kagablog

Nicola’s first orgasm
Aryan Kaganof | 2003 | 5 min. | video | geen dialoog
“We cannot abstain from watching the revelation of a being that would be an object neither for herself nor for any other gaze and yet which would effect, in the mystery of her own invisibility, the condensation of all objectivity.”

watch it on www.filmbanktv.nl

De beschaving en andere hersenspinsels beschouwd tijdens het maken van een uiterst kunstzinnige speelfilm – Aryan Kaganof

Terwijl kunstenaar Dick Tuinder een uiterst kunstzinnige speelfilm staat te maken, is er nog een kunstenaar op de set van Winterland. Zijn naam is Aryan Kaganof (voorheen Ian Kerkhof) en hij heeft op een spiegel een tekst geschreven:

There are two-way mirrors which allow you innocently to spy on people. This is one of the finest metaphors for consciousness. There is no two-way screen because there is nothing to see on the other side of the screen, nothing to see without being seen.
Deze uitspraak van Jean Baudrillard, een post-moderne filosoof, legt hij voor aan de acteurs en filmmakers die er rondlopen.

Iedereen reageert er anders op. ‘Dit gaat over Tara Elders,’ zegt actrice Lotte Proot. Er ontstaat een gesprek over het wezen van een mannelijke acteur. ‘Een mannelijke acteur is een vrouwelijke man,’ stelt Kaganof. ‘Mannen willen waarheid,’ oppert de actrice, ‘en vrouwen willen verhullen.’ En later zegt ze: ‘Van woorden word ik gelukkig’, waarop Kaganof zegt: ‘Word je alleen gelukkig van dat wat je begrijpt? Dan heb je een heel ongelukkig bestaan.’

Wat betekent…

‘Ik begrijp het niet,’ zegt Kiriko Mechanicus terwijl ze naar de letters kijkt. Ze speelt Sally Dewinter in Winterland. De 13-jarige actrice houdt alles eenvoudig. ‘Wat betekent consciousness?’ Als ze zichzelf zou zien staan op de set, kijkend naar de grote oog-ballon die op zijn beurt naar haar kijkt, zou ze deze vraag misschien kunnen beantwoorden. Even later heeft ze een mooi antwoord op de vraag wat fictie is: ‘Dat is het tegenovergestelde van realiteit’.

Tussen deze spiegelfragmenten door koopt Dick Tuinder een paar NRC’s, maar ook oude kaas, maakt hij (aan-)tekeningen in een schrift en praat hij op de set over de juiste volgorde van de opnames. Hij speelt in Winterland zichzelf, net als Tara Elders, maar ook weer niet. Tuinder: ‘Als je een film maakt, ben je voortdurend aanschouwer van wat je hebt gedaan. (…) Op de set speel ik een regisseur, maar wel zo goed, dat ik het zelf geloof.’

Gekanteld

Het ingewikkelde van De beschaving en andere hersenspinsels is dat Kaganof op een set filmt waar een film gemaakt wordt waarin een film gemaakt wordt. Dit geeft op sommige momenten een Droste-effect, letterlijk wanneer je kijkt naar Tuinder die door een monitor kijkt naar het spel van Tara Elders, die dus zichzelf speelt. Alhoewel… kan dat wel, jezelf spelen? Nee, is de conclusie van Tuinder en Kaganof. En dus: Tara Elders bestaat niet.

De film wekt verwarring, wat is gespeeld in Winterland en wat niet..? Hij maakt nieuwsgierig naar deze film. En om de verwarring nog iets groter te maken: Kaganof meldt dat hij ‘in de ban van filosoof Immanuel Kantel’ is. Vandaar dat hij sommige beelden heeft gekanteld.

Eva Wals

reviewed By Mike Everleth ⋅ September 23, 2009

Civilization and Other Chimeras

The world is littered with movie “making of” documentaries. Oh, we may not consider those self-serving promotional DVD “bonus” features where filmmakers discuss their process the way a cheesemaker may wax eloquently about the way they make cheese as “documentaries,” but in their own way they are. Some may even exhibit some artistic creativity in and of themselves.

