Happy Lunar New Year from KLEX! Hope you develop exceptional strength and courage in the year of Tiger! And most importantly, please stay healthy and keep safe! We’ll be holding our short film screening series, ExScreen 020, our short film screening series, on Saturday, 5 March, 2:30PM @ The Percussion Store. Featuring 10 experimental shorts from our festival archive by Andrew Stiff, Chew Win Chen, Kamal Sabran, Lim Chee Yong, Mattias Harenstam, Phoebe Ching Ying Man, Rita Figueiredo, Safwan Salleh, Tan Peng Yueh and Yiotis Vrantzas.
Date & Time: Saturday, 5 March 2022 @ 2:30PM
Venue: The Percussion Store
Add: No. 6, 2nd Floor, Jalan Panggong, 50000 Kuala Lumpur.
Admission by donation as you like!
Please call to reserve a seat: 019 770 2498
Facebook event: https://fb.me/e/dJLLWhiVc
Streaming link: https://youtu.be/CRYyFe4vzto
Venue: The Percussion Store
Add: No. 6, 2nd Floor, Jalan Panggong, 50000 Kuala Lumpur.
Admission by donation as you like!
Please call to reserve a seat: 019 770 2498
Facebook event: https://fb.me/e/dJLLWhiVc
Streaming link: https://youtu.be/CRYyFe4vzto
(Opened from 10 March 2022, 8pm until 12 March 2022, 10pm)
Design: Choo Ai Xin
* 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.
* 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
*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.
ExScreen 020: “HOME”
Programmer: Chris Chong Chan Fui
Programmer: Chris Chong Chan Fui
The home has become the centre point of our lives since the beginning of the pandemic. It is our restaurant, our gym, our nightclub, and our resting space. The home has become static. Singular, in place. A repetitive lifestyle that is reflected in Harenstam’s Closed Ciruit (2011), where the loop peels back something perhaps more ominous behind the hearth. In closer inspection, the home can also be a deception as in Man’s Home Sweet Home (2012). A series of layers in the promotion of new homes, aspirational homes, and homes in reality. Does the home live within us or does it require four walls and a contract? As we move further and further into our own minds, without social discourse, we look for safe spaces in whispers or more concretely, the structure of poems. Words speaking truth to isolation and protection in one’s home. Perhaps even words, spoken over a phone call, as in Vrantzas’s Phone Call from Cairo(2012), become testaments of the real world on the ground. A translation of what’s happening in a neighbourhood as interpreted by two friends over the phone. Does their conversation reveal a truth of the reality or a prediction of what’s to come? Or perhaps animals are the more appropriate truth sayers of how we live such as those portrayed in Yong’s Cage (2012). A muddied confine, caged, by simple walls and a gate, offers a brutal allegory. In the end, the emotion of the home is set forth by the motion of a train. Salleh’s newest film, Kemubu (2020), remembers his childhood past in relation to the train’s movements towards his way home. In a single moment, his memories of home, past and present, suddenly converge at the same time.
List of Works:
CLOSED CIRCUIT (In the middle of Sweden) (2011) 3:09 min
Mattias Harenstam, Germany
The video shows a quiet residential street somewhere in Sweden. The constantly moving camera travels down the street, into a large pothole at the end, is “swallowed” by a huge chewing mouth and turns up on the same street again. This time the street is darker and the sky red. The camera goes down the street again, down the same pothole that this time leads to a giant intestine, which “we” are passed through until we are back on the street from the beginning and the loop starts over.
BIO
Mattias Härenstam is a Swedish-Norwegian artist based in Oslo. He works primarily with sculpture/installation, printmaking and film/video. A recurring theme is a sense of something that is lurking just under the surface or the chaos that pushes through the cracks of the perfect facade.
His work has been shown in numerous exhibitions and festivals around the world.
Mattias Harenstam, Germany
The video shows a quiet residential street somewhere in Sweden. The constantly moving camera travels down the street, into a large pothole at the end, is “swallowed” by a huge chewing mouth and turns up on the same street again. This time the street is darker and the sky red. The camera goes down the street again, down the same pothole that this time leads to a giant intestine, which “we” are passed through until we are back on the street from the beginning and the loop starts over.
BIO
Mattias Härenstam is a Swedish-Norwegian artist based in Oslo. He works primarily with sculpture/installation, printmaking and film/video. A recurring theme is a sense of something that is lurking just under the surface or the chaos that pushes through the cracks of the perfect facade.
