Loop Festival, Barcelona

Loop Festival 2009, Festival Centre, Barcelona (ES), 30 may 2009.

Program by Argos Center for Art & Media

Biennale WRO 09, Wroclaw (PL)

Lost Nation, a mental journey trhough the US Biennale WRO 09, WRO center for Media Art, Wroclaw (PL), 5-10 may 2009.

with films by Johan Grimonprez, Peter Downsbrough, Adam Leech, Steve Reinke,...

America concerns us: with its dominant, audiovisual culture, its influential film and music industries, it has successfully invaded our imagination. Reaching a point of utter saturation, we may feel the need to take some distance from its invasive role-models. Argos Centre for Arts and Media’s proposal is to search for a different picture of contemporary America: Combining artistic viewpoints from within America (Steve Reinke, Shelly Silver) with those emanating from other countries (Vincent Meessen, Johan Grimonprez, Beatrice Gibson), this programme, conceived as a filmic journey, aims at transmitting a balanced, yet necessarily subjective and fragmented picture of today’s America. Starting our trip on the periphery, in so-called “Small town America” (Vincent Meessen), where villages like “Lost Nation” (Johan Grimonprez), literally lie in the middle of nowhere, we encounter wealthy Suburbia’s inhabitants and their obsession with privacy and security (Adam Leech), before reaching the throbbing heart of New York, Times Square (Peter Downsbrough); we experience surveillance (Shelly Silver) as a key element in a city where the memory of the 2001 terror attacks is still vivid, before visiting the protected, utopian community of Roosevelt Island (Beatrice Gibson), which houses one of the cities most visible, yet little-known modernist social housing projects. Souvenirs of things seen and heard in and about America (Steve Reinke) round off the picture as the journey comes to an end. Taking us back to Europe, the situation is finally inverted, showing us the difficulties Americans are confronted with when moving to Europe (Vincent Meessen/ Adam Leech) (source : Argos)

55th Oberhausen Short Film Festival (DE)

Screening during the 55th Oberhausen Festival (DE) , 4 may 2009.

Program by Argos Center for Art & Media.

Along with other international distributors Argos benefits from a one-hour showcase during the International Oberhausen Short Film Festival. This year, the selection includes works by Adam Leech, Herman Asselberghs, Vincent Meessen, Beatrice Gibson and Steve Reinke. 

Cabinet Jurino / Potential Estate

Exhibition views, Cabinet Jurino/Potential Estate , MuHKA extra muroas at KMSKA, Antwerp, 27 march- 10 september 2009.

An ongoing project taking place inside the Passing Through Pavilion by Joe Scanlan including works by Jimmie Durham from teh MuHKA collection.

Argos Center for Art & Media

Dear Adviser, Argos Center for Art & Media, Blackbox, Brussel (B) 5-16 may 2009

Can Chandigarh, the paragon of the modernist city, escape from its faith as a living museum? Can this city survive the preservation of the universal modernist fable? In the only city designed by Le Corbusier, the political complex of the Capitol is much more than scenery. The Capitol itself is the "camera". The buildings that represent the different powers keep a constant eye on each other. They channel the visitor’s movements and constantly observe him from above. The Capitol as phantasm of political power, is here nothing more than a place where the black deathsuit of modernism haunts. In this unfinished city, a few shadowy characters –a spectral silhouette, voices, sounds- rewrite a fable loved by the architect about the Raven that Wants to Imitate the Eagle. Charles-Edouard Jeanneret, also known as Le Corbusier, is invited to confront his double personality. He is less alone then he used to be while he was alive. Now he is called upon by his haunted images and by the contradictions of modernism. "Dear Adviser" is  a poetic “address” to the architect and the in Chandigarh superstitiously as “adviser” disguised legislator.