As Much Time as Space

yours,

The curators invited a group of artists to be inspired by the work of the well-known, Belgian filmmaker Chantal Akerman. They specifically presented them News from Home, the 1976 feature film with two equal main characters: the island of Manhattan, New York where the director resides and her mother in Brussels who, through a stream of letters, demands increasingly urgent news.

Test Film

In Test Film (2017-2026), visual artist Katja Mater once again explores the boundaries of the film medium. The work consists of hand-drawn ‘interpretations’ of graphic 16mm test images, known as SMPTE tests, originally intended for calibrating film images with the aim of achieving an ‘optimal’ or ‘correct’ reproduction in print or projection. Mater’s drawn and subsequently filmed versions bring this objective of film as a representation of reality into sharp focus. Test Film emphasises the concept of film as an ephemeral construct of image and time.

Searching for White

Referring to Newton’s theory of colour and light, Searching for White uses 16mm film to mix colours. We see a white wall in an industrial building, on which a three-metre-high (imperfect) colour wheel has been painted. Slowly, the image begins to tilt and rotate around its axis. This acceleration almost mixes the colours of the wheel, creating green. As it rotates, a black spot appears in the image. Mater begins to paint the wheel and changes the colours one by one, shifting the wheel from green to blue and eventually, after accelerating, to almost white.