Curated by Pablo Robertson de Unamuno
from the 6th of April to the 6th of May 2023
Artists: Urte Sabutyte – Alex Steven Chandler – John Berger – James Edmonds – R Colvile – Taryn Edmonds – Betty Blitz – Saul Pankhurst – Dina Yanni – Pink Milk Drink – Sarah Ballard – Corina Andrian (Red-Cor) – Alice Fassi – Chiara Marini Ferretti & Giulia Zini – Ignacio Avalon Sandoval Reilly – Križinauskaitė-Bernotienė – Walid Yazbek.
VisualcontainerTV presents the last edition of the Underneath the Floorboards Festival.
The festival is focused on presenting work from artists who express themselves in an experimental, innovative, and non-linear manner.
A videoart screening of about 18 artists takes about 2 hours of screening for all the videoart lovers and researchers.
Part 1
Drylands by Urte Sabutyte: 14.00
While going through a rough breakup, a young woman loses herself in the wilderness. Only after a full surrender, a new path appears, leading her back home.
Lasan by Alex Steven Chandler: 2.20
Archive mix made for Amarjit Chandan’s poem ‘Lasan’, read by John Berger.
Configurations by James Edmonds: 8.36
The little personal myths and structures we set up to aid the survival of the psyche in times of low harvest. Finding subtle points of reference in subject and camera movement, in the landscape, its details and the traditions of the season, I attempt to connect the outside with the embodied camera and the inward gesture of the brush.
True Love Story by R Colvile: 7.36
The internet makes previously impossible collisions possible. True Love Story is a video project by R Colvile. It was shot, recorded and edited entirely on iPhone. The work describes the start, duration and end of a romantic relationship begun on a dating app and lived – in a blurred way – both online, and in Berlin, London, Rome and Milan. Narrated using the iPhone’s speak function and utilising a lo-fi visual palette designed to draw the listener in, and to reflect the somewhat glitchy, disjointed, nature of the piece’s themes – True Love Story explores the interweaving of the traditionally perceived real and virtual in our romantic lives. The film reflects the conflicting aspects – disconnection, rawness, freedom, confusion, fear, elation and melancholy – which emerge from the nearly random and almost unlimited possibilities of technology.
CUT | SPLICE | LAYER by Taryn Edmonds: 2:14
Cut/ slice/ Layer playfully explores architectural details of repurposed cinema facades around the artists home city, and interweaves them with found footage demonstrating how to splice a film strip. Shot on 16mm, the film draws a parallel between the material and processes involved in cutting and splicing film and the multi-layered, beautiful and often damaged architecture which it documents.
QUINTESSENCE by Betty Blitz: 12.25
“Two bodies are merging together, something new is created – with analogue black and white images and an immersive sound by David M Schuh, Betty
Blitz’ experimental film makes the miracle of life visible and perceptible in various feelings. A genuinely cinematic work about the beginning and the end – becoming and passing in the course of time – the quintessence of all existence.” (Cinema Next Austria).
Unknown Hand by Saul Pankhurst: 3.19
An individual reflects on the inevitability of change, how we know ourselves and how we wish to be known. This film discusses the impact of degenerative illness on one’s sense of Identity and Authenticity, asserting an individual’s right to approach a major change in their health in a way that remains true to them.
Part 2
Joyride by Dina Yanni: 4.35
Joyride is part 2 of the ongoing Elvis video-cycle.
To Do by Saul Pankhurst: 3.23
A reflection on the Self Improvement Industry, explored through the filmmaker’s attempts to participate in a guided pseudo-mindfulness exercise.
Your Brain is Not Broken by Pink Milk Drink: 0.16
Your brain is not broken the world is fucked jus thinking about capitalism & pelicans & mental health & how the world is fucked.
There, Where She is Not by Sarah Ballard: 7.00
Echos of a time in my grandmother’s life that she no longer remembers—a fractured memory recollected through proxy figures Frances Farmer and Marguerite Duras—a mirror is a placeless place.
Why Shouldn’t We Be Vulgar by Corina Andrian (Red-Cor): 5.37
Visual/Aural story: A voice calmly narrates a medicine leaflet in English sprinkled with Romanian curse words. Two friends get stuck in their own shirts and get lost in a dizzying dance. When they finally escape the darkness of the shirts, the girls turn into hungry moths whose only purpose is to get ahold of a mysterious travelling light. What would you do if you could fulfil your most ardent desire?
Concept: Everything is vulgar. Why are you ashamed?
Chasing a dream is vulgar. It’s something that we can’t control. It’s carnal. You want to make love to it. But instead it fucks you. It fucks you up. And you still chase it like a moth blindly chases light. It’s primal and it has a force and energy in it, a fear that you only experience in sex. Who’s mad at me for being what I am? I am obscene, I get in trouble with the law. I am profane, I get in trouble with God. I am vulgar, I get in trouble with my mother. I am a sophisticated problem. To be aware of one’s vulgarity elevates you above the vulgar. I am alive. And you?
In Light by Alice Fassi: 7.36
In Light lives in a liminal space between documentary and visual tale. Alternating archival film material with new footage, the short film grants a unique insight into the peaceful and sublime ways of the Universal White Brotherhood. Born in Bulgaria at the beginning of the 20th century, the movement professes the High Ideal passed on by its founder and spiritual guide Master Beinsa Duno: “A heart as pure as a crystal, a mind as radiant as the sun, a soul as vast as the universe, a spirit as powerful as God and one with God.”
Fame by Chiara Marini Ferretti & Giulia Zini: 13.08
FAME (HUNGER) is a video performance work that arises from the need to question the gaze that nourishes and shapes our ways of relating and the construction of our own identity. The work is an act of rebellion and emancipation from the dominant gaze. The performance was shot in one take and was not scripted. For us the camera has the power to bring out the unconscious dramaturgy of the body.
Garden by Ignacio Avalon Sandoval Reilly: 1.35
A dog film of Jersey, my childhood dog. She’s still alive, and now she will always be because I have made this film about her anyways, most is just basic observation sketches put together, there are little live action shots sprinkled in with animation on top of them, and rotoscoping. Most of the backgrounds focus on plants because she is named after the Garden State.
Impetus by Miglė Križinauskaitė-Bernotienė: 4.04
This film is a reflective audiovisual collage of images that have never met and were never supposed to meet. It is a rational – although also grounded by inner impulses and emotions – connection of two irreconcilable realities in space and time.
Ana (I Am) the series by Walid Yazbek: 4.00
“Ana means I am, Ana is an experimental, poetic doc series of 9 episodes created by 9 Lebanese audiovisual artists exploring their emotions in regards to their self image and intuitively transforming them into a unique audiovisual expression.
“Ana” is a series conceived & produced by Home of CIne-Jam within the intuitive film lab program created & conducted by Muriel Aboulrouss. Each artist is invited to create an episode of the series.
Underneath the Floorboards is a platform that showcases videoart, visual arts, experimental film and documentary along with animation work. We mix work from UK and international visual artists from around the world. We focus on presenting work from artists who express themselves in an experimental, innovative and non-linear manner. We show a wide range of work from people from different ethnic, class, gender and sexual orientated backgrounds who cover a wide range of subjects.
Our goal is to showcase novel inventive contemporary, avant-garde work that creates a new and innovative language that transcends the realms of linear visual expression.