kagablog

Tuesday May 13th , 14.15 – 17 Malmö Museum
Seminar in connection with the “Houses of Memory” exhibition at Malmö Museum

14.15 – 15.30 Aryan Kaganof: The Presence of the Past

· SIGNAL TO NOISE (1997, 6min)

· MARIENBAD REVISITED (2008, 11min)

· WESTERN 4.33 (2002, 32min)

· Discussion

Aryan Kaganof´s film WESTERN 4.33 will be introduced as exhibiting the ruined spaces of the failed colonial experiment. The Lutheran protestant architecture still stands in the desert, a haunting reminder of how perverse the project really was, to “civilise” the natives by systematically starving them to death! The film attempts to deal with history in a non explicative way, not reducing the past to a temporally segmented fragment of “then”; but rather dealing with the present as a space informed, or haunted if you will, by the constant presence of the past.

SIGNAL TO NOISE is an earlier attempt to use repetitions in order to understand how materiality informs our “reading” of narratives. Kaganof was particularly interested in nostalgia at the time, in how cinematic images shot on super8mm material were inherently nostalgic, a priori.

13 May fits right in with the 40th anniversary of the May 1968 student riots, Kaganof would like to screen a détournement of Alain Robbe-Grillet’s classic high modernist analysis of the workings of memory, L’annee dernier a Marienbad. This screening also serves as a homage to Robbe-Grillet who died on 18 February this year.

15.45 – 16.30 Oscar Hemer:
Writing the City in post-apartheid South Africa

16.30 – 17 Discussion

The “Houses of Memory” exhibition, as part of the Memories of Modernity project, is very much related to Hemer’s current research project on “Fiction’s Truth”, in which he studies fiction’s role in the transition processes of South Africa and Argentina. For this seminar the focus is on South Africa and writing as a way of appropriating and reconquering the urban public space. Ocar Hemer would like to discuss the relation between artistic and academic form and the prospects for genre hybridization in culture and media research.

Oscar Hemer

‘Reverie’ (created in 2003) marks the first of many later collaborations between director/writer/artist Aryan Kaganof and much-lauded composer/pianist Michael Blake. A fascinating concept, and sublimely executed, the collaboration is based around a solo-piano piece composed by Blake in the mid-Nineties. The concept for their project was, in a sense, a direct inversion of the tradition movie soundtrack audio-visual dynamic. Whereas in traditional soundtracking the music exists to highlight, amplify or contradict the psychological aspects of a movie, to operate as a kind of meta-text to the film; in ‘reverie’ the focus is the music, with the visuals serving to compliment the atmosphere of the piece through subtle shifts of tension and harmony.

Usually when visuals are created to support music, as in Veejaying (where ‘visual dj’s create visuals to accompany songs at electronic dance events and parties), the approach is overtly ‘literal’, or symmetrical, with the visuals merely manipulated to match the rhythm of the music. Here Kaganof has succeeded in making a visual track that embodies all the subtleties of a sophisticated score in its relation to the central piece, here the music. The piece itself is a softly repetitive, simplistically and gently beautiful composition; interestingly, the Shona and San vocals on which the piano melodies are based suggest Oriental influence, which might have influenced Kaganof’s idea for the source-material of his visuals, the mood of the piece, a kind of beautiful, slightly melancholic limbo, certainly did.

His source-material is footage he shot in 2004 of citizens of Jeonju, South Korea, strolling through one of the city’s beloved parks; he describes the frenetic pace of day-to-day Jeonju as “40 times the pace of Joburg..”, which has led to the tradition of Sundays dedicated to languid strolling in these peaceful parks, a literal unwinding. The figures in the camera shots have been manipulated into soft, spilling splotches of form moving to the mood of, as opposed to the rhythm of, Dr Blake’s composition; formal quality of this visual manipulation led one of the viewers to liken it to Impressionism in painting. Certainly the visuals do suggest a slow-spilling painting.

mick raubenheimer

“Welcome to the Slaughterhouse” is a powerful video essay produced by Aryan Kaganof in 2007, with extracts from films and the complicity of other video makers from the African Noise Foundation. During the 41 minutes of the film, we witness violent scenes, some of them from television reports, opening with one of that year’s most shocking emblems – the image of the latest college massacre in the United States perpetrated by Cho Seung Hui. At the beginning of the film he talks to us of his motives and decision to kill his fellow students, and his secret method. The second part of the film is an ironic collage of various CNN images of the current American president expounding his plans to fight terrorism. The superimposed headings parody his discourse, mixing up his words which promise to spare us from terrorists’ blackmail.

The music by the composer Joel Assaizky, (Kaganof’s long-term collaborator and member of their group “Freedom Fighter”) aims to give unity and intimate coherence to this slightly jumbled collage. Aside from the themes of violence and war which we come back to again and again, the films’ other themes are various; in the third part of the film entitled “Baphomet danse macabre” we see extracts from the ball from “Last Year in Marienbad”, scenes with no apparent logical suite but in sonic contradiction, for in this remake of Resnais’ film, a couple are looking at each other peacefully and lovingly.

The fourth part is the most sado-masochist and is made up of images of Johan Thom’s actual performance. It is called, simply “Baphomet” and is a contemporary adaptation of “Bodybuilding”, a performance by Otto Muehl dating from 1966, where the artist firmly binds his face with bandages. Here, 41 years later, Thom attaches his face with thick, transparent thread which must surely hurt. This time, the electronic editing and stroboscopic effects transform his face into a modifiable and elastic – almost plastic – space, in emotional contradiction with the melodic and serene music by Ruth White. The representation of corporal pain is in complete accordance with the film’s other images.

