Activated Abstraction Programme 3:30pm- 5:00pm

Back to Film Listings	IFI: Saturday 3:30pm- 5:00pm
The works here defy categorisation, using animation, abstraction, and found footage to present critical views of the current global political system. The artists reconsider abstraction as a means of critique in our over-saturated media culture. Proposing that at time of over-exposure to images, simplicity and imagination can still move us. Curated by Paul Rowley and Nicky Gogan.
	Gum and Tea (04:30) By Samuel Topiary; EE Miller USA IP Official Selection Gum and Tea as a piece for radio, and instead found itself in Samuael Topiary's video laboratory. It is a collaborative meditation on intimacy and US currency. EE records a fanciful proposition for the President which inspires Topiary's animated collages.
	I Am Unknowing (series) (02:50) By Gun Holmström FINN OS This film examines manifestations of fear both on a personal and social level. The original footage -short clips showing acts of aggression- was found on the Internet. The decision to work with this kind of material was a statement about the seemingly endless violence going on in the world, highlighting the fact that we should not close our eyes to what's going on around us.
	Violets (02:51) By Feargal O'Malley NIR 'Violets' is an anagram for lost lives, the book that chronicles the 3600 people who were killed as a direct consequence of the recent troubles. It is homage to all those who died and a plea for peace in Northern Ireland .
	Ligne Verte (04:00) By Laurent Marescal OS A panning shot follows a wall painting. This 'trompe l'oeil' painting actually represents the landscape behind the wall. A wall recently built in Jerusalem...
	A New Lascaux (05:42) By Tim Blue USA official selection This film combines footage from Leni Riefenstahl and Busby Berkeley, two filmmakers of the early twentieth century whose work can be seen as highly stylized celebrations of power. Made using footage taken from television and played into a computer, thereby forcing the computer to crash resulted in the creation a fragmented view of the past, which highlights the often-troubling relationship that art has to power.
	White cell (06:14) By Ivar Corceiro PRT A political prisoner, trapped in a white cell, thinks about the human condition and how he may be free through his mind. This film is dedicated to the political prisoners of the Portuguese fascist dicatorship which lasted from 1926-1974.
	COLLISION (02:30) By Max Hattler ENG Collision explores graphic art as metaphor by presenting the marriage of image and sound to produce a kaleidoscopic take on our turbulent political situation. Simultaneously subtle and bold, the colours and shapes of flags constitute the visual basics of Collision. The green of Islam is contrasted with the American red and blue, mixed with the graphic patterns that are central to the cultural heritage of these nations.
	Warning petroleum pipeline By Jan Van Nuenen A desolate desert landscape is slowly transforming into a futuristic industrialized world. Indefinable machines are branching off into more complex mechanisms which are producing an industrial soundtrack while moving rhythmically.
	The Politics of Joy (04:30) By Tim Blue USA OS This film tells of a family who were part of a hippy art collective outside Dresden using Super 8 footage from former East Germany . What is striking is the terms these people set for their own lives. In the West, we were taught of the joyless, grey existence under communism. However, these people live, love and work as they wish though it is not without its consequences.
	Mob Film Manifesto (14:12) By Eamonn Crudden IRL WP Gum and Tea as a piece for radio, and instead found itself in Samuael Topiary's video laboratory. It is a collaborative meditation on intimacy and US currency. EE records a fanciful proposition for the President which inspires Topiary's animated collages.
	Mutable Worlds (04.20) By Myriam Thyes DUS GER Six different projections of equal area world maps, orientated / centred towards the south pole and the pacific ocean, morph into each other. The unusual views of the world, the abstract graphical artwork and the strange continental drifts question and irritate - in a ludic and meditative way - our habits of perception and our belief in detached information.