'Imagined Cinemas'

Filmmaking in non-traditional media

One-day symposium organised by Piet Zwart Institute & Creating 010, Rotterdam University

In collaboration with Signals: For Real, International Film Festival Rotterdam

While the traditional media for moving images – movie theaters and TV – are losing their dominant role, filmmaking and the language of cinema migrate to other media that often aren't screens. This symposium gathers filmmakers, artists, designers and activists who reframe cinema as interventions into public space through visual, sound and mobile media, as tactical transmedia narratives, and as filmmaking rooted in the avant-garde expanded cinema tradition. What does the language of cinema contribute to these other media, and which opportunities do these media conversely offer for the future practice of filmmaking?

Moderators: Simon Pummell, Florian Cramer & Edwin Carels

Programme:

Throughout the day –a live intermezzo with the radio play 'A Fatalistic Flatworm' by Lukas Simonis and Henk Bakker, WORM (NL)

10:00-13:00 hrsExpanded media todayPip Chodorov (FR)Ulrich Schreiber, C-Side Production (CH)Franziska Lamprecht & Hajoe Moderegger, eteam (USA/DE)Paolo Davanzo & Lisa Marr / Echo Park Film Center (USA)

13:45-16:45 hrsFilm language and transmedia storytellingMichiel Huijsman & Renate Zentschnig, Soundtrackcity (NL)Richard Wright (UK)Paolo Cirio (IT)Vincent Morisset (CN)

17:00 hrsOpening reception for Simon Pummell's transmedia project 'Shock Head Soul & The Sputnik Effect' at TENT, Witte de Withstraat 50, Rotterdam

Imagined CinemasMonday, January 30th 2012, 10:00-17:00 hrsLocation: Piet Zwart InstituteAddress: Mauritsstraat 36, 3012 CJ RotterdamAdmission: 5 EUR (free for students)

NOTE: please also visit the exhibition 'Imagined Cinemas – Echo Park Film Center' between January 27 and February 5 in our BLAAK10 Gallery & Store.

Date: Thursday November 17 2011Time: 18:30 hrsLocation: Piet Zwart InstituteAddress: Wijnhaven 61, Rotterdam The lecture will take place in studio W.1.145Admission: free

INVADE SPACESLecture by artist Tanja Smeets

In the work of Tanja Smeets intangible, furtive growth processes play a prominent role. Her amorphous sculptures nestle in places where they don't belong. She has a distinct preference for industrial materials or goods from daily life: lentils, dried beans, polystyrene balls with a sand coating, foam strings, concrete spacers, tied up plastic wire, strings of lycra.Under Tanja Smeets hands these materials change into sculptures that invade spaces like alien creatures. Developing hyperorganic shapes that can ooze through walls, both indoors and outdoors, infiltrating and merging with the identity of the architecture, friendly structures that take over a building in a secretive way. The sculptures infiltrate the everyday environment to then get interlaced with it. This creates a strange tension; the sculpture obtains an almost natural place despite its unbridled, disturbing growth process. As if it has always been there.

http://pzwart.wdka.nl/home/

First take a look at the press conference with Simon Pummell during the Venice Film Festival.

The Dutch/British cooperation 'Shock Head Soul' by film maker and Piet Zwart Institute (PZI) course director Simon Pummell has been selected for the 68th edition of the Venice Film Festival. Pummell's film will take part in the Orizzonti competition. The prestigious festival, part of the Biënnale, will take place from August 31 until September 10 2011.

The film paints a picture of succesful German lawyer Daniel Paul Schreber, who claimed in 1893 that he received messages from God through a 'type writer' that spanned the kosmos. Schreber then spent nine years in an institution, where he suffered from delusions of cosmic control and the idea that he was slowly changing into a woman. During his confinement, Schreber wrote his now famous  'Denkwürdigkeiten eines Nervenkranken', in which he claims that his faith is a matter of religious freedom and that he was mentally able enough to return to society.

The film, which took five years to make, is a combination of documentary interviews, fictional reconstructions and animation. The story explores the boundaries between religious visions, misleading fanaticism and the intimate connection between family secrets, psychiatric diagnoses and our society's image of psychiatric diseases.