The fifth part is the most abstract, and a formal variation on the preceding one. It’s called “Corticotropin” and is inspired by Kaganof’s abstract plastic creations. Kaganof the plastic artist wanted to animate them in order to emphasise the enigmatic aspect of his essay. “Panic Attack” is the title of the sixth part and is an adaptation of Rob Schroder’s film “Moral Panic”, which consists of a collage of television reports from 1963 to 2004. Principally inspired by images of war and terrorist attacks, Schroder’s film is inspired by the militant cinema of Guy Debord, in a more contemporary context.

“Mary Worshipping Baphomet” is the seventh part, containing images from one of Kaganof’s earlier films, “Two Heads Are Better Than One”. The impressively edited bicephalous monster who sings is a variation on the contemporary individual. The penultimate section is called “War Zone” and is the most violent, with real images of lynched corpses. The ninth and final section, “Floor Crossing”, again contains scenes from the classic “Dead man 2”, a film on death and resurrection through pure love.

With this film, Kaganof is above all trying to subvert television, which is not his favourite medium, in order to show us how television news and reports are used as method of widespread manipulation. The rotoreliefs in the fifth part of his film are nothing but a metonymy of the vertigo of televisual disinformation. As a whole, his film takes up the chaotic images of this disinformation, giving it perfect aesthetic and poetic coherence worthy of the pinnacle of video art. The film is dedicated to the memory of Kurt Vonnegut, the American author of “Slaughterhouse-Five”, who died in 2007.

Dionysos ANDRONIS

translated from the french by lucy lyall grant

At the beginning of the year, Aryan Kaganof produced several significant short films and here we’re going to look at three of them.

“Suprematist Composition Number 36” is a gem which would fit well with Ron Athey or Johan Thom’s S&M performances – but in this film the naked star is the filmmaker himself – a fact which cannot go unnoticed! Extreme poetry, recited and filmed, produce this precious jewel of a short film. It is a sophisticated and intellectual film, introducing us to the pleasures of sadomasochism from a strictly artistic point of view. Kaganof admitted that the performance entitled “Shooting Gallery” (which was filmed in Grahamstown and Johannesburg) was a little difficult for him, but he accepted suffering for several days to leave us with this recorded document. Whilst suspended by a rope, naked and upside down, Kaganof recites one his poems called “The Funeral”. It begins “I went to my own funeral/they were playing that celestial music” and ends

So say “c’est la vie” to the broken-hearted
Say “bon voyage” to the newly-weds
Always say “I love you” to the one
You wake up next to
But o my sweet little darling
Don’t you ever say “forever”
Forever is a very short time *

* Aryan Kaganof “Drive-Thru Funeral”, published by Pine Slopes, 2003, Westhoven, SA, p.23.

While the poet recites his lines, suspended upside down, very violent images of war are projected on a giant screen, intersected with images of a baby (the poet-performer himself). As a metaphor for the naivety of every war ever waged, Kaganof’s short film offers us the most powerful pacifist allegorical visual poem of our times, and one that is also a vindication of extreme carnal pleasures – if regarded from a uniquely artistic-alternative angle.

A second performance set up and recorded by Kaganof took place in 2003 in Utrecht (The Netherlands) with the pianist Tomoko Mukaiyama, Kaganof and the plastic artist Dick Tuinder. All three of them star in another performance which is musical, literary and plastic (in the wider sense of its combining painting with the “happening”). “Trio Mental” is the title of an expanded performance which blends Kaganof’s occultist and metaphysical poetry (this time the poem “In the Beginning” from his anthology “Abraxas – The Prophet of Nothing” published by Pine Slopes, Westhoven, 2003, p.134) with Tuinder’s mock “childish” decors and paintings, and Mukaiyama on piano interpreting a free composition by Ramon Dos Santos (Dick Tuinder). Kaganof abandons himself to a hysterical interpretation of his hymn while Tuinder closely supervises the lighting of his plastic environment, rendering him an expert adult storyteller and fabulist.

The third performance is “Mechanicus” starring the hands of Tomoko Mukaiyama, interpreting on piano a Noise score in homage to her dead husband. The screen is split into two, three or, at the end, several parts, as the composition gets more and more complicated. In fact, the music remains repetitive but a climatic sensation is produced by this visual and acoustic symphony, due, principally, to the brio and interior energy of the pianist Mukaiyama.

translated from the french by lucy lyall grant

The 2004 video clip “Kraftmusichall” alias “Nique ta mère” (“Fuck Your Mother”) contains a very strong dimension of transgression. Its meaning is somewhat difficult to capture, but the flood of images is very powerful and solid. To music from the industrial group Tempsion, Kaganof shows that new life is prepared through the satisfying of inner urges, and this flood of ill-assorted images lasting 10 minutes reaches its climax – piss on the face of an old man, who is thus revived and liberated from his status as one of the living dead. The industrial music, a mix of the noises of our artificial environment, brilliantly accompanies the explosion of shapes which also symbolises the demographic explosion of modern societies. In this clip the KuKluxKlan meets Georges Bataille, coming back to the starting point of the first film.

Aryan Kaganof produced the clip “Why Do You Want to Believe?” by the new group ELECTRO MAGNETIC PULSE in 2007. Kaganof produced this vital clip for the very hard eponymous song – “vital” for it is overflowing with energy. It begins with a round, black iris which opens to the audience. A frenzy of rhythmic music follows, with images of the group performing in a studio. The shots are short inserts because the track is very fast. And the musical madness is accompanied on a visual plane by images both in colour and in black and white, purely hallucinatory and psychedelic images of this corrosive trio interpreting these slightly hysterical tracks. Their singer Evert Steyn smokes a cigarette and speaks to us, his face voluntarily deformed by a wide-angle lens. And the sub-heading with the group’s full name reappears constantly before the different parts of the clip, which lasts for 7 minutes.

