Film Programme: Resonating Structures (Houses)

24 September – 6 October 2019: Ant Farm, Inflatables Illustrated, 1971­–2003

8 October – 20 October 2019: Dan Graham, Pavilions Compilation, 2014

22 October – 3 November 2019: Carsten Nicolai, Future Past Perfect Pt. 2 (Cité Radieuse),2007

FILM SYNOPSIS

24 September – 6 October 2019

Ant Farm, Inflatables Illustrated
United States, 1971­–2003

B&w and colour, sound, 21 min 20 sec

As a critique of consumerism and reaction to Brutalist architecture, Ant Farm created a utopian, inflatable architecture that was participatory and communal, cheap, and easy to transport and assemble. It had been used to host festivals, conferences, or installed as university campuses. Without a fixed structure, these inflatables challenged the notions of a building as well as the reliance on expert knowledge of architects. The film, which brings its audience through the steps of making a small inflatable using basic materials found in a kitchen, is an example of “open source,” in which concepts are made accessible to the public.

SCHEDULE

24 September – 6 October 2019: Ant Farm, Inflatables Illustrated, 1971­–2003

8 October – 20 October 2019: Dan Graham, Pavilions Compilation, 2014

22 October – 3 November 2019: Carsten Nicolai, Future Past Perfect Pt. 2 (Cité Radieuse),2007

FILM SYNOPSIS

24 September – 6 October 2019

Ant Farm, Inflatables Illustrated
United States, 1971­–2003

B&w and colour, sound, 21 min 20 sec

As a critique of consumerism and reaction to Brutalist architecture, Ant Farm created a utopian, inflatable architecture that was participatory and communal, cheap, and easy to transport and assemble. It had been used to host festivals, conferences, or installed as university campuses. Without a fixed structure, these inflatables challenged the notions of a building as well as the reliance on expert knowledge of architects. The film, which brings its audience through the steps of making a small inflatable using basic materials found in a kitchen, is an example of “open source,” in which concepts are made accessible to the public.

8 October – 20 October 2019

Dan Graham, Pavilions Compilation
United States, 2014

Colour, sound, 31 min

This film surveys Dan Graham’s series of sculptures Pavilions, created since the late 1970s, with documentary footage of the works in different cities. Created on a human scale out of glass or mirror, they serve as instruments of perception as viewers become both the object of spectacle as well as the subject or spectator of themselves reflected in the glass walls. Representing a hybrid between a quasi-functional space and an installation, art and architecture, public and private realms, the sculptures reflect Graham’s investigation into the social phenomenology and performativity of the viewer with the art object.

22 October – 3 November 2019

Carsten Nicolai, Future Past Perfect Pt. 2 (Cité Radieuse)
Germany, 2007

Digital film line, colour, sound, 7 min 43 sec.

Shot at Le Corbusier’s Unité d’Habitation (built in 1952) in Marseille, a classic example of Brutalist architecture, the film focuses first on the exterior of the building followed by its interior before ending at its rooftop. Twice, the film’s calm atmosphere is disrupted by a rapid, flashing sequence, achieving a cinematic effect while engineering the elements of time, space, and social relations.

This film screening is part of the Film Programme: Resonating Structures, which features six of Siah Armajani’s computer-generated short films from the 1970s.

A public programme of Siah Armajani: Spaces for the Public. Spaces for Democracy.