User:Aitantv/p r o j e c t

PRACTICAL

KEY THEMES

• Hybridity
• Tribalism
• Surveillance (hyper visibility)
• Predator/Prey relationships

FORMAT

cooking interview / fieldwork

• sound divorced from image

the host / the host

• the host - director cooking stew for speculative scenes

the guests / the parasites

• specualtive scenes - talk (of the host) from behind the camera

which camera lens?

• Is it a combination of camera approaches?
• Is it a simple handheld DV camera? This could help overlap with Paranormal movies (like Blair Witch) lending it a certain authenticity
• A wide lens for the indoor scenes and a more narrow lens for the outdoors? Or go even wider with the outdoors to reference surveillance.

RESEARCH IDEAS

• food related internet conspiracies

RECEE

• greenhouses south of rotterdam
• Het Nieuwe Oost Cemetery
• Synagogue in Bourtange
• Mevalana Mosque (name after Turkish for Rumi)
• Mescidi Aksa Mosque, Den Haag (very near gallery 1646)

INTERVIEWS

Salimah Gablan, Coffee Meeting, 02.12.22

Yaakov Gablan (father)

• A painter who moved from Iraq, to Israel, to the Netherlands.
• Looking for connection in older life he went to Schak, a chess cafe, enjoying the games and community. The men from the Schak came to his funeral.
• Favourite Iraqi dishes are Kubba Shorba (meat, onion, herbs, spices) and Torshi (pickled vegatables). Also mention of a lebanese fglat bread
• The funeral took place in November 2022. Yaakov was wrapped in a linen showl. Olive branches garnished his body. His paintings decorated the space. Light flooded in through the open doors.
• his children were important to him than his own sibligs who he'd had various disputes with, usually in relation to money.
• He is buried in Het Niuwe Oost Cemetery - specifically wanted to be buried in a public cemetery - but his wife Christine (Swiss Dutch) wanted him to be buried in a Jewish cemetery.

Jewish diaspora

• tribalism - the idiosyncracy of each and every jewish family and custom
• embodied otherness - it's something you can't get away from - it carries through inter-generational - even Salimah's daughters are considered other, 'where are you from?'

Resources

• R - The Hadji, by Leon Unis (Jewish Arab symbiosis)
• R - The Jewish Bride, by Judith Neurick (the disappearing history of iraq)
• R - The Story of the Jews, by Simon Schama / Russel Shortall

Dr. Lisette van Lieshout, 19.03.23

• Virus is a live organism
• bacteria single cell organism
• Parasites are u-carriers - complex cell structure - "parasites are actually very small animals"
• tape worms (intestinal), malaria (most well known and deadly parasite), scabies (ecto-parasites are outside the body)
• the host rarely benefits
• european hypothesis: theres an increase in auto-immune diseases because of the scarcity of parasites. More parasites in the body would mean less volatile auto-immune flare ups from other diseases.
• symbiosis / coexistence / don't use that term -
• commencalism - the parasite benefits but the host remains the same.
• spoke about relationship between Jews and parasites (and parasites in Israel)
• next meeting: Wed 26th April, 14:30-1730: interview, filmming microscope + video feed, filming dead parasites in petri dishes (with fixative)

TUTORIALS

07.02.23

Rosella

• is there anough depth in the interviews? maybe reveal more or go deeper
• could become a larger patchwork
• could be there interviews pull you out of the fictional elements
• meeting around the table - a group encounter - where all the pieces come together
• the interviews certainly feel like real life
• interesting interaction between the enacted and documentary - you wonder about the connections between the elements - the interviews are so focused on the narration and the fiction is a more spatial/visual representation + but there is connective tissue
• W - Pere Portabella 'El Sopar' (1974) - collective discussion, political action/activism, people meeting, preparing dinner, and eating - the context around the political oppression
• what is the most simple thread - write a scene which concretely depicts this
• more intentionally pushing communicating the relationship between artist-host-parasite
• now you have ingredients but you need the recipe - reduce the ingredients
• the dinner table - a place of universal connection - relatable from different backgrounds - hints at this with G-Zi - now you can expand to have an ensemble cast -
• the interviews/vignettes could be establishing shots of the guests at the dinner
• Bela Tarr - https://www.eyefilm.nl/nl/programma/bela-tarr/125976 - film about banquet with homeless people -
• part of the banquet is the duration of the event -
• Bunuel - discreet charm of b - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Discreet_Charm_of_the_Bourgeoisie - (1973) so might have influenced
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LyoAiP4mGhE&ab_channel=FilmStruck
• how to render visual considerations around 'hungry host' - how to maintain the subtlety of the themes between multiple characters - explaining big themes through simple small talk -
• believability - project is closer to reality so absurdism can be relative

Sabine

• who hosts that feast?
• the outsider - is the guest the native
• Peaky Blinder - unwanted guest - episode - shifts the atmosphere - tvtropes.com
• The Party (2017) dir. Sally Potter
• Festen, a celebration
• Eraserhead, dinner scene
• casting - who would the characters be? perhaps people trained in improv - a set of hidden games that can lubricate the social encounter - punctuated by actual happenings
• interviews - a hunger for more details - Isabelle interview somehow harder to decipher + confusion over what is the context, why is it important for me, it's very self-enclosed, how does this connect with the rest of it -
• could you host these other artists in your conversation?
• do they speak about the host? Do they know who the party's for? what's their position? Is it designed like a game? Or more free-flow?
• do all the guests have diasporic backgrounds?
• how do these positionalities come

Barend

• cinematography - nice - geometrically c
• feedback loop in connection with the chanting
• the interviews feel surface level -
• Salimah - hospitality/art connection drawn but not explained
• Isabelle - cooking/hosting, less poetic somehow more kitchen sink, less-stylized
• the dialogue is not reaching a depth
• MEVLANA MOSQUE - art feeding off it feedback loop, a somewhat existential/spiritual thread, geometrically composed (precise) - fit with the chanting - connects with the chanting - nicely choreographed - Aitan is outsider in the space, you are an alien in that space
• the mosque and the basement -
• W - The Sandman written by Neil Gaman - an episode with a muse who'se been caughy by a writer, he captures the muse
• W - Flux Gourmet
• PERFORMATIVE -
• INTERVIEWS - portraits, non-assuming, reportage (like news item),
• Is it important for you to be a character in this? How important is it to translate this story?
• W - IDFA - All You See dir. Iranian filmmaker
• important to find subjects with same stakes
• If it is about you then maybe you should be a character. Own your story.

