| |
Sagi Groner 04 11 2002. Israel 2003 20 min
There are places where even a walk from your home to the nearest
shopping mall can become a meaningful journey of self-contemplation
and discovery.
Israel might be such a place.
Sagi Groner, an artist who lives in the Netherlands for 7 years,
spent his birthday back in Israel with some close friends, a suicide
bomber struck a in shopping mall a few blocks away. Somewhat reluctantly
his friends agreed to go to the site with him.
04-11-02 is the filmmaker's video diary of going to the site and
back to the
house while having surprisingly revealing and intimate discussions
about the issue.
These talks (mostly not to the camera but amongst the characters
themselves) represent a somber and hidden angle of the over-mediated
middle-eastern conflict, one that lacks the familiar heated emotions
of politics and religion, beyond the chewed-up cliches of a never-ending
war.
Probably because of the outsider-insider duality of Groner in Israel,
who remains behind the camera, the film manages to probe powerfully
into the mundane and private reality of living in a society plagued
by suicide attacks.
GATE TO THE EU 1min - 2003
A one minute video which consists of one shot of a
revolving door in Schiphol airport Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Aside from the kaleidoscopic spinning reflections and
persons passing through this revolving gate into the territory of
the EU, "hidden" moments of symbolism are captured.
The door pauses two times within this minute, each pause reveals
the symbolic "true" nature of the revolving door in the
mind of the artist.
It is a revolving door, and though it seems to easily be entered,
and shines in sparkling colors, it is also an illusion and it also
quickly spits you out. It is ultimately closed.
The Israeli artist trying to stay and live in Europe is struggling
with residency permits for years, and this door has a realistic
as well as symbolic value for him.
GET OUT OF MY FUCKIN SPACE
A one minute video which consists of one shot taken
from a car driving in a street in downtown L.A. A street fight is
observed for a fleeting moment while the car stands at a red light.
Two homeless people are fighting over space.
As the car turns and pulls away the image of the fight is framed
by the back window and by hip hop music playing inside the car,
transforming the image into a cliche, a stereotype of what it is,
downtown L.A.
Blue Journey 5”30’
A video poem composed of images of travel and fight along with
voices of characters who express their journey in sensations, fear,
beliefs and realizations.
The text was obtained from interviews with 5 members of the sanctuary
mental space (SMS) exhibition in central museum Utrecht in November
2003.
From these recorded talks, samples of speech were assembled into
being the script of the film.
“LOST” 2004 - 9:00
A voice over confesses on issues like excess information, e-mails,
feelings of being lost, disconnectedness, dislocation self constructed
systems, mechanisms of resistance, loneliness as slows images of
ski jumpers fly trough the air, as a metaphoric image for the speed,
fear and euphoria and sensation of no gravity contemporary times.
Top Light and The Haunted Man - 2004 -12 minutes
In this split screen video Groner explores relations between
living in a state of hypnosis, Big Brother and the industries and
science of perception. In this suggestive collage, using archive
footage from pre and
post WW-2 along with satellite photos, images from security cameras
and web cams the story of The Haunted Man is revealed. Claire and
Don, the lead characters, question together with the viewer about
being awake
and aware, as they drift in and out of hypnosis in their search
for Top Light.
|