Pummell became known internationally when he received a British Academy Award (BAFTA ) for his transmedia project 'Bodysong' in 2003. He's not only a writer and director of documentary, animation and fiction, but also a researcher, tutor and course manager of Piet Zwart Institute's master in Media Design & Communication: Lens-Based.Barend Onneweer, head of WdKA’s bachelor course in Animation and tutor of the PZI master Lens-Based, was the visual effects supervisor on Shock Head Soul.

Shock Head Soul is produced by Submarine and Hot Property Films, in collaboration with Keith Griffiths Illuminations Films and in co-production with Serious Film. This production is supported by the Wellcome Trust, the Netherlands Film Fund and the Rotterdam Media Fund, with support from The Film Study Center at Harvard University. Besides a film, Shock Head Soul is also a research project affiliated to the lectorate of the Piet Zwart Institute Willem de Kooning Academy Rotterdam University.

images: stills from 'Shock Head Soul'

Please feel free to visit Willem de Kooning Academy's Graduation Festival in the Fenixloodsen in Katendrecht, Rotterdam.

From June 23 until July 3, you can enjoy work by our 325 bachelor graduates in media, art, design and education. Visit our graduation shows, festive diploma and award ceremony, fashion show and film festival.

For the complete programme, go to our special WdKA Graduation Festival page and keep an eye on the website for updates.

On Monday January 10, CrossLab kicks off the new year with its Open Design Event. From 19.30hrs onwards, you’re welcome in de Unie in Rotterdam. Make sure you get your tickets fast, because they’re almost sold out.

Is everyone a designer nowadays? The internet facilitates the customization of design; designers can publish and share their work online. As a co-designer, the user has become responsible for the form: ‘form follows user’. This recent practice is called ‘Open Design’. What is the new role of the designer in this context?

Bas van Abel shines his light on the philosophy and practice of ‘Open Design’ and introduces the new ‘Unlimited Design Book’. Studio Ludens demonstrates the role of ‘design templates’ and DIY products. Product designer Janne Kyttanen shows how to make your own objects with 3D-printing and ‘downloadable design’. We also take a peak at FabLab, a public lab that offers ‘state of the art’ prototyping machines. Besides this, several ‘cadaver exquise’ projects will be presented as a creative method for collective design.

CrossLab Event Open Design, De Unie / Mauritsweg 34-35 / Rotterdam. Monday January 10 2011, start 20hrs (doors open 19.30). Entrance: 7 euro (5 euro employees WdKA) / 2.50 euro for students with Student Card. Subscribe by email (name and number of persons). More info crosslabevents.wdka.nl.

Het lectoraat 'Communication in a Digital Age' van het Piet Zwart Instituut nodigt iedereen van harte uit om media en design projecten te presenteren tijdens het Second BarCamp Rotterdam. Of je nu een student bent, een ontwerper (freelance of bij een bedrijf, professioneel/niet-professioneel, commercieel of niet-commercieel), een kunstenaar, een software ontwikkelaar, iemand met een media, internet of ontwerp project; dit zal jouw ‘speaker's corner' zijn en geeft je de mogelijkheid om andere mensen uit hetzelfde vakgebied te ontmoeten.

Een bar camp is een open course/open deelname/'unconference' voor de presentatie van nieuwe media projecten, een collectieve speakers corner voor media mensen. Ontwerpers, kunstenaars en activisten zijn van harte welkom. Meld je aan en geef een presentatie.

Deze BarCamp zal worden gehost in de Doelen, en is een onofficieel, toch gratis toegankelijk, onderdeel van het European Design Festival 2010. Er zullen 2-3 presentatie schermen aanwezig zijn en gratis catering voor alle deelnemers.

Deelnemers kunnen zich aanmelden voor de presentaties tussen 17:30 en 18:00 uur.Locatie: De Doelen, Foyer Willem Burger Zaal, Schouwburgplein, Rotterdam

Tiddo Roozendaal's graduation film Faith is nominated for the Designpreis Halle 2010. It will be shown in Halle (Germany) from June 19 until July 4 2010. If Roozendaal wins, he takes away € 5.000.

He finished his bachelor's degree in Audiovisual Design in 2009 and now studies at our Lens-Based Digital Media programme.

