Happy New Year 2022 from KLEX! We wish you an energetic, productive, and most importantly, healthy and safe 2022! We’d like to kick off the year by reviving our screening series – ExScreen on Saturday, 15 January, 2:30PM @ The Percussion Store! ExScreen 019 will feature 10 experimental shorts from our festival archive by Andreas Mares, Andrew Stiff, Chan Seauhuvi, Chloe Yap Mun Ee & Wee Jia Foong, Debora Bernagozzi, Jean-Michel Rolland, Lim Chee Yong, Péter Lichter, Phoebe Ching Ying Man and Rebecca Bloecher. Please mark your calendar!

We’re opening up the online screening of ExScreen019 on Youtube from now untill 10PM (MYT) tomorrow, 16 Jan 2022! Enjoy the screening!
Video link: https://youtu.be/RnfILygFa4g

Date & Time: Saturday, 15 January 2021 @ 2:30PM
Venue: The Percussion Store
Add: No. 6, 4th Floor, Jalan Panggong, 50000 Kuala Lumpur.
Admission by donation as you like!
Please call to reserve a seat: 019 770 2498

* Seating arrangement at the concert will be adhering to the current Covid-19 SOPs.
* Only fully vaccinated individuals.
* We strongly recommend you to call and book for a seat.

#IRF2021 #goetheinstitutmalaysia #klexexscreen #percussionstore
*Funded by the International Relief Fund for Organisations in Culture and Education 2021 of the German Federal Foreign Office, the Goethe-Institut and other partners. goethe.de/relieffund

Founded in January 2015, ExScreen is an film screening series of KLEX aiming at introducing cinema works with an alternative, experimental and unconventional approach to a larger audience in Malaysia. ExScreen aims to provide the platform for appreciation, understanding, and discussion of experimental cinema.

“ISOLATION”

Total Run Time: 62 minutes

Programmer: Chris Chong Chan Fui

Stuck in a box. We were bound by our identity prior to the pandemic. Since then, we are all sharing a profound moment in our lives as it strikes at our collective physical and mental health. Stuck in a box to deal with it alone. Is it a counterpoint to Bloecher’s Too Tame! (2017) or simply another side of the box? We delve deeper into our memories, our everyday, and our mortality. The daily rides on the train, as in Rolland’s Training Doors (2011), may not have been metaphorical, but as our actions are limited and as we travel alone, distanced yet hyper-focused on the everyday, the mundane inevitably becomes significant. As we live in our own pandemic isolation, how will this time be recorded? Lichter’s Cassette (2011) was a moment of chance. A moment of opportunity to listen back. How will we listen going forward? Listening to what we need to sustain our day-to-day, isolated. Perhaps we must take this time to write our stories alone, so others can imagine them on their own. Imagining together, while apart, until the next time we meet again.

TOO TAME! (2017) 7:00 min
Rebecca Bloecher, Germany
Seven protagonists stuck inside the box are trapped in their cliches and their recurring daily routine. Their individuality is only an apparent one because far too easy their autonomy can be taken away – even if they gamble with life. But show must go on and money is rolling in.

Bio:
Rebecca Blöcher is a visual artist in the field of animated film and drawing based in Hamburg. She was born 1980 in Bremen and graduated from illustration class at university Hamburg in 2006. Her award-winning films are mixing photography stop-motion with 2D-Animation and have been selected to several international animation and experimental film festivals such as DOK Leipzig Encounters Uppsala Krok Filmfest Dresden Interfilm Kaohsiung Zinebi Bilbao.

TRAINING DOORS (2011) 5:53 min
Jean-Michel Rolland, France
Experimentation on a few different sounds generated by doors, put in relation with the passage of a train. All along the video, the more and more altered sounds respond to the chromatic degradation of the train. Even if the viewer can experience things differently, because of the particular treatment of time and color, the choice of the doors / train duality has no metaphoric origin. It’s just a way to create a new reality out of commonplace moments of everyday life.

Bio:
Jean-Michel Rolland is a French artist born in 1972. A long time a musician and a painter, he brings together his two passions – the sound and the image – in digital arts since 2010. Through video artworks, generative art, audiovisual performances and interactive installations, he questions the temporality, a genuine fourth dimension inherent to moving image, as well as the duality between his two favorite mediums, the sound and the visual.
His formal research is guided by the desire to reveal the intrinsic nature of our perceptual environment and to twist it to better give new realities to the world around us. His works, always very experimental, are a reflection of the sometimes unexpected internal world of their author. They are the object of an important diffusion abroad and several have been rewarded for their originality.

CASSETTE (2011) 10:00 min
Péter Lichter, Hungary
Our last class-trip was at the end of sixth grade in April 1997. After this we did not see each other for years. One of us took a dictaphone with himself on this trip. Recently we have come across the recording by chance.

Bio:
Péter Lichter is a Hungarian experimental filmmaker and writer. He studied film history and film theory at the ELTE University, Budapest. Péter makes found footage abstract films, lyrical documentaries and experimental features since 2002. His films were screened at festivals and venues like: Berlin Critics’ Week; Tribeca Film Festival – New York; Rotterdam IFF; Jihlava IDFF; Torino Film Festival; goEast – Wiesbaden; Cottbus Film Festival; EXiS – Seoul; CROSSROADS – San Francisco; VideoEX – Zurich; Festival of (In)appropriation – Los Angeles; Antimatter – Victoria, Canada; etc. He is also one of the editors of the Prizma film-periodical, his first book on experimental cinema (A láthatatlan birodalom / The Invisible Impire) was published in 2016, since then he wrote four books on film history. Peter frequently collaborates with composer Ádám Márton Horváth, sound designer Péter Benjámin Lukács, producer Dóra Nedeczky and artists, like Loránd Szécsény-Nagy and Bori Máté. His first feature length film (Frozen May) was released in 2017, his second feature The Rub (with Bori Máté) in 2018 and his third (Empty Horses) in 2019.