Ine

• Cinematorgaphy - nice images, but what are we looking at? Or why are we looking at it?
• We get to know two figures
• the mantra - the artsit, the host, the parasite - it's a little bit heavy and a conflicting theme - the parasite feeding off of another organsim - seems an attempt at unity
• Interview 1, Salimah - gentle and genuine - the camera is generous to her but we don't see the painting - feeding/eating lightly touched upon -
• Interview 2, Isabelle - curacao, memory - dancing in the kitchen - again we don't see what she's doing - intellectualise a lot in order to connect the images
• The Parasite - The stairs to the parasite - very gripping - seems to suggest there's a recipient of the food - does the person have a disease, a pest, a hostage, many connotations - this gest is so suggestive - food exchange caring, hospitable, tells more about love than talking about it - the gestures are meaningful - very gripping - these gestures are becoming symbols - a very relatable 'real' space
• Mevlana - a continuation with the stairs - not allowed to see much of this figure - by showing the figure as a shadow it creates a story - hiding/revealing - public space but inside/outside -
• hungry host = angry host /
• kammer spiel (German) - chamber play -
• maybe there are more gestures that can express the idea you're trying to translate - the idea of hiding, and shadow
• a story about the past which is still in the present in you - think of the implications of the choices you made - think about gestures that belong to that or spaces - tell the story you want to tell - why is the ghost a hungry host hostage parasite? What are the implications?
• The mosque and the cellar is really so much more compelling - the stuff relating to crypto Jews that really use your voice

13.02.23

Group mentor session, Cihad

• 'The Artist' is a bit of a loaded term - consider using Host-Parasite.
• Also more manageable having a duality as opposied to a trinity
• you are trying to connect with ancestry - the questions/journey might be more interesting than the answers
• W - Emilie Jacir - works with letters as a form describing checkpoint in Bethlehem

13.03.23

David Tutorial

• GRAPHIC TREATMENT - powerpoint (bullet points or ticks) / educational / pragmatic / academic / open university / depersonalise / news report text + sci-fi /reportage location. Biopolitical slant e.g. tick box on identity papers 'marginality' 'ethnicity'
• PHOTOGRAPHY - should be slick, precise, only strong images. Cemetery + data center is especially vague / sloppy
• make data center more ambiguous - connect surface of data center with pixels
• interactive imagery - go into the pixels, the grain
• COOKING - stock imagery v. paranormal tone - cooking tutorial - 'how to cook your great grandmother' - 'is he really saying the quiet part out loud'

Barend Tutorial

• tripod implies precision - forensic - intentionality - constraint - didactic
• VO - makes it legible and self-contained
• loop - change some wordingh for beginning/end
• cemetery - handheld - sneeky -
• picture - present the initial interaction - use blue our of Leah to cut to the next scene -
• could the feeding take place on the ground -
• complete - finish - water-tight
• Parasite by Proxy (Or How to Cook Your Grandmother)
• on screen graphics - don't subtitle - add to the irony while being completely strait-faced

30.03.23 - Renzo Martens tutorial

Parasite by Proxy

• first try to make a really good film - go deep into the material - then you can come out with a self-ironic position. At the moment your playing a good card - but there's nothing at stake. The stakes need to be high before you can get out of jail.
• for example, it would be funny if you make and show a really good film - and then talk about how you're using it for career growth etc.
• the self-irony is not convincing, it's defensive - you're not looking into the material - you need to go deeper into the material - you need to reveal - you need to show yourself and the subject
• There's nothing at stake at the moment.
• the close geographical proximity of the data center and the jewish cemetery is unclear + the geolocations are totally unnecessary - what do they add?
• I'm not sure if you really are Opportunistic

Interview in Brussels (interviewer David Bernstein)

• this is really interesting, funny and political, when you really talk about fetishizing Jewishness and denying the marginal position so identifying with antisemites. It's also hard to tell whether you're performing or being serious.

References - Artists dealing with fetishizing their own identity

• Many iranian artists who are hyperaware of their position while objectifying it
• Tirdad Zolghadr - books: 'Traction' and 'Realty' - https://www.kw-berlin.de/en/book-launch-tirdad-zolghadr-realty/
• Natasha Sara Ngien - layers of exoticising - Venice Biennale - work where you literally jump over bars as if jumping through the hoops of the art world.
• CHRISTOPHER KULENDRAN THOMAS - Tamil - https://www.newgalerie.com/?page=artists&id=25 - also had podcasts
• Mohammed Salemi - in a way the most intelligent
• Pierre d’Alancaisez - very edgy curator and critic - on the edge - https://petitpoi.net/
• Adam Broomberg - originally in a duo with Oliver Chalarin - South African Jews - anti-zionist - reclaiming his diasporic and jewish identity from Israel which has colonized and captured his identity
• Oreet Ashery - Selfish Road (2022) https://www.kw-berlin.de/en/kw-production-series-oreet-ashery/ - shown at KW