Convened by
Camille Henrot
With films by Ilana Harris-Babou, Monster Chetwynd, Mindy Faber, Alexa Karolinski and Ingo Niermann, Caroline Leaf, Peter Wächtler
And texts by Ilana Harris-Babou and Camille Henrot, Jacob Bromberg, Orit Gat, Mathilde Henrot, Estelle Hoy, Jean-Luc Nivaggioni
*The program wraps with a repeat of all films on Monday, August 29, streaming through Tuesday, August 30, 11:59 EDT
The more the digital world claims its own existence, the heavier it feels to inhabit a physical body. During the pandemic our personal lives were physically limited and for some time, many of us subscribed to the mirage that our digital existence could expand the spaces in which we felt restricted. Ultimately, we’ve discovered that the in-person sensations of the flesh and the mind—even the active choice to disengage and do nothing—is what truly makes us feel alive. But we have also discovered that home is not a safe space, that neither online nor in the flesh is our privacy fully protected, and that there is no intimacy without drama, intensity, and the desire to escape. Screaming from the Inside took as its starting point the feeling of claustrophobia, isolation, and inescapability (both inside the home, and inside our own bodies) induced by the pandemic and sustained by digital experience. It was through a meditation on the desire to recoil and regress, and the unspoken emotions associated with this return, that I made an intuitive selection of films to feature in this program.
In many of the films, there is a wound associated with with close relationships. Peter Wächtler’s Untitled (Crutches) (2013) portrays a character walking with a limp, in a loop, reciting a bitter lament of a love lost. Caroline Leaf’s Two Sisters (1991) is about an overprotective sister who, out of care for her blind sibling, a famous writer, essentially denies her the experience of life.
In an environment surrounded by only close relatives, suffering is a condition of intimacy—any declaration of love can easily become a declaration of war. When the boundaries between the self and the other are in constant flux, all love is essentially ambivalent. Are we at odds with those we love, or at odds with ourselves? Is a lack of confidence in the other essentially a lack of confidence in ourselves? Our relationships with loved ones and the comforts of the home replicate a womb-like environment, and it is only natural that the thoughts and fears of a pre-verbal stage resurface. Monster Chetwynd’s The Call of the Wild (2007) features a primal scream that resonates as a protest against home—a gray suburban landscape seems inescapable as the camera scans for a possible exit that is nowhere in sight.
Our concept of home is closely related to the associations we make of maternal or parental figures. In Ilana Harris-Babou’s Decision Fatigue (2020), the artist’s own mother is the main actress. The portrayal is not one of pure celebration or reverence—it is burlesque, tender, cruel, and sarcastic all at the same time. Mindy Faber’s Suburban Queen (1985) is seemingly a dedication of love and admiration while also a rejection of origin stories. Alexa Karolinski and Ingo Niermann’s Army of Love (2016) shows characters extending tender gestures while floating in a pool, reminiscent of a sort of collective return to an idyllic, amniotic environment.
Proximity sets the stage for a complex bundle of emotions—a combination of comfort in the familiar, and deep disgust arising from habitual monotony. It is in the grappling and attempted resolution of this ambivalence that the artists featured in this program have created space. They have given shape to the confrontational nature of intimacy in order to ask the fundamental questions: Who am I, where do I come from, where is my home, and what lies beyond it? Ultimately, there is no resolution or escape from that which made us who we are—only a venture towards new illustrations and narratives.
Program
Week #1: Monday, July 18–Sunday, July 24, 2022
Ilana Harris-Babou, Decision Fatigue
2020, 8 minutes
Text: Camille Henrot in conversation with Ilana Harris-Babou
Week #2: Monday, July 25–Sunday, July 31, 2022
Mindy Faber, Suburban Queen
1985, 3 minutes
Text: Mathilde Henrot
Week #3: Monday, August 1–Sunday, August 7, 2022
Alexa Karolinski and Ingo Niermann, Army of Love
2016, 40 minutes
Text: Jean-Luc Nivaggioni
Week #4: Monday, August 8–Sunday, August 14, 2022
Peter Wächtler, Untitled (Crutches)
2013, 8 minutes
Text: Estelle Hoy
Week #5: Monday, August 15–Sunday, August 21, 2022
Caroline Leaf, Two Sisters
1991, 10 minutes
Text: Orit Gat
Week #6: Monday, August 22–Sunday, August 28, 2022
Monster Chetwynd, The Call of the Wild
2007, 6 minutes
Text: Jacob Bromberg
Monday-Tuesday, August 29-30, 2022
Last day: repeat screening of all films
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Screaming from the Inside is a program of films and accompanying texts convened by Camille Henrot as the eleventh cycle of Artist Cinemas, a long-term, online series of film programs curated by artists for e-flux Video & Film.
Screaming from the Inside in six episodes released every Monday from July 18 through August 29, 2022, streaming a new film each week accompanied by a commissioned text.
For more information, contact program@e-flux.com.