His work has been shown in numerous exhibitions and festivals around the world.
PULSE (2015) 6:56 min
Tan Peng Yueh, Malaysia
“This world is connected with everything we had named them or without. Bright and beautiful city lights tell us that the city is alive and breathing in its own pace…. We, human entity, are pulses of the city.”
BIO
Tan is a digital illustrator/concept artist in computer games.
Tan Peng Yueh, Malaysia
“This world is connected with everything we had named them or without. Bright and beautiful city lights tell us that the city is alive and breathing in its own pace…. We, human entity, are pulses of the city.”
BIO
Tan is a digital illustrator/concept artist in computer games.
HOME SWEET HOME (2012) 2:39 min
Phoebe Man, Hong Kong
Video “Home Sweet Home” is about deframing our lives and responded to the issue of Hong Kong’s housing problem. Phoebe mixed some real estate promotional videos, photos reflecting the real living environment in Hong Kong as well as *scintillating grid illusion in the work to highlight the illusion created by real estate T V commercials. The images are like cages at the same time. Many people walk into these traps voluntarily. The video reflects the reality and also questions if there are other choices in life.
*The scintillating grid illusion is a classic optical illusion. When you look at it, for a while, you can see dark dots that seem to be jumping around at random intersections.
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.
Phoebe Man, Hong Kong
Video “Home Sweet Home” is about deframing our lives and responded to the issue of Hong Kong’s housing problem. Phoebe mixed some real estate promotional videos, photos reflecting the real living environment in Hong Kong as well as *scintillating grid illusion in the work to highlight the illusion created by real estate T V commercials. The images are like cages at the same time. Many people walk into these traps voluntarily. The video reflects the reality and also questions if there are other choices in life.
*The scintillating grid illusion is a classic optical illusion. When you look at it, for a while, you can see dark dots that seem to be jumping around at random intersections.
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.
DI BAWAH BINTANG MEGERTIP (2010) 3:00 min
Kamal Sabran, Malaysia
Di Bawah Bintang Mengerdip is a collaboration project between the musical ensemble Space Gambus Experiment with A. Samad Said, a national poet Laurette. The inspiration for this poem (as titled) was derived from unfortunate living stories that Mr. Said heard from some dancer friends. He was deeply touched by their stories and wrote this poem in 1960. The recital of the poem was recorded live featuring voice by the poet.
BIO
Kamal Sabran is a Malaysian artist-academic-researcher. He received his PhD in Art and Design (New Media) from Universiti Teknologi MARA. His work is interdisciplinary and exists at the intersections of art, science, and technology. His work focuses on art-based interventions for health and well-being. Experimental music, performance art, and electronic installations are among his artistic endeavors. Kamal’s work is collaborative, and he frequently seeks collaborations with other artists, musicians, researchers, and scientists. He received the Malaysian National Art Gallery’s “Best New Media Artist Award” for Young and Contemporary in 2004, as well as the “Best NOKIA Music Video Director” award in 2005. In 2005, he was Artist-in-Residence at the Malaysian National Space Agency, and in 2015, he was invited to participate in the visiting artist programme at the 18th Street Art Center in Santa Monica, California. He is also the founder of the “Space Gambus Experiment,” an experimental music/sound art collective, and the Ipoh Experimental Art School, a creative space focusing on producing experimental art projects.
Kamal Sabran, Malaysia
Di Bawah Bintang Mengerdip is a collaboration project between the musical ensemble Space Gambus Experiment with A. Samad Said, a national poet Laurette. The inspiration for this poem (as titled) was derived from unfortunate living stories that Mr. Said heard from some dancer friends. He was deeply touched by their stories and wrote this poem in 1960. The recital of the poem was recorded live featuring voice by the poet.
BIO
Kamal Sabran is a Malaysian artist-academic-researcher. He received his PhD in Art and Design (New Media) from Universiti Teknologi MARA. His work is interdisciplinary and exists at the intersections of art, science, and technology. His work focuses on art-based interventions for health and well-being. Experimental music, performance art, and electronic installations are among his artistic endeavors. Kamal’s work is collaborative, and he frequently seeks collaborations with other artists, musicians, researchers, and scientists. He received the Malaysian National Art Gallery’s “Best New Media Artist Award” for Young and Contemporary in 2004, as well as the “Best NOKIA Music Video Director” award in 2005. In 2005, he was Artist-in-Residence at the Malaysian National Space Agency, and in 2015, he was invited to participate in the visiting artist programme at the 18th Street Art Center in Santa Monica, California. He is also the founder of the “Space Gambus Experiment,” an experimental music/sound art collective, and the Ipoh Experimental Art School, a creative space focusing on producing experimental art projects.