But South African filmmaker Aryan Kaganof elevates the “making of” documentary to a brilliant piece of artistry in his Civilization and Other Chimeras Observed During the Making of an Exceptionally Artistic Feature Film. However, a bit of a correction, as labeling Civilization and Other Chimeras as simply a “making of” doc is very misleading. What’s really happening here is Kaganof has taken the occasion of the making of a particular film to ruminate on the very nature of reality and to push the paradoxical idea of “Even if an action is recorded on camera, did it really happen?”

Kaganof sets up his premise with an on-screen quote from the post-modern French philosopher Jean Baudrillard, which says in its entirety:

There are two-way mirrors which allow you innocently to spy on people. This is one of the finest metaphors for consciousness. There is no two-way screen because there is nothing to see on the other side of the screen, nothing to see without being seen.

The Baudrillard quote also pops up repeatedly throughout the film. Someone — and we can assume Kaganof — has written the quote on a mirror hung on the wall of the film set’s make-up room. Kaganof films various crew and cast members reading the quote, but the only person it really seems to stick with is a young pre-teen actress, Kiriko Mechanicus, who seems to view the quote as a puzzle she needs to solve.

Mechanicus is the star of the “exceptionally artistic film” whose production Kaganof is documenting. Called Winterland, it is the directorial debut of fine artist Dick Tuinder. The centerpiece image of Winterland is of Mechanicus as her character, Sally DeWinter, riding a giant eyeball balloon. If the young actress could only see an image of an audience watching her watching the giant eyeball watching her, she might actually solve that puzzle she’s so desperately trying to figure out.

Baudrillard’s screen metaphor gets a physical workout through Tuinder’s directing style. When scenes of Winterland are being shot, Tuinder sits back watching the action on a playback monitor rather than watch the live action happening just a few feet from him. The actual scenes being performed are so close to the monitor that Kaganof is able to capture both the live performance and it’s immediate playback on Tuinder’s screen.

The effect of being an audience member watching a screen filled with another man watching a screen of simultaneous action that we can also see happening is an extremely disconcerting one. It makes that audience member question where does reality actually lie? The acting of the scene in Winterland is completely irrelevant unless it’s being captured by a camera. Yet, Tuinder acting as a director is also being captured by a camera. So, if Kaganof wasn’t filming Tuinder, would Tuinder’s directing being similarly irrelevant? And who is watching the audience watching Tuinder watching the acting? If nobody is watching somebody watching Civilization and Other Chimeras, does Kaganof’s documentary actually exist?

It’s tough to point out anything that’s real in the documentary. First of all, there’s never any discussion of what Winterland is about and the scenes we see being shot don’t offer any clues as to what the plot may be. Plus, many of the actors we never see outside of their costumes so that most of them don’t seem like real people, just characters living inside some hazy dream. Even Tuinder’s role as director becomes suspect as it slowly becomes clear that he has cast himself as a character in his own film. Where Tuinder the director stops and Tuinder the character begins — and vice versa — is unknown.

The “making of” documentary typically follows fairly rigid structural and formal conventions. For Civilization and Other Chimeras, Aryan Kaganof has completely subverted those conventions to concoct a real challenging mind-bender of a film that intriguingly weaves together layers upon layers of conundrums, paradoxes and mysteries.

this review first appeared on badlit.com

world premiere is on 29 september during the netherlands film festival in utrecht. more information here

short films (under 30min)

as african noise foundation

Ces deux courts métrages réalisés en 2009 par Aryan Kaganof sont inspirés directement par l’univers musical du compositeur Michael Blake. Le premier commence avec les images d’une toile d’araignée et avec sa propriétaire en train de se balancer à l’intérieur. Les images qui suivent en parallèle sont très fraîches et palpitantes, en accord avec la partition de cette première composition « French suite » de Michael Blake. L’eau d’une rivière coule joyeusement comme la mélodie ininterrompue et douce, comme les jours d’une vie banale mais gracieuse. Par contre, les pierres et les cailloux immobiles au fond de la rivière connotent cette « immobilité» cachée qui est en contraste avec le flux de l’eau. Le film dure 7 minutes et son titre nous fait penser métaphoriquement à une nouvelle stratégie d’organisation des sociétés humaines. Un clochard nous confirme à la fin « j’aimerais bien partir d’ici ».

