The Otolith Group
‘A Long Time Between Suns’
A two-venue solo exhibition
15 February 2009 – 5 April 2009
Open Wednesday – Sunday, 12-6pm
155 Vauxhall Street
London SE11 5RH
info [at] gasworks.org.uk
The Otolith Group’s first film elaborates on the idea of a fiction which exiles our future selves from planet earth. It is from this perspective, detached both from the earth’s gravity but also the gravity of history, that The Otolith Group considers specific moments in our present and recent past for their potential to evoke alternative futures.
“Zero gravity makes fear elemental; tangible. I have lost my place in the world, in doing so I have made a friend of my fear. In a new species of space I have become a new mammal, born in a weightless sea, swimming in a new ocean.” Otolith (2003)
Otolith is set in the 22nd Century, when the human race is no longer able to survive on earth and must live outside its gravitational pull, on an International Space Station. The narrative follows Dr. Usha Adebaran Sagar, the future descendent of Otolith Group member Anjalika Sagar, and her research into life on earth through collected media archives. Otolith imagines a mutant future, described through a montage of archival footage, media documentary and fictional voice-over. This includes images of the 2003 anti Iraq War demonstration in London, historical documentation of Soviet cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova and footage from WWII era of non-alignment. In doing so, chronology is dismantled and the archive gains new possibilities.
Otolith II is set in the near future and mixes fiction and archival material with footage filmed in Mumbai and Chandigarh. The film explores the pressure put upon inhabitants living in contrasting and competing versions of the city of tomorrow. Chandigarh, the product of Corbusier’s 1963 architectural vision and social plan is juxtaposed with contemporary scenes of Mumbai’s mega-slums, contemplating a new state of becoming through its dwellers’ creative solutions for survival.
Elaborating on themes that have informed the organisation of images and sounds in The Otolith Group’s work, the environment designed by Will Holder acts as a production area. Throughout the duration of the exhibition, Holder will use pinboard panels to collate archival material. Once completed they will provide the content for a series of artist books available for visitors to take away.
The second part of A Long Time Between Suns will take place at The Showroom in June 2009 and will present Otolith III (2009), the final film in The Otolith trilogy.
Otolith and Otolith II are shown Wednesday to Sunday at 12pm, 2pm and 4pm only.
EVENTS
Thursday 26 February 2009, 7 – 8.30pm
LondonunderLondon
Mark Fisher presents his audio-essay LondonunderLondon followed by a conversation with Sukhdev Sandhu and Kodwo Eshun on the cinegeographies and radiophonic terrains of postwar London.
Sunday 15 March 2009, 3 – 6pm
Facs of Life
Filmmakers Silvia Maglioni and Graeme Thomson present work in progress from their forthcoming film Facs of Life, which takes video footage of Gilles Deleuze’s lectures at the University of Paris VIII, Vincennes (1975–76) as its starting point. The artists will touch on the question of the inarchivé (the unacknowledged or inoperative archive) and their quest for an impersonal cinema of ‘betweenness’.
Wednesday 1 April 2009, 7 – 8.30pm
Collaborative Filmmaking: a Discussion
John Akomfrah, founding member of black audio Film Collective (1982–1998) discusses the histories and potentialities of transnational collaborative and collective filmmaking practices with The Otolith Group.
PUBLICATION
An artist monograph designed by Will Holder will be launched at A Long Time Between Suns Part II, opening at The Showroom in June 09. Published by Sternberg Press in collaboration with Gasworks, The Showroom and Il Trifoglio Nero, the monograph will feature new texts by TJ Demos and Irmgard Emmelhainz and a conversation between The Otolith Group and curators Emily Pethick and Anna Colin.
For press information and images, please contact Amy Croft at press@gasworks.org.uk
Gasworks
155 Vauxhall Street
London SE11 5RH
+44 (0)20 7587 5202
info@gasworks.org.uk