The second of Kaganof’s recent clips does not comply with the aesthetic laws of the genre because its length. It was also produced in 2007. It is 10 minutes long and its title very metaphorical – “Houtkamp and De Klerk. How we learned to stop worrying and love Mandela”. The names are those of the leaders of Pow Ensemble. The clip is filled with “political science fiction” quotations (we prefer this term to “politically incorrect”). In the beginning, the presenter warns us that people who have died recently have come back to life. This is the clip’s starting point. More out-of-the ordinary quotations follow, leaving us with a sensation of instability which is quickly vanquished by the new scene the author sets. This time, the scene is set without formal excess, if we leave aside the intentionally strong colouring of the improvised jazz group. With simple, hand-made effects, this time Kaganof edits with longer-lasting shots which aren’t particularly mobile, as in the previous clip. Pow Ensemble’s music is not melodic, and gives us the impression of a free and improvised score on the same theme. The multiplied images, with colours which disappear at times, mixed with their stylistic opposite (in other words, an excess of colour) as well as the artistically blurred technique, underline the improvised dimension of the track and the significant freedom of Kaganof’s directing.

Dionysos ANDRONIS
translated from the french by lucy lyall grant

january 2008
11min 32sec
based on april in the moon-sun by gary cummiskey
music by matmos

directed by Aryan Kaganof

Between 2005 and 2006 Aryan Kaganof unofficially produced four video-clips with the famous French group NOUVELLE VAGUE. Their most recent concert in Paris to date was on the 25-04-07 at the Grand Rex, one of the capital’s largest concert venues. During these two years the group successfully brought out four cover versions of English or American tracks.

In order to show you the telepathy between Kaganof and ourselves, we’re going to quote our comments from KagaBlog from 14-08-06, where we referred to the song “Bela Lugosi is Dead” by Bauhaus, concluding that the latter is not dead. At the same time, without knowing, Kaganof was filming the video-clip “Helgé Janssen. Undead” with a remake of the same song by Nouvelle Vague this time. Helgé Janssen is a South African dancer and writer who has already published a novel with the publishing house directed by Kaganof. He dances half-naked in the video of Bauhaus’ song covered by Nouvelle Vague. With great talent for four minutes he emphasises the metaphorical aspect of the song, reminding us that Lugosi was a defender of counter-culture in his time, and Kaganof wants to emphasise the fact that this counter-culture is not dead today, but revived by extraordinary people such as Helgé Janssen and Kaganof himself!

“Too Drunk to Fuck” is the Nouvelle Vague’s cover of an old track by the Dead Kennedys. Kaganof puts the song’s context into a new problematic. Through the real images of an adolescent Catherine Henegan playing with her friends, he is trying to underline the naïve side of the lyrics with a touch of discreet humour. The Super8 images of family scenes are full of charm and grace, a grace lost with time, but seen again from an angle that is sexist and nostalgic-lyrical: that of the lines of the song and that of the producer, who manages to blend the contradictory elements.

“Fade to glass” is the remake of Visage’s old song “Fade to Grey”. Kaganof presents two dancers on two screens, interpreting a choreography directed by Ysabelle Evers. The producer’s editing is full of rhythmic interactions between intersecting and superimposed images. With the technical term of the title, the producer highlights a home-made technique where the special effects are used only for their poetic value, not for their effect of illusion, as is done in commercial cinema.

“Venus Emerging” is the title of the fourth video, but not the fourth song. It’s a remake of the Special’s “Friday Night” in which we see, above all, the impressive sub-marine images shot by eran tahor of a beautiful young diver in slow motion. She is diving gracefully and the camera observes the carnal aspect of her beautiful athletic body.

These four video clips produced by Aryan Kaganof are fairly simple as concepts and productions, but very liturgical and effective as artistic events – they are liturgical for it is a special mass that they are celebrating, that of youth, charm, music and love. They are effective because these films highlight the essential values of cinema – the rhythm and vibration of life, colour, dance, art, youth and love.

Dionysos ANDRONIS
translated from the french by lucy lyall grant

“reverie is an exceedingly lovely work, its slowness repetitions
and unfolding.”

Au début de cette année Aryan Kaganof a réalisé plusieurs courts métrages importants et nous allons nous arrêter cette fois à trois nouveaux. “Composition Suprématiste numéro 36” est une perle qui pourrait bien se mélanger avec les performances SM de Ron Athey ou de Johan Thom, filmées par Kaganof. Mais dans ce film la vedette nue est le cinéaste lui-même et ceci ne peut passer inaperçu. C’est une poésie extrême, récitée et filmée, qui se degage de cette perle rare. C’est un film d’initiation sophistiquée et intellectuelle aux plaisirs sadomasochistes vus d’un angle strictement artistique. Kaganof nous avait confié que cette performance intitulée “Shooting Gallery” qui a eu lieu à Grahamstown et à Johannesburg était un peu pénible pour lui. Mais il a bien accepté de souffrir pendant plusieurs jours, afin de nous laisser ce document enregistré. Pendant qu’il est suspendu nu à l’aide d’une corde, Kaganof nous récite, la tête en bas, un poème de lui intitulé “Les funérailles”. Il commence ainsi : “J’ai assisté à mes funérailles / ils jouaient cette musique céleste” et il se termine ainsi :

Dis “c’est la vie” à tous les désésperés
Dis “bon voyage” à tous les jeunes mariés
Dis toujours “je t’aime” à la personne
à côté de qui tu te réveilles
Mais mon amour
Ne dis surtout jamais “toujours”
“Toujours” est un temps très court*

*In Aryan Kaganof “Drive thru funeral”, éditions Pine Slopes, 2003, Westhoven, SA, p.23.