KAMPUNG HAKKA (2014) 5:30 min
Andrew Stiff, Malaysia
In 2013, a local developer started bulldozing a part of Mantin Town, in Negeri Sembilan, Malaysia. Within minutes there was a huge gathering of local residents. They were trying to stop the destruction of the heart of Mantin, an area called Kampung Hakka [Hakka Village]. This are of Mantin is over one hundred years old. It is a traditional area built from wood. The area has a very special quality. This film captures the spirit of the protest and also the quality of the kampung, that is still lived in; for now.
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’.
Andrew Stiff, Malaysia
In 2013, a local developer started bulldozing a part of Mantin Town, in Negeri Sembilan, Malaysia. Within minutes there was a huge gathering of local residents. They were trying to stop the destruction of the heart of Mantin, an area called Kampung Hakka [Hakka Village]. This are of Mantin is over one hundred years old. It is a traditional area built from wood. The area has a very special quality. This film captures the spirit of the protest and also the quality of the kampung, that is still lived in; for now.
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’.
PHONE CALL FROM CAIRO (2012) 4:55 min
Yiotis Vrantzas, Greece
“Phone Call from Cairo” is made by material shot in Cairo one year before the Tahrir rebellion using a small photo camera. Although the situation in Egypt did not seem to be good, my friend used to believe that the Egyptian people was far from revolting. After two years I had to make this phone call to my friend and face the challenge to compose my pictures from Cairo.
BIO
I have studied new media and documentary production at the «ΙRIS audiovisual lab» and I have been working as a Director, Editor, 2D and 3D animator and cinematographer since 2004. I founded Macine Motion Pictures Productions (www.macine.gr) in 2011 and I work on production activities of films, documentaries, commercial and educational videos and ΤV programs. My involvement with music, painting, sculpture, comics, photography and street theater helps me to deepen and understand better the art of cinema. My films have been awarded in national and international competitions.
Yiotis Vrantzas, Greece
“Phone Call from Cairo” is made by material shot in Cairo one year before the Tahrir rebellion using a small photo camera. Although the situation in Egypt did not seem to be good, my friend used to believe that the Egyptian people was far from revolting. After two years I had to make this phone call to my friend and face the challenge to compose my pictures from Cairo.
BIO
I have studied new media and documentary production at the «ΙRIS audiovisual lab» and I have been working as a Director, Editor, 2D and 3D animator and cinematographer since 2004. I founded Macine Motion Pictures Productions (www.macine.gr) in 2011 and I work on production activities of films, documentaries, commercial and educational videos and ΤV programs. My involvement with music, painting, sculpture, comics, photography and street theater helps me to deepen and understand better the art of cinema. My films have been awarded in national and international competitions.
CAGE (2012) 9:44 min
Lim Chee Yong, Malaysia
To illustrate the trapped condition, there are some pigs have been caged just by two walls and a gate. Each of us is often trapped in our blind spots, someone is pursuing money, love, and materials in their whole life, but we never really think of what is more important compare to those things. Time flies, when we are old, what would be the outcome if we never change our thought. Maybe I would like those pigs, whose are so eager to be run away from the system of society. Nevertheless, every pent-up emotions need to have a solution.
Lim Chee Yong, Malaysia
To illustrate the trapped condition, there are some pigs have been caged just by two walls and a gate. Each of us is often trapped in our blind spots, someone is pursuing money, love, and materials in their whole life, but we never really think of what is more important compare to those things. Time flies, when we are old, what would be the outcome if we never change our thought. Maybe I would like those pigs, whose are so eager to be run away from the system of society. Nevertheless, every pent-up emotions need to have a solution.
SILENT OF TWO SOUND (2011) 14:30 min
Rita Figueiredo, Czech Republic
A secret story is stored in a reel tape, which is unfolded by a mother to her child, inside an organic house which commands the characters. Two babies sleep while hearing the story; however, their world of dreams casts other mysteries deeper than those of our own.
