The Otolith Group
Artists-in-residence
February 2012
Blood Mountain Foundation
Budapest 1025
Vérhalom utca 27/c
Hungary
+36.1.326.1844
info@bloodmountain.org
Blood Mountain is pleased to announce the theme and public programme of The Otolith Group’s residency in Budapest in February 2012, the collective’s first project in Central Europe.
Theme
The occupation of The Otolith Group (The Group) at Blood Mountain is part of an ongoing research project about the politics of nuclear energy. Given Hungary’s role as a significant hub for the education and practice of both scientific and film innovation between the two world wars and during the Soviet regime, the residency provides an unparalleled opportunity for The Group to gather original data and to develop the work using Hungary’s outstanding scientific and film facilities.* The Group’s work at Blood Mountain is scheduled for completion in summer 2012 and will return to Blood Mountain for a special screening and artists-led discussion in autumn 2012.
Public Programme
A critical and comprehensive public programme accompanies The Group’s residency curated by Blood Mountain in partnership with tranzit. hu. Unless otherwise stated, events are free with prior booking and take place in English at Blood Mountain.
For reservations: +36.1.326.1844 | +36.30.415.2123 | info@bloodmountain.org
Tuesday 14 February, 6 to 9pm
Screening of collective’s namesake trilogy: Otolith I, 2003; Otolith II, 2007; Otolith III, 2009; introduction and discussion with the artists, Anjalika Sagar and Kodwo Eshun
Set between the 22nd century (I); today’s Mumbai and Chandigarh: India’s first planned city designed by Le Corbusier in the 1950s (II); and the fictional future of an unrealised Indian science fiction movie from 1967 (III), the work projects a mutant future, fusing fiction and non-fiction through the juxtaposition of documentary footage, archival materials and new imagery (colour, in English, total 118 mins).
Saturday 3 March, 11am to 1pm
Education programme: bilingual hands-on workshop led by Blood Mountain’s art educator in response to The Group’s new work. All materials supplied.
Suitable for 6 to 12 year-olds. Cost: HUF 4000 (15 EUR)
Affiliated public and professional development programmes organised by tranzit. hu for the Free School of Art Theory and Practice initiative:
Friday 3 February, 6 to 8pm
Preparatory viewing: Chris Marker_La Jetée, 1963 and Sans Soleil, 1983
Introduction by Zsolt Sörés, leading Hungarian film critic
Radical science fiction/fantasy films examining the role of time and memory in the development of Earth (b&w, in French with English subtitles, total 130 mins).
venue: tranzit. hu office (Budapest 1065, Király utca 102, first floor)
Saturday 11 February, 11am to 8pm
Preparatory viewing: Peter Watkins_The Forgotten Faces, 1961 and La Commune (Paris, 1871), 2000; Introduction by Zsolt Sörés, leading Hungarian film critic
A poetic reconstruction of the 1956 Hungarian revolution on the streets of Canterbury; and a tour-de-forcetake on the heady days of post-revolution France (b&w, in French and English, total 362 mins).
venue: tranzit. hu office (Budapest 1067, Király utca 102, first floor)
Tuesday 21 February, 6pm
Screening and artist-led reading: The Otolith Group_Anathema, 2011
Public event of Free School for Art Theory and Practice
As The Group’s most recent work, it re-imagines the microscopic behaviour of liquid crystals undergoing turbulence as a sentient entity that possesses the fingertips and the eyes enthralled by the LCD touch-screens of communicative capitalism (colour, in English, 37 mins).
venue: Ludwig Museum of Contemporary Art, lecture hall (1095 Budapest, Komor Marcell utca 1)
Saturday 25 February, 10 am to 6pm
Seminar with The Otolith Group: Daughter Products
Private programme of Free School for Art Theory and Practice
According to activist and critic Sabu Kohso, the meltdown of the three nuclear reactors at Fukushima Daiichi on 11 March 2011 signals a new phase in the war of the ‘global nuclear regime’ against all ‘other life forms.’ The seminar will examine the histories of artistic forms of abstraction in relation to the planetary existence of the ‘global nuclear regime’, especially in practices of abstraction that aim to produce forms of the audible and the visible in relation to the necropolitics and chronopolitics of radiation.
This is a professional development opportunity to meet The Group and to gain in-depth understanding about its practice. Attendance by active participation and prior registration only. Please email motivation letter with proposal for visual and thematic contributions by 10 February: office@tranzitinfo.hu
venue: tranzit. hu office (1067 Budapest, Király utca 102, first floor)
Further Information
*Budapest’s scientific and film heritage
Hungary’s long tradition of scientific education nurtured the developmental years of three Hungarian scientists, who later played crucial roles in the invention of atomic energy: Leo Szilárd, Edward Teller, Eugene Wigner. Its advantageous geographic position as the closest Soviet satellite state to Western Europe also accounts for the numerous nuclear facilities that were developed and in some cases remain active since the Cold War. Budapest in addition was also considered an important creative hub for moving image between the two world wars, having fostered the medium’s early pioneers before their respective emigration: Alexander Korda, founding member of the British film industry, and Michael Curtiz, a central figure of Hollywood’s golden age; and as a production set for some of the most ubiquitous Soviet documentary and propaganda films, often made by anonymous film-makers.
