Islam, Interactivity And a Drone: Chevalier and Mossessian Reunite for “Digital Arabesques”

I’m always happy to see collaborations among artists grow, and even happier when artistic projects explore different cultures and build bridges between distant worlds. That is why I got very excited about Digital Arabesques 2014. As featured in a recent article on Designboom, the latest collaboration between French digital artist Miguel Chevalier and filmmaker Claude Mossessian is a new way to explore oriental patterns through an interactive virtual-reality installation.

“Digital Arabesques 2014” – Image courtesy of Miguel Chevalier

Digital Arabesques 2014 was showcased from 18 to 29 December 2014 as part of the Islamic Art Festival at Al Majaz Waterfront in Sharjah (United Arab Emirates), featuring 6 infrared video cameras and 6 video projectors operating in an area of 1,100 square meters. As for every interactive project, visitors were not only part of the experience, but they shaped it by being involved in the digital environment designed by Chevalier.

“Digital Arabesques 2014” – Image courtesy of Miguel Chevalier

If you’ve been reading my blog for a while, you may remember my post from May 2014 in which I explained how the collaboration between these two artists began. Digital Arabesques 2014 was something new for both of them. It was Chevalier’s first truly open urban installation, and Mossessian went a step further in documenting his work by using a drone camera to capture the floor of the fountain space from a birds-eye perspective (a few minutes of footage accompanied by Michel Redolfi‘s hypnotic music are available on the director’s profile on Vimeo).

“Digital Arabesques 2014” – Image courtesy of Miguel Chevalier

Digital Arabesques 2014 may not be the magic carpet we dreamed about when reading Middle-Eastern stories and folk tales, but while watching Mossessian’s framing of Chevalier’s work I can’t help thinking that there is a little bit of that in it. The only difference is that if the carpet is not flying here, our eyes are through his camera.

Let’s Bring the “Gialli” Back. Davide Melini on his Short “Deep Shock” (Part 1)

It’s not a secret that the film business is one of the most competitive among the creative and cultural industries. So I’m always keen to support emerging filmmakers who are trying to break into it. Davide Melini is an Italian director born in Rome in 1979 and who relocated to Spain a few years ago. After completing four short films, including The Puzzle (2008) and The Sweet Hand of the White Rose (2010), he is currently crowdfunding his next project titled Deep Shock.

Davide now needs your help to bring the “Gialli” back, that golden age of the Italian film industry that spans the decades between 1960s and 1980s, when flicks such as Dario Argento’s Deep Red, Sergio Martino’s Torso and Pupi Avati’s The House with Laughing Windows, now considered cult films worldwide, started to redefine the concept of thriller.

Prominent Monkey: Hi Davide, thanks for sharing some thoughts about your experience as a filmmaker. Let’s start from the very beginning. Do you remember the defining moment when you realised that you wanted to shoot a film?

Davide Melini: I was just a kid and it was love at first sight. My uncle worked in the film industry for 30 years and sometimes I met him while he was working. For me it was incredible to see “behind the scenes”. I was like a kid in a candy shop! I started to study it and around 14 years ago I wrote my first screenplay. I continued writing until I directed my first short in 2006.

Natasha Machuca in “The Sweet Hand of the White Rose”, directed by Davide Melini.

P. M.: You’re an Italian director who has worked in Spain for many years now. How did you start this experience and what is the main difference between Italy and Spain in terms of the support for independent filmmakers?

D.M.: In June 2007 I moved to Spain, where I now permanently live because I have two wonderful children. Spain is very similar to Italy, both in the good and the bad things. But unlike Italy, here you can find institutions that support your project, as happened to me with The Sweet Hand of the White Rose and now with Deep Shock.

“The Puzzle”, directed by Davide Melini.

P. M.: The market for short films is very tricky and it is common knowledge that monetary payments are pretty much risible. Shorts work instead as a sort of business card that helps to build a portfolio and get a feature film. What is your experience in this respect?

