Sat 13th 8 pm
Directors Lounge
Berlin Mitte, Christinenstraße 18
Urban Research has been a successful program both at Directors Lounge Festival and in screenings in London, Hannover, Poznan, Freiburg, Essen, Dordrecht, St. Petersburg and Berlin. International artists present their vision of public space and urban landscapes. How is the condition of the public realm connected with urban space? Can we talk about urbanity as a common figure in urban life at all? Has public space been replaced by the electronic virtual spaces? Or, has public place been bounded, forcefully homogenized and “pacified” by surveillance and private security forces? Are there new developments, definitions and uses that make “public space” lively again? Artists find challenging views and concepts, or more importantly, they question anew the common concepts of urbanity.
UR1 Urban Research | Tomorrow, Night and Day
In the Aboriginal tradition “Dreamtime” is the ancient time of the myths. However, in Western concepts, the waking dreams in cities rather manifest a possible future, something that has the potential to become manifest from its yet virtual possibilities. According to Walter Benjamin, the day-dreaming of popular myths discloses potentials of future changes; and following those principles, the Situationists propagated dérive, the aimless strolling in the city as a cure against the false desires of the society of spectacle. The artists in this Urban Research program use vernacular, mundane urban settings and landscapes for their dreaming and imaginative shifts from the ordinary and expected. They may be read as much more than just a happy visual game.
Wolf D. Schreiber DE The Great Art Swindle 3min 30sec 2009
Steven Ball UK Aboriginal Myths of South London 10min 30sec 2010
Pilvi Takala FI Easy Rider 4min 25sec 2006
Joe Merrell UU Tomorrow Never Comes 4min 15sec 2009
Elena Näsänen FI Drive 9min 15sec 2003
Sophie Warren & Jonathan Mosley UK Fallout 9min 27sec 2010
Maarit Suomi-Väänänen FI Jalkeilla Taas (Up And About Again) 10min 49sec 2009
Gerard Freixes Ribera ES Alone – AislaDO 3min 20sec 2007
Henry Gwiazda US Claudia and Paul 5:05 p.m. 6min 38sec 2008
Yaron Lapid UK Night Meter 4min 23sec 2000
Wilfried Agricola de Cologne DE Encoded 5min 30sec 2008
Anders Weberg SW Elsewhereness:Yokohama 7min 00sec 2008
Pilvi Takala FI Amusement Park 1min 00sec 2001
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