Installation (Installation)

For her telephone sound composition Dial Tone Drone, Aura Satz commissioned a conversation between two old friends, the sound pioneers Pauline Oliveros (1932-2016) and Laurie Spiegel (born 1945). Carried out via iPhone and Skype and prompted by a series of questions from Satz, the pair congenially discuss aspects of drone sounds, which for years have been an important component of their unconventional electronic work, both audio and video. Their interest in drone sounds and use of sustained or repeated sounds, notes, or tone-clusters aligned with Satz’s own interest in alert signals, and the latter’s attempt to forge a new understanding of hypervigilance and emergency through sound as a perceptual trigger of high alert.

Film & Video (Film & Video)

In Summer Camp , Lola Gonzàlez filmed a group of friends at the home of her parents in the department of Charente (France) in the process of transforming the house into a training camp. They are doing exercises with the furniture as if they were training to fight against something yet to happen. Gonzàlez ’s films persistently evoke the same fear of an external threat, one which is never explained but which can be placed in relation with the current political situation and social tension.

Film & Video (Film & Video)

Les Chenilles by Michelle and Noël Keserwany is a sensual film that translates the source of women’s oppression into the means for their liberation. In this narrative film, protagonists Asma and Sarah meet while working as waitresses in France. They both come from the Levant and, each in their own way, carry burdens of the past and the consequences of colonialism.

Photography (Photography)

Susan Sontag, the author of On Photography and Regarding the Pain of Others, was captured through Hujar’s now-iconic photograph in a relaxed yet pensive pose. A friend and supporter of his work as well as his subject, Sontag wrote the introduction for Hujar’s only book published during his lifetime: Portraits in Life and Death.

Film & Video (Film & Video)

Canton Novelty by Fang Lu captures the adventure of a group of three girls, Ruohan, Lily and Zoe on a summer vacation in Guangzhou, China. Throughout the course of the trip, they film themselves with their cell phones singing in a karaoke room, shopping at a hardware store, sitting at a park, hanging out in a hotel room and exploring a neighborhood looking at vacant apartment ads. Although their days may seem uneventful, the girls seemingly discover the ability to perform impossible “miracles,” including cooking a full pot of rice from three grains, summoning objects to appear and disappear, and turning off street lamps on command.