D.M.: I agree with you, it is impossible to make a living with short films only. My idea about that is very clear: after Deep Shock it is my intention to shoot a feature film.

P. M.: Very often, independent directors combine personal projects with more commercial ones, just to pay the bills. What is your top tip for aspiring filmmakers?

D.M.: Making a good movie requires a huge effort and even the smallest of short films deserve all the attention from the director. Working on two films at the same time doesn’t seem a good idea, but we need to be realistic: without money we cannot live. That said, when our passion requires us to make sacrifices, we are always ready to make them.

End of Part 1. Part 2 will be online this Friday.

Chris Marker: A Grin Without a Cat

“In another time I guess I would have been content with filming girls and cats. But you don’t choose your time.” Chris Marker

Judging by some of the works displayed at his first UK retrospective, not to mention the title of the exhibition itself, Chris Marker really loved felines. I think the French artist and filmmaker would probably have looked with a sympathetic eye at one of the most enduring Internet trends, cat memes.

On until 22 June at the Whitechapel Gallery, “Chris Marker: A Grin Without a Cat” is full of references to cats. They range from the director’s own words, which open this post, to some of his most iconic works, such as Chats perchés (The Case of The Grinning Cat) [2004] or Ouvroir. The Movie [2010], a three-dimensional archipelago created on Second Life and presented by Marker’s avatar, the cat Guillaume-en-Egypte.

Although he is internationally known for a particular mix of documentary and personal reflections, the so-called “essay-films”, Marker was a true pioneer of new media and installation art. He was also politically involved and his commitment to recording historical events is clearly shown here. The exhibition covers multiple artistic formats within four key themes recurring throughout his career: “The Museum”, “Travelogues”, “Films and memory” and “War and Revolution”.

The artist passed away in 2012 and his interest in different artistic mediums is pretty evident in the exhibition. The Gallery managed to gather together a wide range of works spanning the 1960s to early 2000s. They include photographs from the Staring Back Series [1952-2006], documentaries like Le fond de l’air est rouge (A Grin Without a Cat) [1977], not to mention several videos and mixed media installations, such as the multimedia work Quand le Siècle a pris forme (Guerre et Révolution) – When The Century Took Shape (War and Revolution) [1978] and the five channel video installations Silent Movie [1995].

“Memories of Things to Come: The Future-Past of Film” illustrates Marker’s idea of cinema as a time machine, a repository of memory images and a source of temporal paradoxes. To me this section is the heart of the exhibition, because it features the “photo-roman” La Jetée (The Pier) [1962]. Probably Marker’s most famous work, it is best known for inspiring Terry Gilliam’s film 12 Monkeys [1995].

La Jetée is screened at the Gallery in a rare version with an opening sequence that is different from the definitive cut above. The related workbook describing the film in the form of a “photo-novel”, and La Jetée: Ciné-Roman, published by Zone Books/MIT Press in 2008, are displayed alongside and contribute to a better contextualisation of Marker’s masterpiece, which finds an ideal and intimate environment in this section of the Gallery.

Walking through the exhibition is a peculiar experience. Viewers are surrounded by a variety of media, fragments of films, cartoons, found footage, computer-driven stories and advertisements, electronic noises, and musical scores. Images and commentaries overlap each other: the Cuban Revolution, the Vietnam war, Japanese temples devoted to cats, online digital worlds, crowded streets and silent temples, the reality of everyday life and the exotic lure of unknown rituals.

Step by step visitors become familiar with Marker’s eclectic yet recognisable style, ranging from the massive 150-minute documentary Le joli Mai (The Merry Month of May) [1962] to Zapping Zone (Proposals for an Imaginary Television) [1990-1994]. At the same time, viewers also become the active agents of an ongoing remix, using their own senses to explore the mind of one of the sharpest and most elusive filmmakers of 20^th Century.

[Photos taken at The Photographers’ Gallery, except for Zapping Zone (Proposals for an Imaginary Television) (1990-1994) video still production du Service Nouveaux Médias, CGP © Coll. Centre Pompidou, photo: Georges Meguerdithcian].