« Prolégomènes pour une histoire du temps» est la deuxième partie de ce diptyque. Le compositeur Blake cette fois a mis en musique le texte éponyme du philosophe Martin Heidegger (écrit en 1925) et il a utilisé une composition« dysnarrative », c’est-à-dire interrompue intentionnellement par l’interprétation de Jill Richards mais sans nuire à l’ « intrigue» musicale originale. La cohérence intérieure de cette composition est très claire. La référence au philosophe Martin Heidegger (qui avait adhéré au parti nazi en 1933) n’a aucune connotation négative puisque ce film est une métaphore de vie, comme le précédent. En montage parallèle nous voyons les morceaux de ciel, les clairières et les arbres qui entourent un cimetière de voitures perdu au centre d’une forêt. La caméra de Kaganof est encore une fois très palpitante de vie tandis qu’elle observe ce cimetière. Ainsi le contraste dramatique et émotionnel est mis en avant. Les carcasses des voitures abandonnées sont le signe d’une mort suggérée proche et d’une résurrection consécutive. Le film dure 10 minutes (comme la composition éponyme de Blake) et ces dix minutes sont la marque d’un chiffre rond et solide, comme les arbres de la forêt et comme l’imagination du duo Kaganof – Blake. L’image devient fragmentée à la fin pour mieux suggérer cette unité apparente - latente du diptyque. On y voit un carré de ciel ennuagé, entouré d’un cadre noir.

Écrit par Dionysos Andronis

i had another thought about this that i wanted to share with you
from 1990 to about 1999
i made a series of films and videos that were extremely, well, extreme
films that explored, researched and analysed extreme sub-cultures
films that researched sex, violence, misogyny and pornography

to this day i am still being contacted by people who see these films, or have seen them once, who expect me to be some kind of guru of the perverse, who can introduce them to even deeper depths of weirdness, or beat them or torture them or get them connected to the “scene”, whatever or wherever that might be. people who imagine me to be a kind of dark lord or something…

it is still strange and disconcerting for me to discover and be confronted with the kind of people who actually liked and enjoyed those films
FOR ALL THE WRONG REASONS

that’s the weird thing
the library that i built up was evidence of decline
evidence of a world gone mad
and the fact that people, some people, actually loved those films, is of course proof of the theory
but nonetheless very disturbing!

so
i did learn that the work itself, although being a direct product of my own concerns and themes and issues
is not necessarily perceived in that way
or read in that way
or understood in that way
and the terrible truth is
that the way people read and perceive the work
is as much real as the way i intend the work
it’s no less valid for not being what i am about!
maybe it’s more valid!!!

one has to let go
really let go, of the work
otherwise it is a total mindfuck
and there is nothing worse than meeting so-called “fans” who quote one against what one has become
“but you said XXXXX in 1993 when you were still cutting edge…!!!”

boy it’s depressing

aryan kaganof

« Sept jours chez les Silbersteins & C’est quoi l’opéra ? » est un geste amical pour honorer le dixième anniversaire de mariage de Christine Lucia et de Michael Blake. La caméra de Kaganof les observe du même angle en train de chanter ensemble une partition d’opéra en train de se faire. Les couleurs changent tandis que la caméra reste plus ou moins sur le même endroit. Un cri vient couvrir le deuxième générique « C’est quoi l’opéra ? ». Les visages sereins du couple de musiciens sont la marque d’une création classique, moderne et calme mais, comme ce cri aimerait nous le suggérer, avec des originalités intérieures.

dionysos andronis

RAMPHOLO MOLEFHE
9/2/2004 12:24:20 AM (GMT +2)

Botswana’s jazz lovers were distraught at the passing away of veteran South African bass player, Sipho Gumede last month. Less visible was the taller than six foot figure of ‘Bra Geoff’ Matlherane Mphakathi who died at the age of 64.

bra’ geoff mphakathi photo by ruby savage

The larger than life Mphakathi was a rare species of a self-instructed promoter, moved by a total commitment to the arts and the crafts and the people who made it.