KL DREAMING (2014) 3:39 min
Andrew Stiff, Malaysia
Using KL locations that are familiar to the filmmaker, a gradual unveiling of the city occurs. Through generated barcodes, (using the graphical programming tool processing), the familiar is rediscovered in new ways, as if visiting KL for the first time.

Bio:
Andrew Stiff’s practice focuses on experimental filmmaking processes that explore the space between urban occupancy and the built environment. Through his studies of urban spaces, he shines a spotlight on the impact of Asian culture on the development of dense and tight urban spaces. The films capture the creation of space through the values of family and community and offer an insight into how cities can develop resilience in the light of urban migration
Andrew Stiff Lecturer at RMIT University Viet Nam, teaching within the School of Communication & Design. He specialises in experimental design and experimental moving image. He studied painting at Chelsea School of Art [now part of the University of the Arts London], and ‘Information Systems and technology’ for his masters degree at University of Liverpool. He has completed a practice based PhD at RMIT University, in the School of Graduate Research: Architecture and Design. The research was titled: ‘Moving Experiences: Video Observations of Ho Chi Minh City’.

ZUGVOGEL (2010) 4:13 min
Andreas Mares, Linz / Austria
A bird crashes against my window pane. This event is the mirror of my own inner journey. where do I stand? Wherever I go? How much time remains?

LULAI (2014) 6:30 min
Lim Chee Yong, Malaysia
This video is about a group of Bajau Laut and Bajau Darat people from Mabul island, off the south-eastern coast of Sabah, East Malaysia. They have no nationality and are unremarkable from world population statistics.

Bio:
LIM Chee-Yong graduated from New Era College in 2008, majoring in Drama and Visuals; and from the National Taiwan University of Art in 2013 in the Motion Picture Department. With the guidance from a few great teachers, Lim is introduced to the wonderful world of film and theater. For the past 6 years, Lim has involved in producing, directing and writing several short films, feature films, experimental films and documentary films.

NIGHT WALK (2011) 9:15 min
Debora Bernagozzi, USA
Bernagozzi recorded a walk at night through a village in rural New York. With intense image processing, uneventful spaces in the journey disappear while other moments happen repeatedly, rupturing time, synthesizing into something new. Jitter was used to split the video into 4 copies playing at different speeds controlled through oscillators. Repeating this process multiple times, feeding the 4 layer footage back through the system and adjusting colors, the number of layers increased exponentially. Night Walk 4 contains 256 layers.

Bio:
“Debora Bernagozzi is a video artist and photographer. She received her BFA in Video from the Atlanta College of Art in 1999 and her MFA in Electronic Integrated Art from Alfred University in 2002. Her work has been exhibited in the US and internationally. She participated in repeated residencies at the Experimental Television Center and was awarded a Regional Artist Access Residency from Squeaky Wheel Media Arts Center. Bernagozzi and her husband were honored to be artists in residence in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in January 2012, co-sponsored by the Kuala Lumpur Experimental Film and Video Festival and Multimedia University.

I’M GOING TO MAKE A CAKE (2010) 3:30min
Chan Seauhuvi, Malaysia
“However, sadness is part of human nature. To let it go… that’s not a bad thing.” (Szymborska)

TOUCH THE MOON (2014) 4:38 min
Phoebe Ching Ying Man, Hong Kong
“Light is the basic element of moving images. I want to find different ways to transform light. The method is kind of sculptural, that is, to treat images as raw material and use addition, subtraction and repetition methods to build and carve the images. It is kind of mathematical and experimental. To create contrast and to add human touch, I also used my hand to transform the images. Subtle feelings were conveyed through touching the “screen”. For me, making videos are a process of discovery and self-exploration. This work also shows Hong Kong culture. It was produced in a small and enclosed space (my bedroom) but it is about a huge place: the moon and the sky. The living environment in Hong Kong is always packed and small. It is very expensive to own a flat in Hong Kong. However, limited space should not limit imagination. We can create our world during isolation and within a small place. The difference between the old and new version is more about with or without background music . More details of this work can be found in this interview on page 64-66 https://issuu.com/stigmart10press/docs/stigmart_videofocus_autumn_2014_-_s

Bio:
Phoebe Ching Ying Man is a multimedia artist, independent curator, and Associate Professor of the School of Creative Media, City University of Hong Kong. She specializes in socially engaged art and community art. Her animations, videos and installations have been shown at over 190 exhibitions and festivals worldwide.

H1001_XTOUCH.Mov (2015) 5:56 min
Chloe Yap Mun Ee & Wee Jia Foong, Malaysia
I made this film when I was 19 or 20 years old. It was an attempt at both documenting and creating a fictional narrative to make sense of my mental state at the time in a sort of video diary form.

Bio:
Chloe Yap Mun Ee is an experimental filmmaker and visual artist who is curious about the expressions of form, medium, identity, love, intimacy, as well as their hypocrisies and contradictions. Her shorts H10001_XTOUCH.MOV (2015), (?)’S GAZE (2016), and STRNGE PLCE (2016) have screened locally and internationally. She has also made smaller works like HOW MY BRAIN MAKES SENSE OF PASSING TIME (2017) and DANCE LIKE A SNAIL (2021). Currently she is working on a video installation confronting her fear and guilt towards the cinema image. She is also sometimes a writer, illustrator; and occasionally does film programming with friends for their independent film club Cinemata Film Collective.

* This event is funded by the International Relief Fund for Organisations in Culture and Education 2021 of the German Federal Foreign Office, the Goethe-Institut and other partners. goethe.de/relieffund

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