ABIGAIL CHILD
THE FUTURE IS BEHIND YOU
USA, 2005, 21 mins, DVD

The Future is Behind You tells a fictitious story composed of film reels from an anonymous family archive from the 1930s in Europe. It is a reconstruction that emphasises the gender development of two sisters who play, race, fight, kiss and grow up together in the shadow of a looming war. As always, Abigail Child uses found footage to get the story behind the story. In this case, there are at least three levels: the home movie in which a preternaturally happy family from 1930s Germany poses for the camera; the historical moment which undermines the image and serves as the real motive for the action; and the development of the girls' sexual identity. The innocent,"free" elder sister transforms into a socially bruised "bride," whereas the younger one irrepressibly develops from a tomboy to an embarrassed, diffident adult. At once biography and fiction, history and psychology, The Future Is Behind You exposes gestures to explore the seduction of speculative narrative, in an attempt to bridge the gap between private and public histories.

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IAN HELLIWELL
DASH DOT
UK, 2006, 1 min, video

A completely cameraless hand scratched and coloured film, made by direct animation onto black super-8. All the shapes were etched in using a draughtsman`s stencil, and the colour added with felt tip pens.

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IAN HELLIWELL
RUST TO DUST
UK, 2006, 2 mins, video

A hand processed super-8 film shot at a Brighton cemetery and further enhanced with ink drawn directly onto the footage. The film`s texture arises from a combination of the rough hand processing, black ink and accumulation of dust particles.

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IAN HELLIWELL
SUN TOWER 70
UK, 2006, 3 mins, video

Recent super-8 footage shot mostly at the old site of Expo 70 in Osaka, has been transformed with ink from a black marker pen, covering the whole film with a cracked mosaic effect. Electronic sounds come from a variety of simple self-built circuits. 

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MARK LECKEY
THE MARCH OF THE BIG WHITE BARBARIANS
UK, 2005, 5 mins, video

London's Public Sculptures are articulated by concrete poetry of Maurice Lemaitre in a free translation by Leckey's band Jack Too Jack.

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STEVE REINKE
ASK THE INSECTS
Canada, 2005, 9 mins, video

Part home-made science (before it became doctrine), part animated video reverie, Reinke's brief and episodic compression is an incendiary release which opens by announcing the death of the reader, of any audience capable of pulling its fragments together, or better, of dissolving into its tissues, of allowing the body to change shape, to identify, for instance, with an insect. Or a stone.

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STEVE REINKE
THE MENDI
Canada, 2006, 9 mins, video

Different 'voices' always occupy a Reinke tape. Though Reinke’s voice-over is very personal, authorial identity is dispersed. He invites us to look reflexively - to ask hard questions about ourselves, our desires, and our relationships to images. The latest missive from the artist finds him recovering an errant CBC documentary and finding a new way to look at it by working on the soundtrack. He sees with his ears, with his mouth. He applies his mouth to this footage, he gives it mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, so now it can be seen again.

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STEVE REINKE
REGARDING THE PAIN OF SUSAN SONTAG (NOTES ON CAMP)
Canada, 2006, 4 mins, video

This short video gets its name from two pieces of writing by Susan Sontag: her last book, Regarding the Pain of Others, a meditation on empathy and the photograph as document; and the highly influential essay, now close to fifty years old, Notes onCamp. Sontag's work often questions photography's ability to elicit empathy within the viewer. She analyzes whether personal topics, such as gender and disease, can be addressed given the vast dissemination of photographic images. Outed in the invite as a rehabilitation of the "tired indexicality of photograph", Regarding the Pain of Susan Sontag (Notes on Camp), shows images that evoke a contemporary emotional ground zero, combined with Reinke's pithy voice-over narration

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JIMMY ROBERT
L’EDUCATION SENTIMENTALE
Netherlands, 2005, B&W & colour, silent, 5 mins, 35mm

"Bas Jan Ader disappeared at sea over 30 years ago. My new film acts as an intervention on his filmed performances. In five minutes Iattempt to locate myself within his vocabulary, re-enacting gestures that I identify with, whether these gestures come from record covers, such as David Bowie's 'Heroes' or 'The Idiot' by Iggy Pop or appropriations and transformations of B J Ader's own work. My intention is to underline his importance as an influential figure in my work." - JR

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JAYCE SALLOUM
UNTITLED PART 4: TERRA (IN)COGNITA
Canada, 2002, 38 mins, video

This videotape focuses on fragments of histories, of pre-contact, contact, and settlement of the Kelowna area though the accounts of several Syilxcen speakers. It traces connections and correlations between the periods of extermination/disintegration, assimilation, and marginalization to their present day and context of being First Nations.

This videotape was originally commissioned by the City of Kelowna as part of their 2005 Centennial celebrations. After viewing the tape, City officials deemed the historical and contemporary First Nations' accounts "not celebratory enough" and subsequently decommissioned the tape and canceled the premiere screening.

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JOHN SMITH
PYRAMIDS
UK, 2006, 6 mins, video

A  chocolate bar eventually reminds the filmmaker that there are much more important things going on outside his hotel room.

"Pyramids" is the fifth video in the "Hotel Diaries" series, a collection of late night recordings made in European hotel rooms which relate personal experiences to contemporary world events. Works in theseries currently include Frozen War (Ireland, 2001), Museum Piece (Germany, 2004), Throwing Stones (Switzerland, 2004), B & B  (England, 2005) and Pyramids (Netherlands 2006). They can be shown individually or as a chronological group.

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IMOGEN STIDWORTHY
7AM
UK, 2005, 5 mins, video / DVD (surround sound)

Partly shot in the Beijing in the Temple of Heaven Park, Stidworthy's film focuses on the early morning exercises of individuals among the trees, which are spread irregularly across a huge grassy area. The slow motion of these movements is juxtaposed with hand-held video footage shot in Shanghai of hip-hop competitors as they sit, chat, pose and try out their gymnastic dance moves. The Beijing movements range from Tai-Chi stillness to fast sweeps of the limbs, vigorous slapping of the body, banging of the back against a tree trunk, and pacing in geometric patterns and circles. Every movement is sustained for at least five minutes and up to two hours, their accumulated rhythms gradually building up into a visual complexity and a musical/percussive soundscape.

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