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Archaic Smile

Kurt d'Haeseleer

25 November 2008
19:00

Location: Filmtheater t’Hoogt
Entrance: €7,50 (CJP/U-pas: €6,50)

This summer, the Impakt Works program welcomed the Belgian artist Kurt d ‘Haeseleer as its artist-in-residence. Within the framework of this program, d’Haeseleer produced his latest work ‘Archaic Smile.’ This video explores the world of archaeological theme parks and re-enactments of historic battles. Why do people, by way of hobby or family outing, want to relive the past? Are fear and loathing of daily modernity involved? Or is it the ‘disneyfication’ of the past causing history to be turned into a controlled re-enactment of epidemics like the plague, or wars and battles by way of pleasure or entertainment?

The premiere of ‘Archaic Smile’ will form part of a sensorial anti-lecture in which Kurt d’Haeseleer will provide us with an insight into his oeuvre by means of video montage. Next to showing his own work and his latest video ‘Archaic Smile’, the anti-lecture will integrate fragments from the work of Antonioni, Todd Haynes, Jürgen Reble and Derek Jarman topped off with audio fragment comments and Godard-like collages. Following this presentation, Kurt d’ Haeseleer will be interviewed by Bart Rutten (Amsterdam Stedelijk Museum) and get on stage for a live-visual performance with TUK (Guillaume Graux).

Kurt d’ Haeseleer Bart Rutten TUK (Guillaume Graux)

Kurt d’ Haeseleer

― Artist

Kurt d ‘Haeseleer is the artistic director and co-founder of WERKTANK, factory for new and old media. He is responsible for the selection of the artists and productions since 2010. Kurt is also a visual artist and produced several videos and (interactive) installations which were part of international festivals and shows in Rotterdam, Tokyo, Montreal, Paris, Berlin, etc. Next to his own productions and performances, d’Haeseleer regularly works as a video designer for theatre, dance, opera. In his work d’Haeseleer focuses on the visualisation of the dynamics of information. He translates the all-encompassing presence of media into meta-images. Kurt is well known for his extreme video manipulations. He manipulates images by forcing them to react to the parameters of other images. With this approach, he can only partly foresee how the image will appear. The result is a process that strongly resembles developing analogue photographs, where one can never precisely predict the result. Digital alchemy, if you like. 

Bart Rutten

― Moderator

Bart Rutten is artistic director of the Centraal Museum Utrecht. He was previously the head of collections at the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam and the Netherlands Media Art Institute.

TUK (Guillaume Graux)

― Artist

Tuk (the one-man project of Guillaume Graux) works with varied soundscape and contours of melodies. Tuk often misleads. One moment you're drifting off to a seemingly dormant melody, but after a while, the structure is always subtly ensured to slowly fade, only to emerge from a completely different perspective. This approach is, of course, similar to Fennesz in some ways, but Tuk goes further and clearly draws on a variety of sources. Tuk's working method closely resembles that of his kindred spirits, who blend digital and analog. Graux uses his guitar as his primary source, but other elements are also welcome. The creative process is characterized by extensive fragmentation and mutation, ultimately arriving at a coherent unity based on a balanced balance between melody and agitation. And it is precisely the way everything fits together perfectly that puts Tuk on the musical map.

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