EXSCREEN 012: “EXCLUSIVE SCREENING”
This programme consists of 9 experimental shorts from Malaysia, Germany/UK, Hong Kong, Hungary, Thailand and USA. Some of these works will be shown in KLEX 2016, while others are works that have been shown in our previous editions of the festival. There are works that present fragments of everydayness with a touch of political and societal commentaries, poetic and meditative observations, abstract visual and sonic explorations, and creative explorations in narrative and storytelling. Here is a brief overview of video artists and filmmakers’ take on ‘experimentation’ with the moving images from around the world.
List of Works:
ALL ROT (2015)
4:00 min/sound
Max Hattler, UK/Germany/Hong Kong
Responding to the compositional and aesthetic qualities of abstract expressionism and cameraless animation, All Rot uses photographic reanimation to render the mundane environment of a decaying crazy golf course into a rapturous split-screen experiment in synaesthetic cinema.
ALOR SETAR PULSE (2015)
4:55 min/sound
Andrew Stiff, Malaysia
This video is an exploration of hand painted sunblinds in Alor Setar, Kedah. We are naturally drawn to patterns and order, and even disorder that is presented through a structured or ordered space or medium. It is because of this we see the world sequentially, even though events and communication do not happen sequentially. Using the theme of pulse, the motion of the blinds swaying in the evening breeze, is fractured into a series of cut edits that balance nonlinear disorder against the linear order of colour and context.
PAINTING PARADISE (2008)
5:30 min/sound
Barbara Hlali, Germany
Media reports show the wall around the Shiite district in Baghdad being painted with beautiful landscapes: aesthetic designs are used to cover military measures and the effects of war. In this film, Barbara Hlali applies a similar technique with regard to the overall situation by painting over this TV footage with a layer of gouache. The act of painting unmasks the painted-over situation, demonstrating how the war constantly comes to the fore below the surface of sugar-coating.
16 X 9 CAPSULE (2014)
6:40 min/sound
Wuttin Chansataboot, Thailand
“16×9 Capsule” shows vignettes of incidents and situations taking place at different locations around Bangkok. The artist uses the camera to capture trivial moments in an ordinary day and crucial incident in political history of Thailand. Chansataboot intends to express a Buddhist concept, saying that everything keeps rising, standing and then cessation.
NO SIGNAL DETECTED (2014)
3:00 min/sound
Péter Lichter, Hungary
Rhythmical combat of digital and chemical decay.
NIGHT WITHOUT LIGHT (2015)
4:22 min/sound
Safwan Salleh, Malaysia
The film shows the life of a working class student who likes to make Cara cakes in the midnight, accompanied by his friends. In their humble house, these youngsters find fun, warmth and support with the company of each other. In this family-like atmosphere, they can forget about the tough reality of life for a while, at least before the sun rises!
DANCING EYE (2015)
6:00 min/sound
Eric Lee Ka Yin, Hong Kong
Hong Kong is a stressful city. Not only adults but kids also need a way out, so they turn to mundane objects and happenings to find happiness and relieve. A little girl is indulged in her imagined little gymnastic companion that lightens up her daily life, but a childish fantasy is always fragile. And often, it is destroyed by adults’ dull and unimaginative minds.
THE LIGHT OF MEMORY (2014)
8:50 min/sound
Winston Liew Kher-Cheng, Malaysia
A memory of the artist’s late grandfather, that has a special place deep down in his heart. Grandfather is no longer here, only light brings him back to the present. Far away, yet so close!
MEMORY AND RITUAL IN FRAME DIFFERENCE (2012)
8:40 min/sound
Jason Bernagozzi, USA
This work meditates on the complex relationships between ritual and public space at the Batu Caves in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, a space shared by both devout Hindus and tourists. The film utilises a technique that highlights the transitional element between multiple frames, enabling electronic insights of the body vernacular as it unfolds within mediated time.
