Curated Exhibitions

The Filmic Conventions

Meris Angioletti, Salvatore Arancio, Filipa César, Jos De Gruyter & Harald Thys, Beatrice Gibson, Gabriel Lester, Thomas Lock, Gintaras Makarevicius, Sefer Memişoğlu, Laurent Montaron, Alexandra Navratil, Lois Rowe, Laure Prouvost, Dan Shaw-Town & Tim Winter, Kathrin Sonntag, Jason Underhill

‘… The total structure of meaning of an individual film can be regarded as a form of connotation. Each individual film is a creation of meaning(s) insofar as the application of different filmic codes brings into being a form that is new and not just a stereotype of a form that has been used before. [...] A filmic work of art is the creation of a new system of signs, a sort of individual super-code or a structure of meanings in which every partial expression derives its meaning from its place within the whole system.’

Excerpts from Jan M. Peters, Pictorial Signs and the Language of Film, Amsterdam, 1981

How does one create a theory of moving image through moving image? How does one trace the invisible boundaries between the production, the representation and the fruition of films? Presenting a programme of video screenings might just replicate their functioning and influences but could also refresh the basics and intent of a cinematic work.

The Filmic Conventions are the fluid rules in the cinematic vocabulary that help the viewer in structuring the laws applied to the consuming and dispersal of video-works and films. For Zoo 2009, FormContent tackles the moving image through a choral video installation constructed on artists’ interpretation of different filmic standards, alongside an exhibition presented in its East London space.

Picking on the political and aesthethic implications embedded in the employment of the filmic medium, FormContent is inviting UK based and international artists to present their video and filmic trajectories. The exhibition will also comprise works suggested by other curators and artists specializing in video appreciation.

FormContent is a curatorial project space, initiated in 2007 by Francesco Pedraglio, Caterina Riva and Pieternel Vermoortel in London’s East End.

Works permanently on display

Gabriel Lester, All Wrong, 2005, 21 min
Gintaras Makerevicius, Testament of Siberia, 2008, 14 min
Jos De Gruyter & Harald Thys, compilation
Lois Rowe, Argument from Design, 2006, 4 min 30 sec
Jason Underhill, Howlin, 2009, 30 min
Dan Shaw-Town & Tim Winter, At the edge of the world his journey begins, an objects search for autonomy in a world full of things, 2008, 10 min

Daily Schedule

15 October Camera Action
Filipa César, Allee der Kosmonauten, 2007, 8 min
Alexandra Navratil, A Fraction of a Second Earlier, 2009, 2 min 43 sec

16 October Narrative Code
Alternated projections every half an hour
Kathrin Sonntag, Dracula’s Ghost, 2009, 21 min 22 sec
Beatrice Gibson, A necessary Music, 2008, 28 min

17 October Verbal / musical expression
Alternated projections every half an hour
Laure Prouvost, Burrow me / Pig, 2009, 15 min
Thomas Lock, Body Dysfunctional, 2009, 15 min

18 October Directing Code
Projections every half an hour
Sefer Memişoğlu, Rendering Rome, 2008, 6 min
Meris Angioletti, Aussicht, 2007, 4 min 51 sec

19 October Figuration Code
Alternated projections every half an hour
Laurent Montaron, Readings, 2005, 13 min 44 sec
Salvatore Arancio, Sentinel, 2008, 10 min