The Otolith Group (est. 2002 by Anjalika Sagar and Kodwo Eshun) is an award-winning artist-led collective. Its name refers to the calcium carbonate microcrystal within the inner ear that plays an important role in maintaining bodily orientation and verticality. Working in video and film, The Group provides a platform for close readings of the image in contemporary culture. The Group works with media archives, histories of futurity and the legacies of non-alignment and tricontinentalism. The Group’s output also extends to writing, curating, and publishing. Their work includes Communists Like Us, 2006–10 (three screen performance, two-channel video and single channel video), Inner Time of Television, 2007 (collaborative installation with Chris Marker), The Otolith Trilogy, 2003-2009 (video), The Ghost of Songs: The Film Art of the Black Audio Film Collective, 2007 (exhibition and publication), Nervus Rerum, 2008 (video), Harun Farocki 22 Films: 1968–2009, 2009 (exhibition), Hydra Decapita, 2010 (video) and Anathema, 2011 (video). In 2010, The Group was nominated for The Turner Prize, Britain’s most prestigious contemporary art award. Solo exhibitions include Westfailure, Project 88, Mumbai (2011), A Lure a part Allure Apart, Betonsalon, Paris (2011), Thoughtform, MACBA, Barcelona, MAXXI, Rome (2010–11) and A Long Time Between Suns Parts I and II, Gasworks and The Showroom, London (2009). Group exhibitions include The British Art Show (2010), 29th Sao Paulo Biennale (2010), Manifesta 8 (2009) and Tate Triennale (2006). Videos by The Group can be viewed via LUX (lux.org.uk), Europe’s leading resource for artists-made films and videos. Blood Mountain’s residency programme provides the first opportunity for the collective to visit, work and present its practice to Central European audiences. otolithgroup.org
tranzit. hu (est. 2002 and directed by Dóra Hegyi) is the Budapest chapter of the Central European curatorial network, tranzit.org: a dynamic, inter-disciplinary platform supporting process-oriented, innovative and experimental projects. With affiliations in Bucharest, Bratislava, Prague and Vienna, the Budapest-based tranzit. hu champions art and ideas which are elsewhere under-represented and excluded for reasons of content, trend or taste. It provides an anarchic safe-place for ‘mistakes’ and ‘flaws’ to flourish through mediation; enabling culture to be produced, not simply perceived, and values to be continually challenged and redefined. tranzit. hu believes that open thinking and exchange can lead to responsible critical and experimental attitude in contemporary life. Since 2006 the Free School for Art Theory and Practice programme supports the theoretical and practical development of the local arts scene through public events and invited seminars with leading international theoreticians and artists. The programme hinges on the belief that artistic and curatorial thinking create a surplus of knowledge and can benefit social discourse and contemporary life. Previous Free School participants include Jens Hoffmann (2006), Ulay (2007) and Ute Meta Bauer (2009). hu.tranzit.org
Blood Mountain Foundation (est. 2010 by Jade Niklai and Tom Sloan) is an independent non-profit arts organisation working at the junction of contemporary thought and creative practice. Based in Budapest, our mission is to generate fresh discourse and to encourage the production of new work inspired by our location and Hungary’s broader socio-political context as an European Union nation since 2004. We believe culture is an agent for social change and its open discourse and unrestricted practice are fundamental to the life of a participatory democracy. Through exhibitions, educational programmes, public events, workshops, residencies and publications, we strive to overcome the divide which, despite the political reforms twenty years ago, still distinguishes the region of Central Europe from abroad by facilitating not the obvious migration of contemporary thought and culture (East to West), but its very opposite (West to East). In addition to attracting world-class thinkers and makers, we provide new opportunities for local talent on the widest possible international platform. Located in a Habsburg villa in the Buda hills, our identity is defined by our namesake location, where one of the bloodiest battles was fought during the Ottoman occupation of the 1500s. Blood Mountain’s artist-in-residence programme provides two artists each year with the opportunity to live and work in Budapest for four weeks and to produce new work in the context of contemporary Hungary. The initiative encourages dialogue between visiting artists and the local arts community through a rigorous programme of public and private events, exhibitions and publications. Previous artists-in-residence include Diango Hernández (2010) and Asim Memishi (2011). bloodmountain.org
For press and other inquiries please contact Jade Niklai, Director
+36.30.415.2123 | jade@bloodmountain.org