EXSCREEN 011: “PORTRAIT”
ISKARNIVAL 2016: IP KREATIF
Presenter & Curator: Kok Siew Wai
Date: Sunday, 2-3:30pm, 18th September 2016
This screening programme consists of a collection of experimental shorts from the KLEX archive made by artists from or based in Asia. The theme of the screening is “Portrait” where artists share their personal observation, description and experience of a place, a person, or a state of mind. The styles of works ranges from abstract sonic and visual explorations, experimental narrative and documentary, to stop-motion animation and performance art video. The works are from Malaysia, China, Japan, Singapore, Thailand, and a couple of cross-regional works.
Total Run Time: 55 minutes
List of Works:
Alor Setar Pulse (2015)
4:55 min
Andrew Stiff, UK/Malaysia
This video is an exploration of hand painted sunblinds in Alor Setar, Kedah. We are naturally drawn to patterns and order, and even disorder that is presented through a structured or ordered space or medium. It is because of this we see the world sequentially, even though events and communication do not happen sequentially. Using the theme of pulse, the motion of the blinds swaying in the evening breeze, is fractured into a series of cut edits that balance nonlinear disorder against the linear order of colour and context.
16 x 9 Capsule (2014)
6:40 min
Wuttin Chansataboot, Thailand
“16×9 Capsule” shows vignettes of incidents and situations taking place at different locations around Bangkok. The artist uses the camera to capture trivial moments in an ordinary day and crucial incident in political history of Thailand. Chansataboot intends to express a Buddhist concept, saying that everything keeps rising, standing and then cessation.
The Song of Life (2015)
6:40 min
Winston Liew Kher Cheng, Malaysia
In an abandoned place where a family calls it home, they have left a trace. As time passes by, a song of their life is heard.
OMAKAGE [Remains] (2010)
6:00min, Maki Satake
My grandfather who was a photographer died about ten years ago. He left many forgotten photographs when I was a child.
WORMHOLE (2013)
3:35 min
YEO Siew-Hua, Nelson YEO, YANG Vicki & Adeline Setiawan, Singapore
The earthworm is a tunnel with openings on each end where the Earth is consumed and excreted. Shot in a tunnel where the now defunct KTM railway – the tracks that once connected Singapore and Malaysia. Wormhole is a penetrating meditation on Man and orifices.
H1001_XTOUCH.MOV (2015)
Chloe Yap Mun Ee & Wee Jia Foong, 5:56 min, Malaysia
A girl documenting a mental battle within herself. She’s trying to make a film about it.
Pressure III (2013)
2:15min
Rui Wang, China
It has always been a struggle trying to make my way through life. The unforeseeable future, changing environment, financial instability, and precarious relationships I hold seem to plague my mind at all times. The anxiety these issues cause build an emotional pressure inside of me. The video presented is an physical interpretation of this invisible pressure and the release I crave.
Semalu (2013)
18:40 min
Jimmy HENDRICKX, Belgium/Malaysia
“Semalu” means sensitive plant in Malay. The film is a cinematic portrait of the children of Cheras, a suburb in Kuala Lumpur, where it has been in a transitional period of modernization for years. With its stunning visuals and meditative rhythm, the sympathetic filmmaker attempts to seek for beauty and spirituality in this unlikely urban area covered with waste and construction sites, trying to seek for a playground and a peaceful place for these urban children.
ExScreen 010
KLEX Experimental Video Screening: “Sound & Image”
Date & Time: Saturday, 20 August 2016, 4pm @ Findars
This screening programme consists of 12 experimental shorts from the KLEX festival archive that display a prominent use of sound and music. There are various styles and approaches including animation, graphics, ‘home video’, experimental documentation and music videos. The works are from Malaysia, Thailand, Japan, Taiwan, Brazil, France, Germany, Poland and UK.
Total Run Time: 56 minutes
LIST OF WORKS:
Kinefaktura (2012)
3:15 min, Marcin Gizycici, Poland
Three animated variations on Henryk Berlewi’s ‘Mechanofaktura. Dynamic Contrasts’ of 1924 based on some hints given by the artist himself. Berlewi was a Polish constructivist who invented his own kind of geometrical abstract art in the 1920s and called it ‘Mechanofaktura.’