Pendant que le poète attaché à l’envers récite ses vers, des images très violentes de guerre se projettent sur un écran géant entrecoupées par celles d’un bébé (le poète-performer lui-même). Comme une métaphore de la naiveté qui impose toutes les guerres menées à ce jour, ce film court de Kaganof nous livre le plus fort poème visuel pacifiste et allégorique de nos jours qui ferait aussi l’apologie des plaisirs charnels extrêmes, seulement si on les regarde d’une manière artistique-alternative.

Une deuxième performance enregistrée et montée par Kaganof est celle qui s’est deroulée en 2003 à Utrecht (aux Pays Bas) avec la pianiste Tomoko Mukaiyama, Kaganof et le plasticien Dick Tuinder. Tous les trois sont les vedettes d’une autre performance musicale, littéraire et plastique (au sens large combinant la peinture avec le happening). “Trio Mental” serait le titre d’une performance élargie (expanded) qui mélange la poésie occultiste et métaphysique de Kaganof (il s’agit cette fois de son poème “In the beginning” de son récueil “Abraxas – The prophet of nothing” éditions Pine Slopes, Westhoven, 2003, p.134) avec les décors et les peintures faussement “enfantines” de Tuinder, l’interprétation au piano par Mukaiyama d’une composition libre de Ramon Dos Santos (Dick Tuinder). Kaganof se livre à une interprétation hystérique de son hymne tandis que Tuinder surveille de près les éclairages sur son environnement plastique qui ferait de lui un expert conteur-fabuliste pour adultes.

Une troisième performace serait “Mechanicus” avec, comme vedettes, les mains de son ex épouse Tomoko Mukaiyama interprétant au piano une partition bruitiste en hommage à son mari défunt. L’écran est coupé en deux ou en trois ou en plusieurs parties plus tard, la composition devenant de plus en plus compliquée. En verité la musique reste répétitive mais une sensation de culmination se dégage de cette symphonie visuelle et acoustique qui se base principalement sur le brio et l’énergie intérieure de la pianiste Mukaiyama.

Panorama
De in 1998, op 83-jarige leeftijd, overleden acteur Jaap Hoogstra mijmert over zijn leven terwijl hij vrolijk drinkt en een grote joint rookt. Zijn bespiegelingen over zijn jeugd in Dordrecht zijn intiem en ontroerend. Hij is als homo geboren, zoals hij zelf zegt, en als jongetje van tien door een oudere jongen ontmaagd. Op de plaatselijke zwemclub, waar hij met plezier heenging, neukten volgens hem alle jongens met elkaar. Het vanuit diverse standpunten opgenomen interview wordt afgewisseld met gedramatiseerde scènes, waarin Hoogstra de hoofdrol speelt. Hij speelt in een filmische bewerking van een monoloog van Samuel Beckett, waaruit de titelzin van deze korte documentaire afkomstig is. Hoogstra praat vrijmoedig over het recente overlijden van vrienden en collega’s. Zelf is hij niet bang voor de dood, wel voor de manier waarop. Terwijl het beeld af en toe een vissenoogperspectief krijgt en willy alberti op de achtergrond Mens durf te leven zingt, staart Hoogstra aan het eind weemoedig voor zich uit.

Regisseur: Aryan Kaganof
Hoofd-Producent: Aryan Kaganof
Camera: Ian Kerkhof
Geluid: Harry Caganof
Editor: C.R. Mandala

categorie: Korte Documentaire
genre: Documentaire
Onderdeel: Hoofdprogramma
Premierejaar: 2007
Lengte: 26 minuten
Drager: Video
tint: Kleur
dialoog: Nederlands

01-10-2007 *20:00 uur in Studio
Premiere. Verkoop via de website

02-10-2007 *22:00 uur in Hoogt 1

to order tickets and for more information click here

Zahira Kharsany | Johannesburg, South Africa
28 September 2007 03:14

Meet Max, the Stud Butler. He’s an oversized, flesh-coloured ventriloquist’s dummy with a bow tie and hard-on — the world’s first hands-free sex toy, available at South Africa’s first sex expo, the Sexpo. However, he won’t fit discreetly into the underwear drawer, and will probably require a cupboard all to himself.

“It’s been a long time coming,” said Viv (57), from Bryanston in Johannesburg. She claims the expo is the best thing that has happened to South Africa in a long time, and that “everyone should come as it’s not about sex only; [the] vibe is brilliant and relaxed and I’m waiting for the show on pole dancing”.

The emphasis at the show in a vast hall at Gallagher Estate, Midrand, seemed to be on sensuality and openness.

Sitting for her portrait like a giggling teenage girl having her first class photo taken, Viv posed for Pricasso, grizzled penile artist Tim Patch. Buck-naked, he uses his penis as a paintbrush. He had other portraits on display, including ones of United States President George Bush, former British prime minister Tony Blair — and Paris Hilton.

Sexpo South Africa director Silas Howarth says that the organisers were surprised at the turn-out on Thursday morning even before doors opened. “There must have been a line of about 300 people waiting to get in this morning.”

“Ride the Bucking Bronco … you have to try it out,” said Samantha (24) and Julian (21), a brother and sister from Lonehill, after trying the Bronco, a penis-shaped mechanical “bull”.