Rita Figueiredo, Czech Republic
A secret story is stored in a reel tape, which is unfolded by a mother to her child, inside an organic house which commands the characters. Two babies sleep while hearing the story; however, their world of dreams casts other mysteries deeper than those of our own.
CHINESE WHISPERS (2018) 4:52 min
Chew Win Chen, Malaysia
“天頂一粒星，地下開书斋”, (“A star in the sky, and a school beneath it”) is a children rhyme in Teochew, a Chinese dialect, that the artist vividly recalls from her late grandmother. Dialects are usually spoken among family members, but not an official language that would be taught at schools. In the video, the rhyme is recited by the artist’s cousin aunt who is in her 70s, the artist’s father in his 60s, and finally the artist herself in her 20s. According to the family, there are various versions of the rhymes, but it always starts with this same first line, “A star in the sky, and a school beneath it…”.
BIO:
Chew Win Chen aka Okui Lala (b. 1991) is an artist and cultural worker based in Kuala Lumpur and Penang, Malaysia. Her practice spans from video, performance to public engagement. Okui‘s work explores themes of diaspora and belonging through the performances of domestic acts or vocational labour, such as sewing, cooking, conversing and building. Past presentations include shows at Singapore Biennale (2019), Festival/ Tokyo (Japan, 2019) , Yamaguchi Art Centre for Arts and Media (Japan, 2019), Para Site (Hong Kong, 2018) and National Art Gallery (Malaysia, 2017) . Aside from teaching multimedia subjects at Malaysian Institute of Art, Okui also facilitates visual workshop (photography and video) with NPO such as Arts-Ed (Penang) and Kuriya (Japan) that works with placed-based education and different communities. Okui was a recipient of the 2017 Japan Foundation Asia Centre Fellowship Grant for her research on migration, mobilities and identities in Myanmar and Japan.
Chew Win Chen, Malaysia
“天頂一粒星，地下開书斋”, (“A star in the sky, and a school beneath it”) is a children rhyme in Teochew, a Chinese dialect, that the artist vividly recalls from her late grandmother. Dialects are usually spoken among family members, but not an official language that would be taught at schools. In the video, the rhyme is recited by the artist’s cousin aunt who is in her 70s, the artist’s father in his 60s, and finally the artist herself in her 20s. According to the family, there are various versions of the rhymes, but it always starts with this same first line, “A star in the sky, and a school beneath it…”.
BIO:
Chew Win Chen aka Okui Lala (b. 1991) is an artist and cultural worker based in Kuala Lumpur and Penang, Malaysia. Her practice spans from video, performance to public engagement. Okui‘s work explores themes of diaspora and belonging through the performances of domestic acts or vocational labour, such as sewing, cooking, conversing and building. Past presentations include shows at Singapore Biennale (2019), Festival/ Tokyo (Japan, 2019) , Yamaguchi Art Centre for Arts and Media (Japan, 2019), Para Site (Hong Kong, 2018) and National Art Gallery (Malaysia, 2017) . Aside from teaching multimedia subjects at Malaysian Institute of Art, Okui also facilitates visual workshop (photography and video) with NPO such as Arts-Ed (Penang) and Kuriya (Japan) that works with placed-based education and different communities. Okui was a recipient of the 2017 Japan Foundation Asia Centre Fellowship Grant for her research on migration, mobilities and identities in Myanmar and Japan.
KEMUBU (2020) 4:19 min
Safwan Salleh, Malaysia
Consisting of random train trip footages from Safwan’s collection. This is a trip down memory lane for Safwan as he details his childhood memories, along with the changes in landscape that he observed along the way.
BIO:
Safwan Salleh Born and bred in Kelantan, Malaysia. He loves to discover unusual things for self satisfaction, he translates his own experiences into an art form to be shared to others in a myriad of ways. In other words, do share your stories with him.
Safwan Salleh, Malaysia
Consisting of random train trip footages from Safwan’s collection. This is a trip down memory lane for Safwan as he details his childhood memories, along with the changes in landscape that he observed along the way.
BIO:
Safwan Salleh Born and bred in Kelantan, Malaysia. He loves to discover unusual things for self satisfaction, he translates his own experiences into an art form to be shared to others in a myriad of ways. In other words, do share your stories with him.
* 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
More info:
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