The Big M European tour
At Home in Europe project
During 2007 the Big M is on tour, showcasing work curated as part of the At Home In Europe international media arts programme, a one-year collaboration between ISIS Arts (UK), BEK (Norway), RIXC (Latvia), and InterSpace (Bulgaria).
The programme features films by 15 European artists who have created work around the theme of European identity and asks the question: Can we ever really be At Home in Europe?
From Motion pictures to Mega pixels the Big M celebrates moving image culture and the possibilities for experimentation created by digital technologies and was developed and is owned by ISIS Arts.
The Big M is a highly stylised inflatable structure that functions as a temporary and mobile venue for the presentation of video and digital media. Unique in both design and function, the Big M provides an alternative to the conventional gallery setting and exhibits work by emerging and established artists to diverse audiences. http://www.isisarts.org.uk/thebigm.html
Via a specially designed touch-screen interface, viewers choose their own programme by selecting individual works. Three video projectors show work on DVD in a three-screen arrangement with stereophonic sound.
At Home in Europe involves artist exchanges between the partner organisations, this new co-curated screening programme, a website, publication and DVD. For further info visit www.athomeineurope.eu
The At Home in Europe project is supported by Culture 2000 Programme of the EU.
The Big M tour dates:
May 24th-28th - Sofia
June 1st-3rd - Stockholm
June 29th-July 2nd - Bergen
August 25th-29th - Riga
September - Newcastle
Interface design by Malte Steiner in collaboration with BEK.
Structural design: inflate Technical design: Tom Cullen
Leaflet and Big M logo: baileytinwell
Tour Organiser Ziad Jabroo
The Big M Programme in At Home in Europe project
Ioana Alexe-Ecker - Romania / Germany
Untitled, 4.05, 2005
I made the film after 3 years of living in Berlin. The song I sing I often played with the violin in my childhood, at the request of my father. At that time it was not the national anthem. Under the darkness appear and disappear the names of international artists. It is about the difference between the world I come from and the reality I live now.
Eleni Bagaki - Greece/UK
My name is Eleni, 2.41, 2006
In this piece the artist is saying “My name is Eleni.” repeatedly with different inflections, exploring the sentence to its borders, placing her personal and cultural identity under question. Since the European union internal migration has been common. Living in a new country you still carry your name from your homeland, and during social interactions your name is pronounced differently every time.
Arnis Balcus - Latvia
Arnis Balcus' Latvia 1989-199, 1.04, 2006
Using family snapshots captured as a child the artist Arnis Balcus creates short photo stories that give an alternative view on the most significant years in the history of Latvia from the collapse of the USSR to the independence of Latvia. Those years (1989-1991) have formed memories and shaped identities of the artist's whole generation.
Christian Bermudez - Costa Rica/Norway
Screensaver, 2.15, 2006
The film erases the screensaver’s whimsical nature to present a view of immigration from the inside. Bermudez could recognize his homeland in the images and it is the author speaking as an immigrant in Norway who interrupts the playfulness of the tropical pictures.
Kristine Briede - Latvia
Your voice in Europe, 3.00, 2005
“To lick or to bite – there is no other way” once said the great Russian artist Oleg Kulik when asked about his work, “America bites me, I bite America” where he presented himself as a dog sitting in a cage. In 2003 Latvia voted for entering the European Union and in Karosta, a former soviet military base, a new phenomena of tourism and traffic started to appear. “Your voice in Europe” is a short story from the series of “Eurowatching” that was started out by artist Kristine Briede and Karosta kids’ team wanting to document this new phenomenon. The “Eurowatchers” from Karosta paraphrased Kulik by “licking, licking and biting a little”…
Kristine Briede - Latvia
Sightseeing, 9.54, 2006
Latvian Liepaja, Russian Liibava or German Libau – today a west coast Latvian harbour town with astonishing & fascinating history among the people…as well as… among the buildings. This short architectural sightseeing sequence shows the concept of “Eurowatching” through the eyes of three slightly hung-over French artists and one very local enthusiastic guide making their best in communication and searching their way towards a common future.