Shift (2012)
3:15 min, Max Hattler, UK
“…an attempt to visualise higher dimensions and unearthliness, taking into account these concepts’ heightened awareness when attempting to process or predict the end of the world…”
Snail Trail (2012)
3:00 min, Philipp Artus, Germany
Pain is slowed down in slow motion up to the sensitivity threshold and is sold as an everyday anesthetic. We browse through ready-made catalogues of horror, instructions for use, we order attractive ideas-images; we wish to leave our bodies and become that image for a change. Watching a film, we forget about ourselves pretending not to be interested in the content; in fact, we are interested in the hypnotising, pulsating light, which is when we discover our magical and tribal conscience and repressed fear of life.
Training Doors (2011)
5:53 min, Jean-Michael 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.
Drink Sky On Rabbit’s Field – Lost Control (2013)
6:55 min, Arnont Nongyao, Thailand
All things can always links to the rational and the irrational. Thailand, May 22, 2014.
Mist (2012)
3:50 min WONG Eng Leong, Malaysia
A nation that is seemingly well-developed and peaceful, shattered by a mere demonstration of the people’s will. When those in power fail to address the rights of the people, should the people not contemplate and decide for our future?
Alor Setar Pulse (2015)
4:55 min Andrew Stiff, Malaysia/UK
This video is an exploration of hand painted sunblinds in Alor Setar, Kedah. We are naturally drawn to patterns and order, and even disorder that is presented through a structured or ordered space or medium. It is because of this we see the world sequentially, even though events and communication do not happen sequentially. Using the theme of pulse, the motion of the blinds swaying in the evening breeze, is fractured into a series of cut edits that balance nonlinear disorder against the linear order of colour and context.
KHUCHITHESIZER (2014)
4:45 min, Kezzardrix and dj sniff, Japan
The musical composition was made from extracting various voice samples from Japanese vocal performer Makigami Koichi. These sound generated through extended vocal techniques were manipulated through the turntable and with various analog filters. The image was made through custom software tools built with Jitter and Openframeworks. Most imagery is generated live, reacting to sonic characteristics of the original composition.
Music Works – SW2 @ Deep Listening Space (2005)
5:20 min, Koji Tambata, Japan
The video footage was from my video-music performance entitled ‘The Movement – Another Name of Music’ featuring Malaysian vocal improviser, Kok Siew-Wai, at Deep Listening Space, Kingston, New York in 2002. Siew-Wai performed while I did live video shooting during her performance and it was projected live. The movement called “music” is between breaths and sounds swinging between strength and weakness. Contemplation is, in a way, a deep state of repetition. (Tambata)
Decadence of Nature (2014)
7:00 min, Olga Guse, Germany
Earth pollution is increasing at alarming speed. Fantastic creatures, animals-people try to survive in the new conditions. On the one hand, they suffer from pollution, on the other they continue to sail on the waves of the consumer society.
Un Dia [One Day] (2014)
1:50 min, Leo Uehara, Brazil
An animation inspired by Juana Molina’s song “Un dia”. All the elements on the video represent a sound and move along the music in sync with the beat. The aim was to represent visual music. The graphics are inspired by the work of Wassily Kandinsky and Joan Miro.
“Hail the Bodhisattva of Collected Junk” (2015)
6:15 min, Ye Mimi, Taiwan
This experimental music video is based on a poem that both satirizes and celebrates local culture in Taiwan. “Hail the Bodhisattva of Collected Junk,” the title of both the song and the poem, is a play on the Buddhist phrase “Hail the Bodhisattva Guanyin, the Goddess of Mercy.” The poem refers to local junk vendors, who repeatedly call out “sell them to me” as they walk from neighborhood to neighborhood looking for unwanted household items, typically scrap metal, tools and electronics.
ExScreen 009
KLEX Experimental Shorts: “Spaces and Places”
Venue: New Era University College
Date: 14 July, 2016
The programme consists of experimental videos and animation selected from the KLEX archive between years 2013-2015. It includes works from Malaysia, Canada, Japan, Poland and USA where several works are cross-regional. The programme aims to give an overview of experimental works in various styles and approaches from makers with different cultural backgrounds and perspectives. The selected works explore themes such as “spaces and places”, be it a physical, psychological or a personal one. Although much of our interpretation and feelings towards a place are based on personal experience, we cannot deny that certain architectural and landscape structures do affect the human experience. At times, an imaginary and surreal place in the human mind is as real as the physical one.