Mphakathi managed Phillip Tabane and his group that came to be popularly known as Malombo in the 1960s. The group that included drummer Julian Bahula and flutist Abe Cindi caused a sensation at the Castle Lager sponsored jazz festival in Mamelodi in the 1960s where they took first place among a multitude of mainstream oriented jazz bands.

Their music, inspired by the more primitive Pedi based style of Malopo, captured the imagination of the audience and judges alike. Malombo was a radically new ‘jazz’ voice. Bra Geoff then managed Malombo’s protégés who went by the name of Dashiki. This ensemble included vibraphonist, Oupa Mokou and drummer Lefifi Tladi, also a poet, sculptor and graphic artist.

Mokou and Tladi were forced into exile in Botswana where they were joined by Bonjo Keipidile, Thabiso Leshoai and Rampholo Molefhe to continue the tradition of Dashiki. Jonas Gwangwa later joined Dashiki in the late 1970s and the group evolved to be called Shakawe.

Mphakathi visited Botswana on several occasions and continued to inspire the troupe and Tladi in particular. Tladi and Mphakathi collaborated to organise exhibitions of South African artists at the National Museum and Art Gallery in Gaborone.

Among the artists who benefited from Bra Geoff’s tireless work were Motlhabane Mashiangwako, Winston Saoli, the late Fikile Mgadlela and Harry Moyaga who is now resident in Manchester, United Kingdom.

Tladi’s thirst for further instruction in the graphic arts took him to Sweden where he now resides. This Day reports that at the time of his death, Bra Geoff was on the third day of shooting a film documentary Giant Steps: a portrait of Lefifi Tladi

Born on February 4 1940, Bra Geoff established the Jazz appreciation Society in the late 1960s. In the 1970s he established several temporary art galleries that exhibited the works of a broad spectrum of South African artists.

He continued his work in the 1980s through the establishment of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Artists.

He staged art exhibitions in Holland, Sweden, Russia and the United States. Bra Geoff published two books, Lesego Rampolokeng’s Black Heart and Laduma by A K Thembeka after establishing the publishing house, MK Media early this year.

Before his untimely death, Bra Geoff had wanted to re-publish House of Bondage, Ernest Cole’s photographic comment on apartheid.

this obituary first appeared on the arts/culture review

blue notes for mongezi - 4th movement - one of bra’ geoff’s favourite pieces of music

music - joel assaizky
vocal & lyrics - aryan kaganof
video edited by the isidore isou remix collective
3min37sec
june 2009

watch it here

http://www.meanwhile.co.za/MEANWHILE8/?p=321

“There are channels and thus there must be noise.”[10]

In a usual understanding of communication, noise is an unwanted third thing that interferes in what would otherwise be a clear connection between a sender and a receiver. On closer reflection, though, noise is more complex. To begin with, it always indicates the wider context or milieu in which communication takes place. A message must pass through a medium. The medium generates effects that attach to the message. Noise, therefore, is a constitutive feature of any communication. Noise is the presence of the medium through which the message must pass. Each new innovation in media promises to minimize noise, but inevitably generates its own new brand of clamor. This battle with the medium is never entirely successful because we can never eliminate the space of transmission. There is always a context of communication, or an environment and so there is always a noisy third term. Serres writes: “…We are surrounded by noise. We are in the noises of the world, and we cannot close our door to their reception. In the beginning is noise. The real seems to me to be stochastically regular.”[11]

The analysis of noise therefore proves to be far more interesting than we might have suspected. Noise directs us away from the message itself toward the medium in which it occurs. In Serres’ image of communication, noise is the “third man,” always on the perimeter of any circuit of senders and receivers. In order to communicate, sender and receiver have to battle with the clamor of the milieu. No matter how opposed the terms of their debate, they proceed on the understanding that they can minimize the threat of noise and control the environment in which they operate and transfer messages.

The attempt to eliminate the noisy middle changes the relation of sender and receiver. Security measures we introduce to protect us from the threat of terrorism, for example, change the very community we set out to protect. Every attempt to create better channels of communication between parents and children, by aping the language of our children, or compelling them to be clearer with us, changes the relation of parents and children. The reaction to noise, whether it is to incorporate it, or to try more effectively to expel it, transforms the communicants.

