Episode 1: A Film is a Statement
Every aspect of every film is always about more than just film. Or, as Godard said: a tracking shot is a moral issue. A cross between a festival, magazine and discussion about experimental artists’ films.
Arika have been creating events since 2001. The Archive is space to share the documentation of our work, over 600 events from the past 20 years. Browse the archive by event, artists and collections, explore using theme pairs, or use the index for a comprehensive overview.
Every aspect of every film is always about more than just film. Or, as Godard said: a tracking shot is a moral issue. A cross between a festival, magazine and discussion about experimental artists’ films.
The Songspiels take on a mode of musical theatre developed by playwright Bertolt Brecht and composer Kurt Weill in the early twentieth century, presenting political and social concerns through the accessible and (often funny) form of song.
A series of badly felted lock-ups and garages + multiple locations within the Megastructure – a purpose built town centre in one building, comprising (in the 50’s at least) of housing (never occupied), shops, apartments, a hotel, ice rink, police station and other amenities
This event honoured those individuals who achieved the status of Icon during the period of 1986-1990.
An contradictory guitarist, he’s equally at home in slow, halting acoustic improvisation or piercing minimal examinations of electric guitar.
What to do about a telethon other than fuck it up? Poet, tarotist, artist, and librarian Cyrée Jarelle Johnson returns to IWBWYE to read the 1980s and ’90s for what those decades were: practice for now.
How do we gesture to the invisible, the trans or the obscure? A performative conversation between boychild and Fernando, a sharing of gestures, and a bodily back and forth between mathematician and dance artist.
Do art forms like black radical poetry, free jazz and improvisation create a space for the performance of freedom? Did they ever? And can they still do so now?
A loud, buzzing stew of electrical light as noise and convulsive electric guitar squall.
Strickland Distribution and Ultra-red give a practical sound workshop bringing together walk participants to discuss the issues raised during the walk
Solo by Jean-Philippe Gross, a French electro-acoustic improviser, working with mixing board, cheap mics, small speakers and an analog synth, built around a honed interest in feedback.
Nikos played every note that it’s possible to play on the cello, all played back as a one hour drone, while the cello was turned to powder and bottled.