SMART Project Space | 1st Constantijn Huygensstraat 20, Amsterdam +31 (0)2=
0 427 5951
A Close Watch (Undermining the Overview: Part 1)
Every Sunday and Wednesday at 17.00 SMART Project Space presents free vide=
o programs in Smart Cinema. This video program accompanies the exhibition,=
Someone To Watch Over Me | January 12 - February 16, 2003
Sunday, January 12 and Wednesday, January 15, 17.00 hrs.
Saiki Hiromi ? You Can't Always Blame the Sky (2000, Japan, 18 min.)
Submitted for close study is "example #792813" who is obsessed with how she=
appears to others. Her own self scrutiny becomes our entry into our own s=
tudied overview.
Mark Rappaport ? From the Journals of Jean Seberg (1997, USA, 100 min.)
The intimate view of a small town girl turned iconic creature turned multip=
le surveillance subject. Beyond the chilling inexorability of the biograph=
ical details, Rappaport explores the ideological attitudes that commercial =
films subliminally offer above and beyond the story, the stars and the pric=
e of admission: the message and value assumptions that linger on long afte=
r the plot is forgotten. A tape about film theory: semiology in practice.
Sunday, January 19 and Wednesday, January 22, 17.00 hrs.
Rashid Mashawari ? Tension (1998, Palestine, 26 min.)
A study in the malaise of living under the panoptic watchful eye of securit=
y and control which is in turn exposed to close and detached scrutiny.
Michael Klier ? Der Riese (1983, Germany, 82 min.)
Klier's by now immortal compendium of urban surveillance material from tra=
ffic control to department store security practice reaches symphonically pa=
ranoid heights and finally resolves in an image of cathartic and breathless=
paradox.
Kurt Sayenga ? Spies Above (1996, USA, 55 min.)
Taking a little more distance than Der Riese, this work collects the produc=
ts of industrious spy satellites in space and presents a confidential histo=
ry of the secret CIA agency which initiated and maintains their use since i=
ts inception during the Eisenhower fifties.
Sunday, January 26 and Wednesday, January 29, 17.00 hrs.
Jane Campion ? Passionless Moments (1993, Australia, 13 min.)
An incisive panoptic scrutiny of a few particular specimens at a few partic=
ular moments that prove particularly pertinent.
Manthia Diawara ? Rouch In Reverse (1995, Mali/U.K., 51 min.)
A conceptual coup of sorts: an effort at what its maker calls "reverse anth=
ropology"; the first work to look at European anthropology from the perspec=
tive of its subjects. Diawara's provocative tape examines the anthropologi=
cal enterprise through the work of reknowned ethnographic film-maker Jean R=
ouch.
Gene Searchinger ? Paradox on 72nd Street (1980, USA, 55 min.)
The intersection of West 72nd street and Broadway in New York City becomes,=
under close scrutiny, a microcosm of human interaction. This active and at=
tuned surveillance delineates the struggle between individualism and colle=
ctivity. Systems and institutions which provide order and control are anal=
ysed as well as the unconscious gestures and modes of etiquette which huma=
n beings impose on themselves. This work was suggested by ideas in Philip S=
later's book The Pursuit of Loneliness and was made with the collaboration =
of sociologist Slater and biologist Lewis Thomas.
Sunday, February 2 and Wednesday, February 5, 17.00 hrs.
Mori Fumitake ? A Tick By the White Tower (2000, Japan, 30 min.)
Having grown up under the panoptical gaze of the impassive central tower of=
his high school campus, our inveterately self-conscious hero is determined=
to become a tick that might risk stopping time.
Alan and Susan Raymond ? American Family Revisited (1990, USA, 58 min.)
Another anthropological/media turnabout in the form of an epilogue which pr=
ovides a ten years after update on the Loud family: the subjects of the Ray=
mond's pioneering documentary program An American Family of the seventies a=
nd the true dawn of "reality TV". Here is a case where the subjects have =
been completely altered by the process of scrutiny and tele-visual surveill=
ance.
Sachiko Hamada and Scott Sinkler ? Inside Life Outside (1988, USA, 57 min.)
Following a closely knit group of homeless people living in a lower east si=
de shantytown over a two and a half year period. This work proposes an alte=
rnate anthropology of the self where all categories are mediated and found =
contradictory. Unlike the typical television family, these people thrive on=
the self awareness that the watchful eyes inspire.
Sunday, February 9 and Wednesday, February 12, 17.00 hrs.
Jane Campion ? A Girl's Own Story (1991, Australia, 27 min.)
The dawning of rigorous self-scrutiny and its reflexive desire: a clarion c=
all for "someone to watch over me".
Danielle Smith ? Song of Umm Dalaila (1993, Algeria, 35 min.)
Smith shot this work in a Sahrawi refugee camp in Algeria concentrating on =
the women which made up 80% of the adult population of the camp. What inter=
ests us here is how these women come to assume primary responsibility for t=
he survival of the refugees and offer a different paradigm of the watchful =
eye of scrutiny.
Nina Rosenblum? Through the Wire (1990, USA, 77 min.)
The brutal flipside of the implications of Umm Dalaila: Locked in a baseme=
nt, deprived of sleep, psychologically tormented, strip searched daily by m=
ale guards, video taped in the bathroom-three women are political prisoners=
in the USA-where they say this can't happen. In a high security dungeon i=
n Lexington, Kentucky is the United States government conducting secret exp=
eriments in brainwashing and behavioural modification on these women? Is th=
is what we can expect from the brave new world of panoptic security?
Sunday, February 16 and Wednesday, February 19, 17.00 hrs.
Sven Augustijnen ? Something on Bach (1998, Belgium, 37 min.)
The rear window surveillance approach is taken to a rehearsal of Alain Plat=
el's Les Ballets C. de la B. seen through the windows of the rehearsal spac=
e from a vantage point across the street which produces a multivalent readi=
ng of a complex set of events.
Ross McElwee ? The Six O'Clock News (1997, USA, 102 min.)
We now seize that ultimate daily moment of scrutiny and world surveillance:=
the six o'clock news and what's more we choose to engage it directly and =
call its bluff. McElwee decides to enter into the events of the news when =
they come close to home after a hurricane has leveled the town where he has=
previously filmed and where his friend Charleen Swansea, a frequent McElwe=
e subject, lives. Thus a new journey for the ever watchful eye begins. Th=
is work also constitutes a sequel of sorts to Time Indefinite included in l=
ast month's program "Like Real".
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