netfilmmakers' blog

Time has come, the new edition of Netfilmmakers is upon us! On October 18th, South-African artist Aryan Kaganof will unveil the 18th edition, curated by him, aptly named “Noisewomb”, at the new and improved Netfilmmakers’ space, at Brorsonsgade 1, Vesterbro. Contributing artists Kerstin Ergenzinger, Isabelle Schiltz, and Catherine Henegan, will be present and discuss their works.

Curator Kaganof describes his idea of Noisewomb:

Intention of the theme (After Adorno).

If the aesthetic realm originally emerged as an autonomous sphere from the magic taboo, which distinguished the sacred from the everyday, seeking to keep the former pure, the profane now takes its revenge on the descendant of magic, on art. Art is permitted to survive only if it renounces the right to be different, and integrates itself into the omnipotent realm of the profane, which finally took over the taboo. Nothing may exist which is not like the world as it is. Noise is the false liquidation of art. Instead of utopia becoming a reality it disappears from the picture. NOISEWOMB is a net-based staging of the reappearance, on the scene of the absent sign, of the previously silent utopia.

I think it is useful to return to Rainer Maria Rilke’s fabulous essay “Primal Sound” from 1919, where he describes the following:

“The coronal suture of the skull a certain similarity to the closely wavy line which the needle of a phonograph engraves on the receiving, rotating cylinder of the apparatus. What if one changed the needle and directed it on its return journey along a tracing which was not derived from the graphic translation of a sound, but existed of itself naturally–well: to put it plainly, along the coronal suture, for example. What would happen?
A sound would necessarily result, a series of sounds, music … Feelings–which? Incredulity, timidity, fear, awe–which of all the feelings here possible prevents me from suggesting a name for the primal sound which would then make its appearance in the world … Leaving that side for the moment: what variety of lines then, occurring anywhere, could one not put under the needle and try out? Is there any contour that one could not, in a sense, complete in this way and then experience it, as it makes itself felt, thus transformed, in another field of sense?”

I am hoping that the three artists involved will work with this idea of a primal noise, an Ur-noise, a noise from the womb. I do not however, want to influence their interpretation of these ideas in any way.

Curator Aryan Kaganof (ZA)

Born in South Africa in 1964. Received political asylum in the Netherlands in 1983. Aryan Kaganof studied Film Directing and screenwriting at the Netherlands Film & Television Academy, Amsterdam, from 1990 to 1994. He has made many feature and documentary films and is particularly concerned with the impact of new media on classical cinema. He has experimented with formatting video and mobile phone files to 35mm gauge and continues to work in a variety of formats and media. More information can be found on www.kaganof.com, www.kagablog.com and www.smssugarman.com.
Kaganof is currently working on a number of documentary projects in Cape Town as well as a large scale multi-disciplinary theatrical show. He has been been Visiting Professor at the University of Malmo, Sweden and has written novels, published poetry and exhibited his fine art both in South Africa where he lives, and internationally. Films include SMS SUGAR MAN (a feature film shot entirely on mobile phones) and WESTERN 4.33.

Catherine Henegan (ZA)

Born and raised in Johannesburg, South Africa and resident in Amsterdam since 2000, Catherine Henegan’s work revolves around video, performance, and scenography. As a video artist and scenographer she creates works for music concerts, visual art exhibitions and theatre productions. Currently she is preparing to direct a new theatre performance which will premiere in April 2010 in South Africa. The piece is a collaboration with poets, hiphop artists, musicians and filmmakers and traces the origins and history of Afrikaans. She is also working on her first documentary film, an investigative journey around the life and times of her uncle who was a filmmaker in Zimbabwe for over 50 years.

Isabelle Schiltz (BE)

Isabelle Schiltz was born and raised in Virton, Belgium. She lives in Amsterdam where she is completing a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie, specializing her practice in Performance. She collaborated musically with various musicians and vocal performers. During her curriculum, she took part in an exchange semester at the Performance Department of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She is expected to graduate from the Gerrit Rietveld Academie in June 2010.

Kerstin Ergenzinger (DE)

“Kerstin Ergenzinger’s artwork envisions a conceptual and material framework for the technologies of inspection, visual transfer, and architecture. Her installation work raises questions of exactly what is lived space, what is our body, and by what measures do we judge it? In Kerstin’s work, futuristic landscapes pulse with viewers, machines, sound, and architecture built space interconnected to existing space by illumination and speed. By surveilling moving information at mixed velocities, viewers can question just what is being measured, and who is in control.

Kerstin mainly works with computer based and technological mechanisms, light and diverse matter in drawing, sculpture and video. She studied Fine Arts and Media Art at the University of Arts Berlin, the Chelsea College of Art and Design London and the Academy of Media Arts Cologne. At the moment she lives and works in Cologne and Bremen”

(By Julia Scher, borrowed from the artist’s website )
http://www.nodegree.de/