From: Klaus W. Eisenlohr (email suppressed)
Date: Sat Dec 08 2007 - 10:31:17 PST
Open Call: Urban Research on Film
We are looking for new visual approaches towards
the contemporary city. The program will be first
shown at Directors Lounge, Berlin, February 2008.
Experimental, documentary, essay, interactive and
multi-channel, all welcome. Please send in
preview DVD of your work. Early deadline Dec. 18,
2007 (postmarked), late entry deadline Jan. 5
(only if you have sent a previous notice!)
Please contact:
email suppressed
Please ship to:
Klaus W. Eisenlohr, Osnabrücker Str. 25. D-10589 Berlin, Germany
Urban Research
The common image of urbanity stays within the
traditional iconography, and encompasses an
outdated model of "the city". Mass media
reproduce it and tourists (want to) affirm it on
their "city tours" around the globe. In contrast,
city centres and public spaces have lost their
traditional function. Even efforts of urban
renewal of centres - conceptually not much
different to the "City Beautiful" movement at the
end of the 19th century - do not help to conserve
life of "old towns." These efforts may even
accelerate the described changes.
On the other hand in mass media, there is little
depiction of the life, the architecture, of the
beauty and the issues of the contemporary urban
scapes. There is a lack of positive images of the
contemporary city as it has grown until today.
There even is the notion of the city being
"unreadable" (T. Sieverts). The common terms are
reflecting these negative views of the
environment most people live in: "sprawl", "edge
city", "in-between city" (Zwischenstadt), or
"informal city".
Many artists thus have taken up to newly explore
and visually research the "unknown", the
"informal" city. There is exciting new work,
which tries to create a different, a
differentiated image of space, architecture and
life within the contemporary city. Unlike
modernist "city symphonies," these new works are
based on exploration, on research and on
discourse. The artists often focus on particular
aspects rather than trying to depict the city as
a whole. Urban Research comprises experimental,
documentary and animated works bringing together
complementary views of urban life.
Urban Research 2008 will firstly be presented at
the media art festival Directors Lounge in
February 2008. So far, the selections of Urban
Research have been widely shown in venues in
London, Poznan, Dordrecht/Rotterdam, Freiburg,
Essen and Berlin.
Links:
http://richfilm.de/DL2007/framesUrbanResearch.html
http://www.directorslounge.net
http://www.richfilm.de
-- Klaus W. Eisenlohr, Osnabrücker Str. 25, D-10589 Berlin, Germany email: email suppressed and film production: http://www.richfilm.de phone: int.- 49 - 30 - 3409 5343 (BERLIN) __________________________________________________________________ For info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at <email suppressed>.