Refugees of the Septic Heart reflects the heart beat of a nation as it perches on the brink of change. At times philosophical and provocative six dancers search for a society freed of greed, manipulation and control. Gritty physicality and decaying urban sounds evolve into an optimistic undercurrent of mischievous, spirited and irrepressible movement. Inspired by music producer Shackleton’s undulating rhythms, snaking percussions and hypnotic melodies Tom Dale Company unites Barret Hodgson’s digital animation, spoken word by Vengeance Tenfold and Dale’s inventive choreography in a feast of visuals, movement and music.
Refugees of the Septic Heart continues the collaboration between the creative duo (Dale & Hodgson) behind the internationally acclaimed I Infinite.
Features music from Shackleton’s forthcoming concept album of the same name.
The Alignment - Jeff Mills, dir Heleen Blanken
The film is about telepathic communication between three sources. It’s about alignment in many forms; arranging the right setting for communication; aligning multiple frequencies and creating the perfect environment for a transfer. So basically, the characters are aligning their frequencies with each other and the third party.
Barbara Hammer: Nitrate Kisses
Lesbians and gays were silenced for generations in the 20th century in their stories covered up, their letters and diaries burned, and their history left unrecorded. Homosexuality was illegal, and socially so it was kept hidden. In popular culture, gay and lesbian themes had to be disguised, encoded. Old movies would use scenes of ancient Greece or stories from the bible to present homoerotic images in an acceptable manner. Sapphic love was mired within chaste romance and usually ended with lesbian characters going insane, being murdered or committing suicide. So entire historical chapters about a large part of the population remains blank, empty, nonexistent.
In an attempt to address this gap in the historical record, Hammer constructs an aural record. She includes spoken accounts of the early twentieth century. These oral histories are played back throughout the film along with music – everything from blues to Kurt Weill — from the periods discussed. Cultural evidence of a queer existence. Visually, though, the film takes a totally different path. Hammer uses B&W explicit footage of various same-sex couples (three of women, one of men) having sex. Even though we’re inundated with nudity in contemporary cinema and porn is ubiquitous nowadays, you rarely see couples quite like this. Especially the case of two elderly women — a long-time couple — joyfully making love for the camera. Aside from the sex, there are also lots of clips from period films, music, and lesbian pulp fiction. And every so often it’s topped off with an agit-prop quote plastered across the screen from literary theorists like Michel Foucault.
Nitrate Kisses is vigorously resistant to conventions like narrative, linear storylines, or synchronized sound and picture. Doesn’t matter. It’s not disjointed at all. The film is an engrossing and engaging historical record.—-CIUT-Daniel Garber at the Movies (Toronto)
Bertrand Russell’s 10 Commandments of Philosophy
Perhaps the essence of the Liberal outlook could be summed up in a new decalogue, not intended to replace the old one but only to supplement it. The Ten Commandments that, as a teacher, I should wish to promulgate, might be set forth as follows:
1. Do not feel absolutely certain of anything.
2. Do not think it worth while to proceed by concealing evidence, for the evidence is sure to come to light.
3. Never try to discourage thinking for you are sure to succeed.
4. When you meet with opposition, even if it should be from your husband or your children, endeavor to overcome it by argument and not by authority, for a victory dependent upon authority is unreal and illusory.
5. Have no respect for the authority of others, for there are always contrary authorities to be found.
6. Do not use power to suppress opinions you think pernicious, for if you do the opinions will suppress you.
7. Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric.
8. Find more pleasure in intelligent dissent than in passive agreement, for, if you value intelligence as you should, the former implies a deeper agreement than the latter.
9. Be scrupulously truthful, even if the truth is inconvenient, for it is more inconvenient when you try to conceal it.
10. Do not feel envious of the happiness of those who live in a fool’s paradise, for only a fool will think that it is happiness.
Drawing Restraint 9 - Matthew Barney + Bjork
Its core idea is the relationship between self-imposed resistance and creativity, a theme it symbolically tracks through the construction and transformation of a vast sculpture of liquid vaseline, called “The Field”, which is molded, poured, bisected and reformed on the deck of the ship over the course of the film.
Barriers hold form in place, and when they are removed, the film tracks the descent of form into states of sensual surrender and formal atrophy; this shift in the physical state of the sculpture is symbolically mirrored through the narrative of The Guests, two occidental visitors to the ship played in the film by Matthew Barney and Björk, who we first see taken on board, groomed, bathed and dressed in mammal fur costumes based upon traditional Shinto marriage costumes.
They take part in a tea ceremony in which, in the film’s only moment of spoken dialogue, they are informed about the history of the vessel, and then, as an increasingly powerful lightning storm breaks out overhead, the tatami mat room they occupy floods with liquid vaseline, a fluid which we sense has emanated from The Fieldsculpture itself.
In a harrowing liebestod which is the climax and centerpiece of the film, the Guests, locked in an embrace and breathing through blowhole-like orifices on the back of their necks, take out flensing knives and cut away each other’s feet and thighs. The remains of their lower body are revealed to contain traces of whale tails at an early stage of development, suggesting rebirth, physical transformation, and the possibility of new forms.
Having reached a state of maximum disintegration, the sculpture of The Field is then reorganized and the ship emerges from the storm, sailing through a field of icebergs towards the open southern ocean. In the last shot, two whales can be seen swimming behind the ship, headed for Antarctica.
Real outsider music. After Howard Mengler’s first abduction experience he stumbled across an empty building with an alien piano, where he sat down and played music guided by alien hands.
Sebastião Salgado