Total Run Time: 72 minutes
List of Works:
AVA ‘N GARDE (2014)
Bogna Warszawa, 6:30 min, Poland
A humourous video for the Polish rapper SinSen touching on the subject of “avant-garde”.
*Award: 1st Award (“Golden Sack”) in the category “animated music video” in O!PLA Across The Borders, a Polish animation festival.
KHUCHITHESIZER (2014)
Kezzardrix and dj sniff, 4:45 min, Japan
The musical composition was made from extracting various voice samples from Japanese vocal performer Makigami Koichi. These sound generated through extended vocal techniques were manipulated through the turntable and with various analog filters. The image was made through custom software tools built with Jitter and Openframeworks. Most imagery is generated live, reacting to sonic characteristics of the original composition.
JOHN CAGE-HALBERSTADT (2013)
Pierre Hébert, 10:50 min, Canada
Through a combination of live shooting, digital processing, and animation, “John Cage— Halberstadt” expresses the temporal vertigo generated by the rendering of John Cage’s piece “Organ2/ASLSP” over a period of 639 years. The images were shot at the 12th change of note, on July 5, 2012, in the Burchardt Church in Halberstadt, Germany.
THE BLUE ROOM (2014)
Tomasz Siwiński, 14:30 min, Poland
Extremely evocative study of the human mind in the state of clinical death.
*Award: 1st Award (“Golden Sack”) in the category “film made in professional studio” in O!PLA Across The Borders, a Polish animation festival.
H1001_XTOUCH.MOV (2015)
Chloe Yap Mun Ee & Wee Jia Foong, 5:56 min, Malaysia
A girl documenting a mental battle within herself. She’s trying to make a film about it.
THE SONG OF LIFE (2015)
6:40 min/sound
Winston LIEW Kher Cheng, Malaysia
In an abandoned place where a family calls it home, they have left a trace. As time passes by, a song of their life is heard.
BRUTALISM (2014)
Jessica Poon, 2:45 min, USA/France/Italy
An animation made to mock the cold, brutal and inhumane political and social world. Through history, architecture has been used as an ideological state apparatus, with its designs and forms, empowered by hypnotizing effects. The rupturing of the Classical, which reflects much more of the individual’s personal and aesthetic influence, and replacing by designs of the Modernist and Brutalist, implies the eradication of personal expressions, defeated by coldness and indifference. Such architectural evolution is compared to the evolution of the art of communication among human beings.
SEMALU (2013)
Jimmy Hendrickx, 19:40 min, Malaysia/Belgium
Semalu which means Sensitive plant in Malay, is a cinematic portrait of the children of Cheras, a suburb in Kuala Lumpur. A place in the middle of a transitional period of modernization. Between a noisy landscape of construction works, we see the young generation growing up. The ancestors of these children did not grew up here, they moved to Cheras to build a new future. 30 years ago this territory was still jungle and swamp. Far away from the jungle this new urban area will be the kids’ new playground. Here they have to look after themselves and find a spiritual meaning at a construction site.
ExScreen 008: KLEX Experimental Shorts
@ Content Malaysia Pitching Centre
KLEX was invited to present ExScreen 008 at the Content Malaysia Pitching Centre on 17 June 2015, an event co-hosted by Kelab Seni Filem Malaysia (Malaysian Film Appreciation Club) and Next New Wave. The programme was co-curated by Kok Siew-Wai and Chloe Yap Mun Ee.
“SPACES AND PLACES”
The programme consists of experimental videos and animation selected from the KLEX archive between years 2013-2015. It includes works from Malaysia, Canada, Japan, Poland and USA where several works are cross-regional. The programme aims to give an overview of experimental works in various styles and approaches from makers with different cultural backgrounds and perspectives. The selected works explore themes such as “spaces and places”, be it a physical, psychological or a personal one. Although much of our interpretation and feelings towards a place are based on personal experience, we cannot deny that certain architectural and landscape structures do affect the human experience. At times, an imaginary and surreal place in the human mind is as real as the physical one.
https://www.facebook.com/events/231314283911166/
Total Run Time: 65 minutes
List of Works:
AVA ‘N GARDE
Bogna Warszawa, 6:30 min, 2014, Poland
A humourous video for the Polish rapper SinSen touching on the subject of “avant-garde”.