Serres’ theory of noise changes in important ways through his career. In his early work, noise appears to interfere in communication. He wonders how we might render the translation inert. Critics have pointed out an element of idealism in his early Hermes work, where he sees the empirical variations in communication — accent, misspelling, etc — as the extraneous stuff to be removed. In his later works, however, he begins to see noise as a positive force in communication.

Why look to parasites for insights on the relation of noise and communication? The simple answer is that in French, parasite can mean one of three things: an organism that lives off a host, a social loafer who takes a meal and gives nothing in turn, or static/white noise in a communication circuit. These very different senses of the term — biological, social, informational — share a common principle that we might call simply interference. In each case, the parasite interferes in, and ultimately upsets, some existing set of relations and pattern of movement. It compels us either to expel it, or to readjust our internal workings so that we can accommodate the needs of the parasite. Noise, in other words, is to communication what a virus is to an organism, or a scapegoat is to a community. It is not simply an obstacle, but rather a productive force around the exclusion of which the system is organized.

It is beyond the scope of this paper to address the full implications of the biological theory of parasitism, but I will mention in passing that recent work in virology supports Serres’ claim of the productivity of the parasite. Luis Villareal, a leading virologist suggests that new work on the role of viruses in evolution challenges our accepted ideas of “life.” Viral research places in doubt the common doxa that the cell is the basic unit of life, because it contains the material for its own replication. Viruses are purely relational beings that must live off the life force of some other thing. Because they lack the capacity for self-replication, viruses have been thought to be only partly in being, or to have some problematic, liminal status outside the web of life. Villarreal and others now believe, however, that viruses are far more complex and challenge our ideas of what constitutes life. In fact, they even suggest that cells may have required viruses in order to evolve. All of which affirms Serres’ basis premise of the productivity of the parasite and, more generally, the principle that relations precede being.[12]

Serres’ revaluation of “parasitic” noise builds on a basic principle of information theory. In Claude Shannon’s pioneering work in information theory, noise is recognized as a necessary consequence of transmission. The snow on the television set, the hiss on a tape, or a missed registration in a printing operation are all instances of noise, or parasitism. In each of these cases, the presence of the medium is registered in what would, seemingly, otherwise be a clear transmission.[13]

Claude Shannon recognized that whether or not a certain effect is considered noise depends on one’s position in the listening chain. Noise is interference only from the sender’s point of view. From the point of view of the receiver it may be considered a part of the information packet that is transmitted along a channel. When we hear the earliest sound recordings of Tennyson reading Charge of the Light Brigade, for example, the watered down and scratched out sound conveys the enormous passage of time, just as the static sound of Neil Armstrong’s voice on the moon tells us something about his physical distance from us and the newness of space technologies in the 1960s. It would not be difficult to think of countless other cases in which the presence of the medium mixes in with the intended message to produce some whole new effect, not intended by the sender, but taken as information by the receiver. In these cases, noise is not simply an extra third thing to be discounted. It has entered into the message and become part of it. To speak technically, the signal now has an “equivocation,” which is to say that two messages pass along the same channel. The sender may not have intended this, but the receiver may welcome it.

The detective genre offers interesting examples of this productivity of noise. The popularity of shows such as C.S.I. lies not so much in their capacity to puzzle out the mind of the killer, as in the kind of “media analysis” one finds in them. Typically, the killer wants to send a message by marking up a body, or dressing his victim in a certain way. The police, being good hermeneutists, ignore this message and seek out the unintended communication, the way that the medium attaches itself to the signal. They look, in other words, for equivocation in the message.

It is because the killer, or thief operates in an environment that is, in itself, a medium that he can be detected. The dirt that attaches itself to the car, the fiber from a couch, and the procession of insects that arrive at a dead body in a predictable and datable sequence are all things over which the killer exercises no mastery. The police recognize a basic principle of information theory that is also the starting point of Serres’s work: noise does not indicate a lack, but a surplus of information. And a medium/milieu affects, or acts upon, the signal. The active intention to transmit a signal requires that we open ourselves to the passive reception of the medium in which it can occur. The user is used by the medium. Marshall McLuhan began his media analysis on exactly the same point. “The medium is the message,” he explains, means that the user becomes the content of the message. The user is used by the medium.