Samantha felt a bit let down by the Johannesburg edition after visiting the Sexpo in London. “There’s not enough fetish stands. Those were fun to see in London.”

Julian said he found it a bit awkward to be there with his sister, but insisted that the next time it would be with his girlfriend. He said he hoped it would become an annual event and that there would be more stalls next time.

Intimate images
To have one’s photo taken in the nude may be the ultimate work of art for any aspiring porn star, but to the common man it’s a significant piece in the bedroom. Intimate images are one of the most sought-after items at Sexpo.

Sibongile (32), from Centurion, planned to invest in such an image. “It’s something I want along with the Kama Sutra essential massage oils.”

She had already bought a video from Hustler and was also getting the hands-free Stud Butler.

Sibongile was highly disappointed in what she claimed was false advertising — organisers said that the first 1 000 women would receive a goody bag, “but there’s nothing in here except paper and a Durex condom you can buy for R12″.

The biggest sellers on Thursday had to be Roger the Rabbit — a vibrator — as well as clit stimulators and fantasy outfits. Ray Morgan, of Hot Monogamy, a sex-toy wholesaler, said demand was incredible.

Sharon Gordan, of sex shop Lola Montez, said that the demand for such a shop that was not sleazy drove her into the business. “I was divorced and I needed a vibrator. The shop I went to wasn’t appealing and I saw an opportunity. [I] started four years ago and never looked back. The popular items like Roger the Rabbit sell for R260 and the cock rings for R170.”

Even the staff at the Aids Consortium stall thought the Sexpo was a brilliant idea.

“We love it! It’s a good platform for the Aids Consortium to give information about the risks of Aids and HIV. It’s aimed at the upper class, as can be seen, and we can use it as an opportunity to give everyone information,” said Gerard Payna.

The Sexpo is being held at Gallagher Estate, Midrand, and runs until Sunday evening

He lived on the Lijnbaansgracht. Begane Grond. I used to visit him every two weeks or so. Not regularly. Just when I felt like it. He was in his early eighties. I was in my early thirties. We both smoked copious quantities of weed. He loved to mix the weed with Oude Jenever. He would knock that stuff back like it was water, nicely mixed in with appelsientje. When he talked it was often about theatre. The buhne was where he had spent most of his life. Beckett was his speciality. He had brought Beckett to Holland. Had become the senior tolk of Beckett in the lowlands. A master of the spaces and silences between words. Those interminable Beckettian … pauses … that drove most audiences to distraction. Pauses. Aporias. Apertas. Openings. Openings to a liminal space where words themselves seemed somehow, vulgar. Openings to the inside of the characters being portrayed. To the inside of existence itself. Inside Being. Inside Nothing.

We often talked about sex. He loved sex. Was paying a young Morroccan man quite substantial amounts of money every week for butt fucking. He loved to be butt fucked. Fucked in his rectum. His anus. His naught. His Nothing. Fucked inside his Nothing. Ass fucked inside Nothing.

Silence. And Death. And Fucking. 83 years of it. Of Life. And Death. And Nothing.

We were friends. It was a strange and valuable friendship. I think he wanted to fuck me but he never said so. The occasional hand on my knee, nothing more obvious than that. We would get stoned and laugh a lot. Laugh at the stupidity of everything and everyone. Laugh at ourselves laughing. Laugh at Nothing.

Then his condition deteriorated. I visited him once at the hospital. But the joy was gone from the visit. It was too much schlepp to take the tram all the way out to the West of Amsterdam. And he wasn’t allowed to smoke weed or drink Jenever so what was the point? I never saw him again. I didn’t go to his funeral.

Jaap Hoogstra: geboorte werd hem zijn dood

Panorama
De in 1998, op 83-jarige leeftijd, overleden acteur Jaap Hoogstra mijmert over zijn leven terwijl hij vrolijk drinkt en een grote joint rookt. Zijn bespiegelingen over zijn jeugd in Dordrecht zijn intiem en ontroerend. Hij is als homo geboren, zoals hij zelf zegt, en als jongetje van tien door een oudere jongen ontmaagd. Op de plaatselijke zwemclub, waar hij met plezier heenging, neukten volgens hem alle jongens met elkaar. Het vanuit diverse standpunten opgenomen interview wordt afgewisseld met gedramatiseerde scènes, waarin Hoogstra de hoofdrol speelt. Hij speelt in een filmische bewerking van een monoloog van Samuel Beckett, waaruit de titelzin van deze korte documentaire afkomstig is. Hoogstra praat vrijmoedig over het recente overlijden van vrienden en collega’s. Zelf is hij niet bang voor de dood, wel voor de manier waarop. Terwijl het beeld af en toe een vissenoogperspectief krijgt en Willy Alberti op de achtergrond Mens durf te leven zingt, staart Hoogstra aan het eind weemoedig voor zich uit.

Regisseur: Aryan Kaganof
Hoofd-Producent: Aryan Kaganof
Camera: Ian Kerkhof
Geluid: Harry Caganof
Editor: C.R. Mandala

categorie: Korte Documentaire
genre: Documentaire
Onderdeel: Hoofdprogramma
Premierejaar: 2007
Lengte: 26 minuten
Drager: Video
tint: Kleur
dialoog: Nederlands

01-10-2007 *20:00 uur in Studio
Premiere. Verkoop via de website

02-10-2007 *22:00 uur in Hoogt 1

for more information or to book your tickets click here

Black Soil International Hiphop Filmfestival puts hiphop in a broader perspective: besides films inspired by DJ’s, graffiti, MC’s and break dancers, Black Soil shows films that come directly from the hiphop culture and films that serve as a source of inspiration for hiphop artists and filmmakers. Besides film Black Soil is also about debates and afterparties with live performances and prominent DJ’s.

