Anémic Cinéma by Bento 17

Stereobild#5
Projection of the vanguardist shortfilms Anémic Cinéma, Le Ballet Mécanique, Entr'acte and Ghosts before Breakfast, with live music by Bento 17 (Soundscape / Keyboard /Sampler / Theremin).

Program shortfilms
Anémic Cinéma
Anémic Cinéma (1926) is an experimental film made by Marcel Duchamp. The film depicts whirling animated drawings -- which Duchamp called Rotoreliefs -- alternated with puns in French. Duchamp signed the film with his alter ego name of Rrose Sélavy. Rotoreliefs were a phase of Duchamp's spinning works. To make the optical "play toys" he painted designs on flat cardboard circles and spun them on a phonograph turntable that when spinning the flat disks appeared 3-dimensional. He had a printer run off 500 sets of six of the designs and set up a booth at a 1935 Paris inventors' show to sell them. The venture was a financial disaster, but some optical scientists thought they might be of use in restoring 3-dimensional sight to people with one eye. [1] (Animated display of the Rotoreliefs). In collaboration with Man Ray and Marc Allégret, Duchamp filmed early versions of the Rotoreliefs and they named the first film version Anémic Cinéma.

Le Ballet Mécanique
Le Ballet Mécanique (1924) was a project by the American composer George Antheil and the filmmaker/artist Fernand Léger. Le Ballet Mécanique was originally written to accompany a Dadaist film of the same name, directed by Dudley Murphy and Fernand Léger, with cinematography by Man Ray. Antheil himself was not a Dadaist, though he had many friends and supporters in that community. Unfortunately, the score ended up being between 20 and 30 minutes long while the film was only 16 minutes long.
In concert performance, the "ballet" is not a show of human dancers but of mechanical instruments. Among these, player pianos, airplane propellers, and electric bells stand prominently onstage, moving as machines do, and providing the visual side of the ballet. As the bizarre instrumentation may suggest, this was no ordinary piece of music. It was loud and percussive –- a medley of noises, much as the Italian Futurists envisioned new music of the 20th century. To explore a fascinating artifact of modernist music like Le Ballet Mécanique, it is worth understanding its history and also its musical qualities.

Entr'acte
Entr'acte (1924) is a short film directed by René Clair, which premiered as an entr'acte for the Ballets Suédois production Relâche at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris. Relâche is based on a book and with settings by Francis Picabia, produced by Rolf de Maré, and with choreography by Jean Börlin. The music for both the ballet and the film was composed by Erik Satie. For this production, the Dadaists collaborating on the project invented a new mode of production: instantanéisme. The complete film takes about 20 minutes using such techniques as watching people run in slow motion, watching things happen in reverse, looking at a ballet dancer from underneath, watching an egg over a fountain of water get shot and instantly become a bird and watching people disappear. The cast included cameo appearances by Francis Picabia, Erik Satie, Man Ray, and Marcel Duchamp.

Ghosts Before Breakfast
Hans Richter created the film Ghosts before Breakfast, also known as Vormittagspuk, in 1927. This was a silent experimental avant-garde film and it was the fifth film that he had made. The film itself is considered to be one of the first surrealistic films ever made. Richter's interest in Dadaism is shown directly in this work as he challenges current art standards of the time by presenting a theme of obscurity and fantasy. Clocks, legs, ladders, hats, and people undergo total irrational happenings in unusual settings. Men have beards magically appear and disappear before the viewer's eyes, hats fly around in the air, a man's head comes off and floats in the air, tea cups fill up by themselves, objects and characters move in reverse, men disappear behind a street sign, etc... . All brought together by associative logic, the flying hats perform this function by continually reappearing to the sequence of shots to tie the film together as a whole. This film digs into the viewer's mind for inner experience in thought and idea. It gives the audience a chance to release nervous tension when witnessing these abstractions shown through images. Richter tries to increase the viewer's knowledge of reality by showing them surrealistic fantasy. He accomplishes this through his use of rhythm, and his use of the camera.

Bento 17
João Bento was born in 1980 in Fundão-Portugal. Since 2004 compose and perform sound for performances, experimental movies and video live acts (www.canalzero.net/video).Perform is one work and often collaborate with other artists. The relation between music, visual arts , cinema, performance and dance have been a layer in the music field cultivate over the last years.The work articulates analogical instruments and sound objects(created by himself), with new technological devices using installation, video and photography. .The work developed over the last years demonstrates an evident interest in crossing artistic processes and realities as new media and sound art also to look up on issues intrinsic to the image itself. Graduated in Visual Arts at ESAD, Caldas da Rainha /Portugal.Trained improvised music with the musician Greeg Moore and Theremin with Pamela Kurstin. Participates in various meetings, and festivals with creations in vídeo installation, live acts, performances and screenings. Between 2004 and 2006 coordinated the Project VS (international experimental video platform ). Co-creator and performer of Canal Zero project, presented among other places in: TMG Guarda; Centa ; Imago Youth Film International Festival; Casablanca Cinema, Barcelona; Sttutgard Winter Film; Passos Manuel Cinema, Oporto, Maria Matos Theater, Lisbon; Super Stereo Demonstration; Culturgest, Lisbon; Serralves Museum ; Espaço do Tempo, Montemor-o-Novo. Co-creator and performer in “Sem título até Hoje” with Ana Trincão, premiered on Festival Fábrica in Oporto . Compose also sound and performe live in "Le Coq is Dead" with Luiz Antunes, Francisco Pedro and Allan Falieri. Participates often in international screenings of experimental video: WKV-Kunstverein Stuttgart Museum, Videoteca Municipal of Lisbon, Documental Festival of Sarajevo and Festival di nuove-Immagini dei new media – Torim – Italy.

Date
Friday 3.09 at 21:00

Links
http://www.joao-bento.com
http://www.myspace.com/bento17

Free entrance