Video Screenings

Programme 1: Tuesday, 2 May; Saturday, 10 June; and Tuesday, 13 June.
Programme 2 : Saturday, 6 May; Tuesday, 23 May; and Saturday, 17 June.
Programme 3: Saturday, 27 May; Tuesday, 30 May; and Saturday, 24 June.
Programme 4: Saturday, 3 June; Tuesday, 6 June; and Tuesday, 20 June.

All showings at 6:30 pm, Virreina LAB
Free entrance. Seating is limited.

Programme 1

Paysages/Passages (Landscapes/Passages)

Constantly evolving landscapes here become full-blown characters, living organisms. Cahen shows us how to “see” our planet as if it were unknown to us, as if it were an “other”. He invites us to discover it through a specific set of colours and by sounds that are stratified and organized. He also offers a vision of “passages”, distinguished by a different notion of time altogether. Set quite beyond any kind of realist depiction, they are found in a space located on the limits of what can be seen or heard.

L’invitation au voyage (Invitation to the Voyage), 1973
Video, colour, sound, 9 min
Soundtrack by Robert Cahen and Dominique Guiot

Juste le temps (Just Enough Time), 1983
Video, colour, sound, 13 min
Sound design by Michel Chion

Montenvers et Mer de Glace (Montenvers and Mer de Glace), 1987
Video, colour, sound, 8 min
In collaboration with Stéphane Huter

Voyage d’hiver (Winter Journey), 1993
Video, colour, sound, 18 min
In collaboration with Angela Riesco

Corps flottants (Floating Bodies), 1997
Video, colour, sound, 13 min
Sound design by Michel Chion

Plus loin que la nuit (Further than Night), 2005
Video, colour, sound, 10 min
Sound design by Francisco Ruiz de Infante

Sanaa, passages en noir (Sana’a, Dark Passages), 2007
Video, colour, sound, 7 min

Programme 2

Voyages (Journeys)

EThe journey as a passage of transformation, mutating rhythms and visions. The music of the world through and between a diverse set of confrontations (city-nature, mass-individual, silence-noise, passage-eternity, harmony-dissonance, and so on). Large cities and small, whole countries, sites surrounded by protective barriers that here disappear, set off in the distance, until they finally come to an encounter with the other, with the singular anonymous, a never-ending breathing of time.

Chili-impressions (Chile-Impressions), 1989
Video, colour, sound, 13 min

Hong Kong Song, 1989
Video, colour, sound, 21 min
In collaboration with Ermeline Le Mézo

L’île mystérieuse (The Mysterious Island), 1991
Video, colour, sound, 16 min

On the Bridge, 1990
Video, colour, sound, 4 min

La notte delle bugie (Night of Candles), 1993
Video, colour, sound, 10 min 30 s

Programme 3

La photo qui bouge (The Moving Photograph)

Photography, cinema, video. Ontology of the image from the 19th to the 20th century. A characteristic subject of research for Cahen from his earliest period on. The still image begins to move, a moving image that stops. In the heart of this dialogue, time, stretched out and slowed down, becomes visible, turning reality into “fiction”. A playful time that also thinks, time thinking of us.

Karine, 1976
16 mm film, B/W, sound, 8 min 20 s

Ici repose (Here Lies), 1977
35 mm film, colour, sound, 6 min
With photographs by Michel Delaborde

Sur le quai (On the Platform), 1978
16 mm film, B/W, sound, 10 min

Le deuxième jour (The Second Day), 1988
Vdeo, colour, sound, 8 min
Music by John Zorn (from Godard)

Dernier adieu (Last Goodbye), 1988
Video, colour, sound, 7 min
On photographer Jean-Marc Tingaud

Cartes postales vidéo (Video Postcards), 1984-1986
Video, colour, sound, 12 min
In collaboration with Stéphane Huter and Alain Longuet

Artmatic, 1981
Video, colour, sound, 4 min 15 s
Sound design by Robert Cahen

L’étreinte (The Embrace), 2003
Video, colour, sound, 9 min
Sound design by Francisco Ruiz de Infante

Cartes postales vidéo (Video Postcards), 1984-1986
Video, colour, sound, 10 min
In collaboration with Stéphane Huter and Alain Longuet

Programme 4

Canton la chinoise (Chinese Canton)

They say Canton is the most Chinese of all cities. It is also a megalopolis where eight million people live. A city with no limits, with no apparent structure, under never-ending reconstruction. In this experimental documentary, the five characters find themselves caught between two cultures, between two systems of living, two conceptions of art. There is always a screen between these actors and the setting: a window, photography or painting, a problem of language, and so on. Words and images blend into this vision of an incredibly agitated city, seen as if it were wholly imaginary.

Canton la chinoise (Chinese Canton), 2001
Video, colour, sound, 52 min
In collaboration with Rob Rombout