of Berlin. Her video works are part of the collection of the Israel Museum. She has exhibited extensively internationally and has taken part in numerous film and video festivals in Europe, Canada, Israel, and the United States.
 
No Limits for Frank | Reinigungsgesellschaft | 2001/03 | Dresden, Germany | 17:05 min
  The film No Limits for Frank shows one day in a pensioner’s life. The viewer gets to know Frank as a leisure time hero and a passionate owner of a motorized bicycle. With his very own lifestyle he is a supporter of slowing down everyday life. On a cold day in January, Frank rides his motorized bicycle for 60 kilometres from Dresden to a border town in the Czech Republic to buy a carton of cigarettes.

Martin Keil / Henrik Mayer, both graduated with an MFA from the Dresden Art Academy in 2000. REINIGUNGSGESELLSCHAFT (the translation ranges from “Cleaning Service” to “Purification Society”) is an artist group working in the realm of art and social reality. RG works with partners from different backgrounds, providing platforms for interdisciplinary activities, aiming to use the positive potential of connecting different spheres of society. RG initiates projects involving a wide range of people. REINIGUNGSGESELLSCHAFT understands contemporary art as a catalyst of social and political processes.
 


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10 New York Interruptions| Molly Stevens | 2008

 

These video interstices draw on the lively insults and accent that make up New York English. They are one in a series of interruptions developed by the artist.

Molly Stevens works in video, drawing and signage. Her projects are primarily text-based.
She received her MA in Art in New Media from NYU, and her BA from Sarah Lawrence College. She has had two solo shows, one in 2003 at Highways in Santa Monica entitled Whisked: Children on New York City’s Upper East Side; and one in 2007, at Living Arts of Tulsa, where she premiered The Price of Gold along with four other video installations. She has exhibited in group shows and festivals across the globe. She was born and currently lives in New York City.