Projections

PUT THE BODY

Laida Lertxundi’s films have often been interpreted as being “personal,” a claim that she, as a female artist, resisted for many years. In recent works, such as 025 Sunset Red and Vivir para Vivir, she has resolutely decided to “go personal,” using her own body as site for production. Bodily expres- sions – her menstrual blood, a cardiogram, an orgasm – have become “material” in the same way as sound, landscape, recording devices and props were used in her earlier films. This programme presents works by six female artist-filmmakers (Basma Alsharif, Abigail Child, Mary Helena Clark, Maya Deren, Laida Lertxundi & Ana Vaz) that situate narrative from within and with the body. Even while alluding to a state of disembodiment, these films all affirm the corporeal, suggesting the pos- sibility of an incarnated cinema.

María Palacios Cruz

I AM WONDERING AT THE SKY BEING WHATEVER IT IS

In his scientific efforts to capture the transit of Venus, the French astronomer Pierre Janssen de- vised an ingenious contraption known as ‘photographic revolver’, enabling one to take a rapid se- ries of successive images. The result was not as expected: we did not manage to get an accurate record of the 1874 transit, but his gadget was the predecessor of the motion-picture camera. The connections between film and astronomy go far back in time; no wonder filmmakers – especially the experimental ones – have always been fascinated by the sky and the stars, ready to express man’s wonder at the beauty of the cosmos.

Martín Pawley