KBF Film Package ‘Antiphon’ Spotlights Moving Images and Video Art

KOCHI:
Exploring new perspectives and experimentation in cinema through moving images, imaginaries and titles, the Kochi Biennale Foundation (KBF) recently presented a unique film package of documentaries, animations and short films on the sidelines of the ongoing third edition of the Kochi-Muziris Biennale.
Titled ‘Antiphon’, the five-day package, which concluded on Tuesday, was organised as part of the KBF’s ‘Artists’ Cinema’ programme with the support of art promotion agency Lux Scotland and the British Council. It was specially curated by Lux Scotland Director Nicole Yip.
The package opened on Friday (March 3) with the screening of the documentary Evolutionary Jerks & Gradualist Creeps (2016) by Scottish artist Duncan Marquiss. Comparing the history of life from the fossil record with the development of popular music, the film uses patterns of evolution as cues for image-making and editing structures.
Four other recent works by Marquiss, which represented the transformation in his style and execution of filmmaking, were also screened in the package. Marquiss works with the moving image, drawing, writing and music. His practice is often driven by a search for patterns and connections between seemingly unrelated subject areas.
“These films ranged from experimentation on his flicker films to his recent interest in biology. The aim of the package was to promote moving images and video art,” said Yip, a member of the international jury for VIDEONALE.16 (2017) and Document International Film Festival (2016).
The themes explored in the screenings of Marquiss’s films were examined over a four-day video art workshop helmed by the artist. The workshop, titled ‘Analogy Loom’, initiated dialogues between artists, filmmakers, curators and film enthusiasts.
“Through discussions and practical exercises, the workshop considered how artists and filmmakers use analogies to generate ideas and devise new formal approaches by combining disparate topics, materials and processes,” Marquiss said.
The other works screened featured themes such on percepti
on and understanding, fiction and reality, truth and uncertainty, and the unexplained and unexplainable. The package included Sarah Forrest’s Again, it objects (2016), Jane Topping’s Peter (2014), Torsten Lauschmann’s Crazy Paving (2014), Adam Lewis Jacob’s Vision (2016), Bridgit (2016) by Charlotte Prodger and three short animations by the late artist-musician Katy Dove: Fantasy Freedom (1999), Luna (2004) and Meaning in Action (2013).
Making its Indian premiere was acclaimed artist-filmmaker Margaret Salmon’s debut feature Eglantine (2016), an account of a young girl’s real and fantastical adventure in a remote forest.