This year, Black Soil celebrates its fifth birthday from 23 till 25 November on different locations in Rotterdam and from 30 November till 2 December in Bitterzoet, Amsterdam. Because of its prominent status in the hiphop circuit, Black Soil can book the very best acts, which is exactly what they did for the TodaysArt Festival.

aryan kaganof programme

nigga
endlosung
a perfect day
i am an african
song for hector
the dead ghetto
casbah and back
organic wednesdays
arrested development
reich dance redemption
bantu continua uhuru nihilismus

venue korzo theater (main hall)
the hague
netherlands
for more info and tickets click here

Reverie (1996; rev. 1999)

The score is prefaced with lines from Olive Schreiner’s novel ‘Story of an African Farm’: … “of the joy of the dreamer no man knoweth but he who dreameth … without phantoms and dreams man cannot exist.” The musical material is derived from two vocal sources, one Shona and one San (Bushman), and is transformed by repetition and extension, superimposition and distortion. Meanwhile, having revised the work early in 1999, I subsequently noticed many fascinating parallels with the techniques of San rock painting during a visit to the remarkable paintings at Tandjesberg, near Ladybrand in the Free State. The coda was inspired by listening to a whole weekend of concerts of Charles Ives in London. (Michael Blake)

Filmmaker-composer relationships are usually predicated on the film maker composing image sequences that the composer scores music for. Music is fundamentally an addendum in this process - at best an amplifier, at worst an afterthought. In Reverie the relationship is reversed. My brief to myself was to compose an image sequence that would focus attention on the shifting patterns of the two pianos. The image serves to enhance the listening experience without falling into the trap of trying to “illustrate” the music. Reverie was the first of a series of fruitful collaborations with Dr Blake, that include his soundtrack score for the feature film SMS Sugar Man (2007) and the upcoming opera of Etienne Leroux’ classic Afrikaans novel Sewe Dae By Die Silbersteins. (Aryan Kaganof)

new music indaba, university of south africa, pretoria/tshwane
Day 1: Wednesday 10 October
14:00-14:45 (showing till Friday 12 October)
Opening of Audiovisual Installation
Aryan Kaganof & Michael Blake Reverie (2003) ***
Gerhard Marx & Clare Loveday The Collision Project (2006)
Venue: Art History, Visual Arts & Musicology, Unisa Entrance: Free

aryan kaganof (photo by karen bradtke)

LA GAZETTE
du 7e festival des cinémas différents de Paris
lundi 12 12 2005
FRONTIÈRES

sur la séance d’Aryan Kaganof

Une frontière serpente le long des films du réalisateur sud-africain Aryan Kaganof, marque ses univers et s’impose comme un champ d’énergie autour duquel la matière filmique s’articule. Dans La séquence des barres parallèles, une créature excitante et court vêtue s’aventure dans une mystérieuse bâtisse, où elle deviendra la proie de deux mâles se trouvant là. Capturée, attachée au pilori de ses fantasmes, elle s’expose. Sa peau devient surface que les hommes viennent lécher et la lumière éblouir, lorsqu’un projecteur braque ses feux sur cet étrange objet sexuel suspendu. La présence d’un chauffeur pour ramener la belle rassure ceux qui auraient pu s’inquiéter des conséquences de cet intermède. Dans ce film, Kaganof propose pour la première fois une mise en scène du corps comme interface sensible entre l’esprit et le monde, ici instrument idéal pour se livrer à la transgression des normes morales. L’on peut toutefois regretter que le scénario de Pierre
Klossowsky, en offrant une vision sécurisée de cette démarche, en diminue du même coup l’enjeu.

Dans It’s the children, le corps est résolument malmené, par des pratiques SM que Kaganof relie aux souffrances de la passion du Christ. Comme dans son premier film, il convoque le spectateur à endosser le rôle du voyeur, et lui offre l’image démultipliée de l’outrage perpétué grâce à une installation multiécrans qui encadre la scène. Au premier plan de Minnamanna, il y a le visage immobile d’une femme aux traits lourds. Soudain la bouche s’ouvre et expulse un hurlement organique, un souffl e d’énergie interne qui semble ne pas trouver d’autre issue pour s’échapper. Ses ongles grattent la vitre comme s’ils s’attaquaient aux parois d’une prison intérieure. Filmée en contre-plongée, elle semble à présent flotter, en fragile équilibre. Les accords graves joués au piano accompagnent ses premiers pas tâtonnnants, avant qu’elle ne s’élance dans une danse tournoyante.

Prostration et tentatives de libération du corps et de l’esprit s’alternent, tandis que la frontière demeure, comme le révèle le dernier plan, lorsque la jeune femme, appuyant sa main sur une surface jusque-là invisible, révèle la présence de ce qui la sépare. L’enfermement se concrétisera dans Oedipus punishment, dans un plan circulaire où la caméra, en tour-nant sans fin autour d’un prisonnier, trace une limite qui double celle des barreaux de sa cellule.