Serres takes this principle in new and interesting directions. He follows the French biologist Henri Atlan in arguing that equivocation, or noise, in a system should not be seen as a lack that takes away from communication; rather, it is a positive force that does something. Atlan argues that noise prompts a system to reorganize in a more complex form that incorporates the disturbance.[14] Here we really find the heart of Serres’ theory of the parasite.

stephen crocker
noise is the presence of the medium
this excerpt originally appeared on ctheory.net

3min31sec
june 2009
shot on location in sweden, may 2008
music - three toys no. 1, michael blake
piano - jill richards
thank you - lajos varhegyi

“Melancholy redeems this universe, and yet it is melancholy that separates us from it.”

e.m. cioran

Ce long métrage documentaire de Aryan Kaganof a été tourné en 2008 aux décors du film « Winterland » mais le montage a été achevé cette année. C’est un nouveau chef d’œuvre réalisé par Aryan Kaganof et cette fois son écriture filmique est plus conventionnelle que les films précédents de l’Auteur. Kaganof est un fan du cinéaste hollandais Dick Tuinder et ils ont conçu ensemble ce documentaire de fiction comme un « making of » sur le premier long métrage de Tuinder. Nous avions rencontré les deux en août 2008 à Amsterdam. Ils étaient de passage dans la capitale puisque ce film « Winterland » était tourné en pleine province hollandaise. Tuinder et son producteur célèbre Gijs Van Der Westelaken * avaient assisté à la première hollandaise de «SMS Sugar Man» dans la belle galerie « Illuseum», le 9-8-8.

Le film commence par une citation traduite en anglais de Jean Baudrillard et issue de son livre « Fragments ». Nous allons retrouver cette citation comme une œuvre d’art réécrite par Kaganof lui-même sur les décors intérieurs du film. Cette citation commence par : « Il y a des miroirs doubles qui nous permettent d’espionner avec innocence les gens ». C’est le début bref de la philosophie du tournage. Tout le film de Tuinder apparait comme un jeu d’illusions sur les apparences trompeuses et leurs reproductions « innocentes » cinématographiques. C’était aussi le sujet d’un court métrage précédent de Tuinder «Most things never happen» (faut-il vraiment traduire ce titre significatif ?) que nous avions vu au « National Arts Festival » sud-africain en 2005 pendant la rétrospective « Cinéma Dionysiaque ».

La première manipulation sur les spectateurs serait la jeune protagoniste Kiriko Mechanicus qui est en vérité un alter ego de Sally de Winter, l’actrice adolescente favorite de Tuinder. Cette fois la jeune Kiriko devient l’incarnation de Sally et nous offre un chemin secondaire de réflexion sur les apparences. Elle caresse un œil géant accroché sur les décors et qui sert comme œil supérieur de surveillance ou d’observation.

Dick Tuinder achète un bouquin qui a un seul mot au titre « Civilization » (en anglais) et puis fait le va et vient parmi les acteurs et les décors. « Nous allons trouver la solution au montage » nous dit l’intertitre au milieu du film, écrit en hollandais. Il se promène après dans la forêt pendant la nuit en réfléchissant sur sa mise en scène. C’est une action parallèle qui nous aide à changer des lieux et des apparences, afin de ne pas trahir le « réalisme » du dispositif cinématographique. La couturière n’est pas épargnée par le principe d’entretiens filmés. Le grand acteur Thom Jansen revient pendant tout le film pour commenter l’évolution positive des faits.

Et à la fin du documentaire Kaganof pose une question importante au réalisateur, une question qui résume ce jeu des apparences. « Vous aimez jouer le rôle de Dick Tuinder ? »

C’est un chef d’œuvre simple qui n’apporte pas de réponses à la problématique du film original mais qui nous offre une belle promenade dans un paysage artistique d’évasion.

