ARGOS @ CPH:DOX

CPH:DOX, Copenhagen International Documentary Film Festival, is the largest documentary film festival in Scandinavia. Each year the festival fills the Copenhagen cinemas with a selection of more than 180 documentary films from around the world. During the ten festival days, CPH:DOX also presents five whole days of professional seminars and provides an international forum and meeting place with the newly founded DOX:FORUM.
Argos was invited by the festival and has curated 18 works in 5 different series:

PSYCHOGEOGRAPHIES
A selection of recent Belgian artists’ film and video on the divide between art, architecture, geography and psychology. The term ‘psychogeography’ refers to the architectural or geographical surroundings and the way they relate to perception and mental experience. Psychogeographical analysis is situated on the divide between art, architecture, geography and psychology and it isn’t merely the cornerstone of post-modern geography, but also one of the main sources of inspiration to reflect on urbanism and territoriality. A psychogeographical analysis starts from the exposure of relations, relating a genuine, material environment to an imaginary or possible environment.

Performing Space. Erki De Vries, 2004, 3’09", b&w, sound.
A Necessary Music. Beatrice Gibson, 2008, 29’09", colour, English spoken.
Altogether. Herman Asselberghs, 2008, 15’, colour
Loss. Hans Op De Beeck, 2004, 11’, b&w, sound.
N12°13.062’/ W 001°32.619’ Extended. Vincent Meessen, 2005, 8’25", colour, sound.
Inch’Allah. Ria Pacquée, 2005, 18’40", colour, English spoken.

DISEMBODIED VOICES
Voice-over technique in cinema and video embodies the narrator’s power over the image and what it stands for. The voice-over parallels the image, endorses it. Traditional voice-overs are embedded; they represent an authority. ‘Disembodied Voices’ combines five videos based on intertextual procedures, all part of Argos’ catalogue. Here, voice-over is used in a rather detached, idiosyncratic manner taking full advantage of the poetic irony between language and image, sight and sound.

Buildings and Grounds: The Angst Archive. Ken Kobland, 2003, 44’27”, colour, English running text.
The Blob. Gert Verhoeven, 2001, 21’, colour, English spoken.
Set [ing]. Peter Downsbrough, 2003, 4’19”, English running text.
The Mendi. Steve Reinke, 2006, 10’, colour, English spoken.
Epilogue. Michel Lorand, 2005, 8’55", German spoken.

NO PLACE – LIKE HOME
Migration is a thing of all ages. Where Europeans once colonized various continents and emigrated en masse to other lands both in and beyond their own continent, movement from the opposite direction has now taken hold. Capital, goods and information circulate freely in the late-capitalist, globalized world economy. For people, however, mobility is arranged somewhat differently. Borders and territories are still the primary expression of national sovereignty, however multiethnic populations may have become. For Europe – which permanently shifts between regulating, even attracting, and then repelling strangers – these are the outer borders, the so-called Schengenland regions. No Place - Like Home (note the hyphen) investigates how inner and outer space, how ’we’ and ’they’ maintain complex relations with one another and the frictions this generates.

Border. Hans Op De Beeck, , Belgium, 2001, 2’44", colour, English subtitled.
Capsular. Herman Asselberghs, 2006, 24’, colour, English spoken.
Südeuropa. Raphaël Cuomo and Maria Iorio, 2007, 40’, colour, Italian spoken, Arabic & English subtitled.

CHARDIGARH – FAILED UTOPIA?
The modernist city Chandigarh was planned by Le Corbusier in the 1950ies: the symbol of the new, progressive India. In this postcolonial and postwar nation, the educationalist Anasuy Guyan-Chand was operating as a transnational activist. The program ‘Chandigarh – Failed Utopia?’ traces ideas, activities and realizations at this moment in history and confronts these with the present days, meanwhile trying to reach for a potential future.

Dear Advisor. Vincent Meessen, 2009, 8’, colour, English spoken.
Otolith ll. The Otolith Group, 2007, 48’11", colour, English spoken.

SHELLY SILVER – NEW YORK STATES OF MIND
Two films from New York artist Shelly Silver about New York and New Yorkers.  Though different in their formal approaches, they have a fair amount in common.  Both films were shot on the streets of NYC and are about people directly presenting themselves to the camera.

in complete world. 2008, 52’, colour, English spoken.
What I’m Looking For. 2004, 15’, colour, English spoken.