Dans Western 4.33, l’horizon penche, les arbres poussent à l’envers. L’univers est de guingois. Dans le lieu où nous transporte Kaganof, l’harmonie du monde a été rompue. Vitres brisées, peinture écaillées : on croit découvrir un village à l’abandon. Il ne se passe rien dans ce paysage immobile et pourtant la musique, violente et aqueuse, est bien celle d’un drame. Puis apparaissent les premiers barbelés, en quantité croissante, en gros plan ou de loin, délimitant le terrain qui ressemble de plus en plus à une zone interdite et maudite. Kaganof filme à travers les trous du grillage, il colle à présent à une frontière conçue pour déchirer les corps. Des éléments troublants s’accumulent : une église baptiste surplombe une falaise acérée, des inscriptions allemandes, en lettres gothiques sur ces murs s’élevant au milieu d’un désert…Sur une photo d’archive qui constitue le dernier plan, l’on voit des hommes noirs squelettiques qui fixent l’objectif. Namibie, 1904-1907. Camp de concentration allemand. La frontière s’étend et se transforme. Frontière psychique évoluant vers une forme matérielle, elle demeure le centre d’une œuvre qui interroge sans cesse la capacité humaine à créer des espaces d’enfermements, pour soi ou pour les autres, en soi ou dans le monde.

Caroline Ferando-Durfort

Day 1: Wednesday 10 October

10:00-12:30 Forum: South Africa’s Instrumental Voices
Chair: Chris Walton (University of Pretoria)
Venue: Art History, Visual Arts & Musicology, Unisa Entrance: Free

13:00-14:00 Blender
Venue: Art History, Visual Arts & Musicology, Unisa

14:00-14:45 (showing till Friday 12 October)
Opening of Audiovisual Installation
Aryan Kaganof & Michael Blake Reverie (2003) ***
Gerhard Marx & Clare Loveday The Collision Project (2006)
Venue: Art History, Visual Arts & Musicology, Unisa Entrance: Free

15:00-17:00
Composers Workshop 1
Venue: Art History, Visual Arts & Musicology, Unisa

18:00-19:00
Opening Concert: Songs of Africa Max de Vries marimba
Peter Klatzow Song for Stephanie Martin Scherzinger Chorale: Afrika**
Keiko Abe Memories of the Seashore Matthias Schmitt Ghanaia
Toshi Ichiyanagi Portrait of Forest Robert Fokkens Sounding Fire
Venue: Art History, Visual Arts & Musicology, Unisa Entrance: R50 (R25 students)

19:00
Reception & Meet the Artist
Venue: Art History, Visual Arts & Musicology, Unisa

Day 2: Thursday 11 October

10:00-12:30
Composers Masterclass 1 Schubert Ensemble
Venue: Art History, Visual Arts & Musicology, Unisa Entrance: Free

14:00-14:45
NewMusicSA Annual General Meeting
Venue: Art History, Visual Arts & Musicology, Unisa

15:00-17:00
Composers Workshop 2
Venue: Art History, Visual Arts & Musicology, Unisa

Day 3: Friday 12 October

10:00-12:30
Composers Masterclass 2 Schubert Ensemble
Venue: Art History, Visual Arts & Musicology, Unisa Entrance: Free

13:00-14:00
Stefans Grové 85th Birthday Celebration Jill Richards piano
Kevin Volans Happiness is a Warm Gun Bunita Marcus Julia
Stefans Grové Five Glimpses Robert Fokkens Solitudes**
Karlheinz Stockhausen Klavierstück IX
Venue: Musaion, Univerrsity of Pretoria Entrance: R50 (R25 students)

14:30-17:00
Composers Masterclass 3 Jill Richards and Stefans Grové
Venue: Musaion, Univerrsity of Pretoria Entrance: Free

18:00-19:00
The Minimal Thing Marc Duby director
Soundpainting
Venue: Art History, Visual Arts & Musicology, Unisa Entrance: R50 (R25 students)

Day 4: Saturday 13 October

10:00-12:00
Open Rehearsal Schubert Ensemble and Selected Composers
Venue: Sunnyside Concert Hall, Unisa

13:00-14:00
Chamber Music Recital Schubert Ensemble
Martin Butler Sequenza Notturna** Works by Participants in the Composer
Masterclasses*** Howard Skempton Eleven Reflections**Judith Weir Piano Quartet**
Venue: Sunnyside Concert Hall, Unisa Entrance: R50 (R25 students)

15:00-17:00
Composers Workshop 3
Venue: Sunnyside Concert Hall, Unisa

*** World premiere
** South African premiere

Still Very Available !

Tempsion sait manifestement s’entourer et catalyser les bonnes énergies créatives. Son premier album, Rectifier, est un coffret digipack se développant en 4 volets contenant un CD Audio et un DVD. La partie musicale est assurée par Tempsion et quelques invités : Elise Caron, Black Sifichi (Ezekiel, Aka Bondage, Black Dog…), Charley James, Norscq… Rectifier emprunte manifestement à l’électro-indus sa noirceur et sa force percussive, mais se réserve une ample ouverture sur des dédales électroacoustiques et improvisés. Non seulement les rythmiques lourdes et industrielles ne sont pas dénuées de groove (déjà un belle prouesse), mais elles côtoient des excursions vers des univers sonores très cinématographiques. Tempsion a ainsi la capacité de proposer tantôt une concaténation de samples brutaux, tantôt une bande-son à la David Lynch où les glissandi de violons sont hantés par des voix humaines. Ponctué d’extraits de dialogues de films ou de publicités anglophones, Rectifier dévoile sa jungle sonique entre sampling “mur du son” à la Fear of a black Planet (1992) de Public Enemy (un sommet dans le genre), Techno Trash et travaux électroacoustiques subtilement confectionnés. L’album se referme même sur la voix d’Elise Caron, accompagnée par divers bruitages et, surtout, par un pianiste (Eric Le Guen) qui oscille entre Cecil Taylor et John Cage !
Le DVD contient 10 films d’animation élaborés à partir des 10 titres de l’album par le fleuron de la création contemporaine française : Régine Cirotteau, Aryan Kaganof (réalisateur du documentaire Merzbow, Beyond Ultra-violence), Marc Caro (l’alter-ego de Jean-Pierre Jeunet sur Delicatessen et La Cité des enfants perdus), Couro (un clip pour Sergent Garcia en 2001), Jérôme Lefdup (auteur du clip Ali Click pour Brian Eno en 1992), Jean-Christophe S. de Tempsion (qui signe 4 vidéos) et Deco Dawson (chef opérateur du Dracula de Guy Maddin).
Un véritable petit festival du court-métrage qui touche autant à la vidéo expérimentale qu’au sampling visuel. L’imagerie scientifique côtoie un match de basket féminin, et la poésie numérique, un bombardement d’images façon zapping effréné ! Impossible d’en faire le descriptif en quelques lignes. Le DVD contient aussi, bonus ultime, la vidéo de la prestation donnée par Tempsion au Festival I.D.E.A.L. 2004 à Nantes. Cette vidéo permet d’ailleurs de vérifier au passage le concept d’art-total développé par Tempsion… Un Tempsion, qui en live, vire à l’impro “Groove Indus Expérimentale”… Enfin, quelque chose d’assez indéfinissable et captivant !