Out of a total of 166 entries, 18 pieces of work from Germany, Russia, Ukraine, Switzerland, France, Sweden, Austria, Italy, Czech Republic, Canada, China and the Netherlands were selected.

On June 19 2010 the winners will be announced. We'll keep you posted.

image: still from Tiddo Roozendaal's Faith

CROSSLAB LUNCH EVENTS                    

Thursday March 4: CD release: Radboud Mens / students elective Audio Art. 17.00 hrs, 2nd infill, Blaak 10.

The Music Of Sound – You Don't Have To Call It Music If The Term Shocks You is the result of Audio Art, a CrossLab elective. Think of sound installations at a festival or audio art in the public space. Sound artist Radboud Mens led the workshop and produced the CD. The unique piece of work will be launched today. Free music & drinks – please join in!

Saturday March 13: excursion symposium Transnatural. Trouwgebouw, Wibautstraat 127, Amsterdam.

During the event Transnatural, well-known designers, scientists and architects take a close look at the consequences of the fusion between technology and nature. Speakers are Dr. Rachel Armstrong (metabolic materials, lliving architecture); Tobie Kerridge (Material Beliefs, biomedical and cybernetic technologies); Koert van Mensvoort (Next Nature, ‘man made' nature) en Jan Jongert (2012Architecten/SuperUse, grave-to-cradle method). Futuristic or reality?

Admission for students includes exhibition, excludes workshop.Info and reservation before March 11: Deanne Herst

Tuesday March 16: Hicham Khalidi, Transnatural. 12.30 -13.25hrs, 2nd infill floor, Blaak 10.

Transnatural is an event that explores the boundaries between technology and nature. Are we living in a world in which both have merged? Was there ever a difference/boundary between nature and technology? Transnatural showcases spectacular attempts from the world of arts, design and science to make a new fused reality 'experiencable'. Curator Hicham Khalidi on ‘spimes', ‘cradle-to-cradle' and ‘metabolic materials' in art and design.

Tuesday March 30: Marc Schwieger, Welcome to Inspiration Society. 12.30 -13.25hrs, 2nd infill floor, Blaak 10 – UNFORTUNATELY THIS LECTURE IS CANCELLED. A NEW DATE WILL BE ANNOUNCED.

Welcome to Inspiration Society – How consumer participation changes (or maybe even ends) the world of advertising. This is the working title of Marc Schwieger's latest paper. Schwieger is a research fellow at WdKA's Communication in a Digital Age research programme. Schwieger is Creative Director at Scholz & Friends, one of Germany's and Europe most well-know advertising firms. In his blog inspirationsgesellschaft.de, he explores changes in marketing and advertising. These changes are influenced by user-created content and media. Don't miss this innovating talk!

Art critic Jan Verwoert will give a series of lectures on secrets and how to handle them. 'Keeping and Sharing Secrets – How to Formulate an Ethics of Attitude' is organised by the master of Fine Art of the Piet Zwart Institute (PZI). The lectures will take place at the Mauritsstraat 36 in Rotterdam on October 14, November 4 and December 2 2009.

Verwoert, who lives in Berlin, writes for contemporary art journals and magazines such as Frieze magazine, Afterall and Metropolis M. His book 'Bas Jan Ader – In Search of the Miraculous' was published in 2006.

If you wish to learn more about these and other lectures, please visit PZI's website.

Zafer Topaloglu's video 'Destroying Sulukule' will be shown at the Darklight @ The Joinery Festival in Dublin on October 9 and 10. In September, Zafer started the WdKA master Media Design & Communication: Lens-Based Digital Media.

Zafer's short video shows the Neslişah and Hatice Sultan neighbourhoods, known as Sulukule, by the historical İstanbul ramparts in the Fatih district on the European side of Istanbul. The area faces total demolition and will be replaced by new villa style homes. However, Sulukule is home to a Roma community since 1054 and one of the oldest Romany settlements in Europe. The urban renewal project will not only destroy this historic neighbourhood, but will force 3,500 Sulukule residents 40 kilometers outside of the city. Though the mayor claims that the project is the most social project of the world, inhabitants say he hasn't asked them about their thoughts and opinions.

Click here if you want to read more about this Irish film festival for filmmakers, animators and artists. Alternatively, take a sneak peak at some at Zafer's work.

Zafer, good luck and enjoy!