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.
Leading language/ action/ sound poet performed his groundbreaking concrete poem, a dizzying mandala of text, symbols and rubber stamps; a kind of book as reading machine.
A public gathering that brings together local artists, musicians, activists, and community organisers.
Sarah Washington uses electronics and wind-up radios, running out of charge to repsond to the festivals’ Self Cancellation provocation.
UK conceptual/ drone/ noise artist, who is seriously posing what might seem to be unanswerable questions of music.
Includes: a classic of innovative computer graphics, ex-pat Scot McLaren on form, a riotous psychedelic oil show with a Soft Machine accompaniment, subtle manipulation of data feedback, a colourful road movie and a reworking of a lost Paul Sharits film.
A double bill of Morgan Fisher films that ask what can be achieved by a simple structural method of commenting on scraps of 35mm film, re-shot on 16mm film and what happens to meaning (if anything) when ‘insert shots’ are relieved of their original duty of providing crucial plot development for a variety of other movies?
A programme of discontinuity between narration, text and image. Including Manual Saiz’s employment of John Malkovich’s Spanish dubbing double and Peter Rose’s absurdly hilarious concrete poetry subtitling chaos.
Jandek’s second ever live performance, and the first to be advertised in advance.
Experience a sense of being in the world, in a specific space and time. Including Jeanne Liotta’s recordings of the ionosphere and Walter Ruttmann’s radical 35mm precursor to musique concrète.
IN OUR LIFETIME, is an anti-imperialist resource, edited by Hussein Mitha, produced by Arika for Episode 11, featuring poetry, essays, questions, prompts, letters and works of anti-colonial imaginary.