cd:
1- Let there be light
2- Kraftmusichall
3- Devil Drum Dspace
4- Je suis Music
5- Got the guts
6- Sleepin’fire
7- CP 5
8- On every other street (cover Cabaret Voltaire)
9- Samadhi
10- Fingers out

Composed by Tempsion
Production: Tempsion - Charley James - Norscq

buy it

this magical film by guto bussab was re-mixed by aryan kaganof as two heads are better than one

« Welcome to the slaughterhouse» est un essai puissant réalisé par Aryan Kaganof en 2007 avec les extraits de films et la complicité d’autres vidéastes de la African Noise Foundation. Pendant les 41 minutes du film, nous visionnons de scènes violentes, en provenance parfois de reportages télévisuels qui commencent par un emblème très choquant de cette année en cours : les images de la dernière tuerie universitaire aux États Unis, perpétrée par Cho Seung Hui. Il nous parle au début du film de ses motivations et de sa décision d’assassiner ses amis étudiants et de sa méthode secrète. La deuxième partie du film est un collage ironique de plusieurs images CNN du président américain actuel en train d’exposer son projet contre le terrorisme. Les intertitres superposés parodient son discours en mélangeant ses paroles qui nous promettent de nous épargner du chantage des terroristes.
La musique du compositeur Joel Assaizky, acolyte de Kaganof depuis longtemps et membre de leur groupe «Freedom Fighter », vise à attribuer une unité et cohérence intime à ce collage légèrement hétéroclite. A part les thèmes de la violence et de la guerre qui reviennent tout le temps, les autres thèmes du film sont pluriels. Ainsi dans la troisième partie du film qui s’appelle «Baphomet danse macabre » on voit les extraits du bal de «L’année dernière à Marienbad », des scènes apparemment sans suite logique mais en contradiction sonore puisque dans le film remonté de Resnais un couple se regarde paisiblement et amoureusement.

La quatrième partie est la plus sadomasochiste et elle est faite par les images d’une performance réelle de Johan Thom. Elle s’appelle «Baphomet » tout court et elle est une adaptation contemporaine d’une ancienne performance de Otto Muehl datant de 1966 «Bodybuilding » où l’artiste s’attache fermement le visage avec des bandages. Ici, 41 ans après, Thom s’attache le visage avec des fils transparents et solides qui font sûrement mal. Cette fois les trucages électroniques et les effets stroboscopiques transforment son visage en un espace modifiable et élastique, sinon plastique, en contradiction émotionnelle avec la musique mélodique et sereine cette fois de Ruth White. La représentation du mal corporel serait en plein accord avec les autres images du film.

La cinquième partie est la plus abstraite et formellement une variation de sa précédente. Elle s’appelle «Corticotropin » et elle s’inspire des créations plastiques abstraites de Kaganof. Le plasticien Kaganof a voulu les animer afin de souligner le coté énigmatique de son essai. «Panic Attack » est le titre de la sixième partie et elle est une adaptation du film «Moral Panic » de Rob Schroder, qui consiste en un collage télé de reportages datant entre 1963 et 2004. Principalement inspiré d’images de guerre et d’attentats terroristes, le film de Schroder serait inspiré par le cinéma militant de Guy Debord mais dans un contexte plus contemporain.

« Marie en train d’adorer Baphomet » est la septième partie et elle contient les images d’un film plus ancien de Kaganof «Deux têtes sont meilleures qu’une seule ». Le monstre bicéphale qui chante en trucages impressionnants serait une variation de l’individu contemporain. L’avant-dernière partie s’appelle «War Zone » et elle est la plus violente avec les images réelles de cadavres lynchés. La neuvième et dernière partie s’appelle «Floor Crossing » et contient encore une fois les scènes du classique «Dead man 2: return of the dead man », un film sur la mort et la résurrection par le biais de l’amour pure.
Avec ce film Kaganof voudrait avant tout détourner la télévision, qui n’est pas sa préférence, afin de nous montrer que les informations et reportages de télé sont un moyen de manipulation massive. Les rotoreliefs de sa cinquième partie ne sont qu’une métonymie du vertige de la désinformation télévisuelle. En général son film reprend l’hétéroclite de cette désinformation afin de lui attribuer une parfaite cohérence esthétique et poétique digne du sommet de l’art vidéo. Le film est dédié à la mémoire de Kurt Vonnegut, auteur américain du roman «Abattoir cinq » (Slaughterhouse five) , mort en 2007.

Dionysos ANDRONIS