écrit par Dionysos Andronis

· Westelaken avait produit les derniers films controversés de Theo Van Gogh et il avait donné plusieurs entretiens à la télé internationale après son assassinat en 2004.

live recording at the now defunct obs theatre, observatoy cape town with righard kapp on electronics
images are all from the nsa gallery exhibition “virgins: the staging of the artists as the work itself”, durban, 2004
text is by theodor w. adorno from his book “minima moralia”

blue notes for bra’ geoff
2009
57min38sec
featuring Geoff Mphakati, Otsile Ntsoane, Thabo Mashishi, Zim Ngqawana, Kgafela oa Magogodi, Lesego Rampolokeng and vusi mahlasela
special thanks - clifford mphakati
camera - AK Thembeka
sound recordist - Basiami Bitsang Segolo
sound design - Jah Funmi
editor - Doc Shabalazza
directed and produced by aryan kaganof for african noise foundation

Un film de Aryan Kaganof

Ce court métrage de Kaganof a été réalisé en novembre 2008 pendant le séminaire éponyme de trois jours, du 2 au 4, à l’Université de Malmo. C’est vraiment un film différent de l’auteur, si on le compare aux précédents de sa filmographie. Il est aussi légèrement ironique. Cette touche d’ironie est aussi différente. Elle est douce et discrète et devient évidente surtout à la fin du film, quand le cinéaste se révèle devant l’objectif en nous faisant un signe « optimiste » avec ses doigts. La musique de Michael Blake est aussi douce et sans continuité, comme l’ironie qui en découle. Si on fait référence à un poème du cinéaste paru quelques jours plus tard sur le kagablog, on prend la confirmation. Voilà un vers traduit par nous : « la plupart des professeurs universitaires, ce ne sont pas des intellectuels mais des agents de la pensée » (voir « How I died (again) » du 15 décembre 2008).

Parmi les professeurs universitaires du séminaire nous pouvons distinguer Anne-Marie Duguet, Lajos Varhegyi, Michael Heim, Dick Hebdige et quelques autres. Tous se tournent vers la caméra au début du film avant de laisser la place à Kaganof. Il n’y pas de citation de leurs noms, ni au film ni au générique ! Nous avions rencontré Anne-Marie Duguet au festival parisien « Astarti » en 1998. Elle est prof à la Sorbonne, spécialisée à l’art vidéo. Elle dirige aussi la belle série théorique « Anarchives », dont le titre contient une ambigüité réussie. C’est la même ambigüité qui caractérise la plupart des créations de Kaganof. L’américain Michael Heim est aussi compositeur et sa qualité d’artiste (comme notre idole tout justement mentionné) pourrait donner une nouvelle destination au séminaire. Le plus célèbre professeur du séminaire est sûrement Dick Hebdige, anglais qui exerce ses fonctions aux Etats Unis. Il est aussi le chouchou (parmi d’autres) du très important Palais de Tokyo parisien qui a plusieurs fois fait référence à ses écrits. « Il s’intéresse plus particulièrement aux classes ouvrières blanches et à leurs sous-cultures en lien avec la musique, des teddy boys aux mods, des rockeurs aux punks et aux skinheads » (in « Palais » numéro 7, Paris, automne 2008, page 90). Son ouvrage célébrissime « Sous-culture : Le sens du style » vient d’être traduit en français pour la première fois avec un retard inadmissible de trente ans : « La version traduite du texte, disponible désormais aux éditions de La Découverte, permet d’évaluer avec trente ans de retard ce décloisonnement des disciplines propres aux cultural studies et dont la France s’est longtemps tenue écartée » (Gallien Dejean, in « Zéro Deux » (Nantes), numéro 49, printemps 2009, page 35).

Pour revenir à notre argument du début sur l’ironie kaganovienne, qui est d’une nouvelle dimension sociopolitique cette fois, nous allons citer encore le poème « How I died (again) », inspiré par cette rencontre :

« je ne peux pas

être le seul

à sentir comment

cette rencontre

est une perte de temps

et d’énergie extraordinaire ?»

(traduit par nous)

Ce film « New Media Politics – Experiment number 1 » n’est pas disponible seulement au fameux KagaBlog mais aussi sur « You Tube ».

écrit par Dionysos Andronis