*Award: 1st Award (“Golden Sack”) in the category “animated music video” in O!PLA Across The Borders, a Polish animation festival.
KHUCHITHESIZER
Kezzardrix and dj sniff, 4:45 min, 2014, Japan
The musical composition was made from extracting various voice samples from Japanese vocal performer Makigami Koichi. These sound generated through extended vocal techniques were manipulated through the turntable and with various analog filters. The image was made through custom software tools built with Jitter and Openframeworks. Most imagery is generated live, reacting to sonic characteristics of the original composition.
JOHN CAGE-HALBERSTADT
Pierre Hébert, 10:50 min, 2013, Canada
Through a combination of live shooting, digital processing, and animation, “John Cage— Halberstadt” expresses the temporal vertigo generated by the rendering of John Cage’s piece “Organ2/ASLSP” over a period of 639 years. The images were shot at the 12th change of note, on July 5, 2012, in the Burchardt Church in Halberstadt, Germany.
THE BLUE ROOM
Tomasz Siwiński, 14:30 min, 2014, Poland
Extremely evocative study of the human mind in the state of clinical death.
*Award: 1st Award (“Golden Sack”) in the category “film made in professional studio” in O!PLA Across The Borders, a Polish animation festival.
H1001_XTOUCH.MOV
Chloe Yap Mun Ee & Wee Jia Foong, 5:56 min, 2015, Malaysia
A girl documenting a mental battle within herself. She’s trying to make a film about it.
BRUTALISM
Jessica Poon, 2:45 min, USA/France/Italy
An animation made to mock the cold, brutal and inhumane political and social world. Through history, architecture has been used as an ideological state apparatus, with its designs and forms, empowered by hypnotizing effects. The rupturing of the Classical, which reflects much more of the individual’s personal and aesthetic influence, and replacing by designs of the Modernist and Brutalist, implies the eradication of personal expressions, defeated by coldness and indifference. Such architectural evolution is compared to the evolution of the art of communication among human beings.
SEMALU
Jimmy Hendrickx, 19:40 min, Malaysia/Belgium
Semalu which means Sensitive plant in Malay, is a cinematic portrait of the children of Cheras, a suburb in Kuala Lumpur. A place in the middle of a transitional period of modernization. Between a noisy landscape of construction works, we see the young generation growing up. The ancestors of these children did not grew up here, they moved to Cheras to build a new future. 30 years ago this territory was still jungle and swamp. Far away from the jungle this new urban area will be the kids’ new playground. Here they have to look after themselves and find a spiritual meaning at a construction site.
ABOUT THE CURATORS:
Chloe Yap Mun Ee is a final year student in the Faculty of Cinematic Arts at Multimedia University Nusajaya Campus, Malaysia and currently finishing her internship at Da Huang Pictures. An aspiring filmmaker and video artist, who currently experiments with the film and video medium to tackle bold, unconventional subjects. Also currently interested in exploring the emerging ways of storytelling. She believes in film and emerging ways of storytelling as mediums of ultimate stimulation, which can tell powerful stories that can create edgy unorthodox experiences and provoke thought. Managed to win some small local awards for her films and this is her first time co-curating a film programme.
Kok Siew Wai started out as a video artist, now more active as a vocal improviser and independent artist-organizer. She lived in USA from 1998 to 2005, and received her B.A. at University at Buffalo (SUNY), and M.F.A. at Alfred University. Siew Wai has shown her videos and curated film programmes, and performed in Asia, Europe, Canada and USA. She has participated in festivals such as ARKIPEL Jakarta International Documentary and Experimental Film Festival, Bangkok Experimental Film Festival, International Film Festival Rotterdam, Beyond/In Western New York Biennial, RRRec Music Festival (Indonesia), Choppa Experimental & Improvised Music Festival (Singapore), Asian Meeting Festival (Japan) and many more. She is the co-founder, co-curator and festival director of the Kuala Lumpur Experimental Film, Video & Music Festival (KLEX).