AG: Offscreen

In cooperation with HKU Media and Studio Camera, AG OFFSCREEN presents an exhibition of the lens-based works of three alumni and two teachers of HKU Media. These five cinematic installations have found a temporary home in the exhibition room of AG. Which dimensions can be added there to the arsenal of cinematic art, which is usually limited to a projection on a white screen in a dark hall? And what happens when the story frees itself from the screen and extends itself into the physical space?

Echoes of Home by Lucy Azatyan (HKU Photography 2024) is a poetic short film in which she, after having been abroad for ten years, explores her Armenian roots. Based on her personal archive and with the help of her family members, the movie takes a deep dive into the layers of identity, heritage and memory.

During a research into the queer heritage of Utrecht, Tim van Loon (HKU Audiovisual Media 2022) encountered a cruising spot at the lakes of Maarsseveense Plassen. The ecology of this location initiated a converation. Permeable Skins raises the question what it means to, like a frog, have a skin that allows air and liquid to pass through, thereby removing the boundary between body and environment.

For OFFSCREEN, Bea de Visser (teacher at HKU Audiovisual Media) created a special type of installation around her latest movie No Horses on Mars –nominated this year for a Golden Calf at Netherlands Film Festival – which is based on recent scientific research on the sensory perception of horses. The film is a poetic exploration of what this animal experiences – and how this is different from (or similar to) the human percpetion. Why am I me and why not you?

Lichtspiel – Ars Anaclastica (Experiment Nr. 5) is part of a project series in which Zalán Szakács (teacher at HKU Audiovisual Media) investigates – in cooperation with Utrecht University – the historic light projections that existed before the dawn of cinema. The work in AG makes use of the fracturing of light by kinetically driven lenses, through which a relation emerges with the architecture of the exhibition area. With the installation Eigengrau Pavilion, Zalán Szakács has been nominated for a Golden Calf in Digital Culture 2024.

TELEOS-1 is an installation by Niels Bierhaus (HKU Audiovisual Media 2024), based on the short experimental science fiction film by the same name. We see images of the explorative mission to exoplantes, while contact with the crew of the TELEOS-1 has been lost. Their letting go of earthly values and finding new opportunities outside the treaded paths, rhymes with Bierhaus’s personal experiences while growing up as a queer person. On Wednesday 25 September, Bierhaus’s film is also screened during Blikvangers.