Pete Hindle - UK
Article 39, 1.41, 2007
Article 39 of the EU treaty, presented in the style of Star Wars exposition. Is there anything more futuristic than the right to travel to another country and work there? This is a modern-day liberty that we take for granted, but to have these rights was unthinkable for those such as Huguenots, Quakers, and others who suffered religious persecution.
Borimir Ilkov - Bulgaria
Shoes, 3.45, 2004
The “Shoes” was shot and edited during “Du Grain a de Moudre” Film Festival in 2004. There was a cinema seminar with people from many European countries. So, the video represents different personalities by showing details of each one of us, and finally seems that we are all the same and belong to our home-Europe.
Rick Niebe - Italy/Germany
Empire, 1.00, 2005
Global landscape with multitudes. Still webcam images of The "Europa Center" (Berlin) re- processed in Italy. Voices and sounds from field recording issued on line under "Creative Commons" license. Empire is an attempt to depict the technological, disciplinary gaze as well as the inhumanity of urban landscape against which stands the multitude of lives voices and desires. In this perspective, Berlin "Europa Center" is a sort of paradigm-place of the new global model crossed by conflicts and contradictions.
Inaki Lopez Ordonez - Spain/NL
Zaandammerplain, 3.30, 2004
A music-documentary about a square in the neighbourhood of Zaaandammer in Amsterdam city. A neighbour remembers stories from that place and meanwhile the other characters build the sound base from their own dubbed movements. Realization: Furallefalle. Technical: Brian Mackenna.
Sara Rajaei - The Netherlands
Charismatic fates & Vanishing dates, 3.30, 2006
There are moments of "Deja Vu" in our lives, moments of intensive recalling. Here, the characters of the film are in a Déjà vu in continuation. Kids are pure and immortal like ideas and concepts. They remain and remind, break the border of real and unreal but with no need… For the old ones though, the memories of their old home remain to comfort them while moving to a new home. Still memories are memories; they have no solidity to support.
Linda Saveholt - Norway
Linda and Jordani, 2.40, 2006
Linda and Jordani don’t speak the same language but are dependent on each other for very different reasons. In a simple scene between two people and a camera, this film raises questions about different positions people in Europe have today. Jordani tells his story. Thanks to Jordani and Galya Dyulgerova
Corinna Schnitt - Germany
Hello Ms. Schnitt, 5.00, 1995
An observation in a tenants-house in Germany. Schnitt's films inhabit the space between documentary and fiction. She wrings stories out of everyday situations, intentionally leaving the viewer uncertain about their actual relation to reality. In one of her first films, Schonen, guten Tag (Hello Ms Schnitt), one sees the artist cleaning her apartment and run-down stairwell. Her actions are accompanied by the frail voice of her buildings caretaker, who repeatedly leaves a request on the answering machine. A passage from a text by Noemi Smolik, 2004
Borislav Stoyanov - Bulgaria
Violeta 25, 2.36, 2006
The film represents the cataclysms of the Bulgarian society in the last years. As a counterpoint of the public history, it shows the personal history of a young lady, who obtains her goals regardless of the environment.
Mike Stubbs - UK
Cultural Quarter, 10.00, 2002
It is a perfect summers day. From a bedroom window we gaze on a group of families enjoying themselves in their own recreation. It the road they play in a public or private place? Who owns it? Are they aware they are being filmed? Cultural Quarter presents the relationships of observation in the city to its citizens, whilst begging ethical questions about surveillance, the gaze and human behaviour. Within the very current phenomena of city marketing and ‘regeneration' it exposes some of the gaps between developers’ dreams and citizens' perceptions of what cultural space means and how to use it. Produced by Forma
Theodore Tagholm - UK
The Persistence of Vision, 4.26, 2006
The persistence of Vision explores the environment we live in, the liminal spaces that surround us and the subliminal connotations of architecture that talks of a shared European history, from the classic to post war re-construction.
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