I will be screening my film Ban an Farraige (Woman of the Sea) to celebrate International Women’s Day
Come and experience silent films and improvised music at its best!
15th March 7.30pm
Pushkin House,
5A Bloomsbury Sq,
London

At: No 8 High Street,

Granchester

Cambridge,

On: Sat 16th Feb 6-8pm

and Sun 17th Feb 5-7pm

See you there!

Following the fantastic success of Neuf At Home last year, we are holding another experimental film installation in a domestic setting in Granchester this year on

Sat 16th February 6-8pm and  Sun 17th February 5-7pm. 

Each of us has made a film in response to the house 8 High Street, Granchester, Cambridge under the overall theme of Home.
Come and experience films in the kitchen, in fireplaces and in bedrooms. Be part of the experimental flow through the house, enjoy the vivid colours and the rich literary references gleaned from this historic place in the old wonderful thatched cottage in Granchester.

Highlights from our residency at Aid&Abet gallery in Cambridge. What fun we had!.
Neuf is a diverse group of individual artists working together with the common purpose of experimenting with the digital medium, the collaborative process and the installation space. We aim to challenge existing modes of production, curation and installation to explore the viewer’s relationship to the viewing experience. We are interested in an on-going question of how and where to locate experimental ‘film’ work and how the ‘viewing space’ can alter the work.
Neuf sprung out of an Arts Council funded experimental video art course (in 2006, run by Tim Sidell, ARU; Trish Sheil, Cambridge Film Consortium; and Kettles Yard) bringing together artists from different disciplines (performance, sculpture, painting, theatre, curatorial practice and writing) with a keen interest in the language and possibilities of film. We have been meeting monthly ever since at Cambridge Arts Picturehouse. We are the only experimental video art collective in East Anglia engaged in the collaborative exploration of video art in the expanded space and inclusive of performance. Our unique perspective as a group offers insight to the collaborative and experimental process. We avoid predictable paths and are dedicated to pushing our own personal boundaries and knowledge as artists working with film.
Check out our website http://www.neuf.org.uk.

Now I just need to win one!

Lyotard prophesized the end of the grand narrative: No more looking through the Cartesian perspective and believing in overarching theories and philosophies about linear progression through history; and no more certainty about finding the answers through science or religion. Postmodernism made us alert to difference and diversity, to the incompatibility of our aspirations and beliefs. It hailed the end of the humanist tradition and man’s control over being.

Thus reading films as texts gave us the opportunity to see the abundance of narratives within. Every image, every word, every colour, has a reference to another.  There is a never-ending potential of narratives as these images and signs themselves generate new processes and meanings.

The notion of the Absurd counters the most basic philosophical question, is there any meaning in our existence at all.

Beckett understood and played with the Absurd idea that there is no meaning to be found in the world beyond what meaning we give to it.

He challenges our natural desire to make sense of things and our reliance on questions being answered by science and religion.  To view your surroundings with the absence of sense is irrational and a conflict arises between you and the estranged world you live in.

Ban An Farraige is such a world and by watching this film you enter the Absurd, you accept the fact that this is theatre and before you is a performance.  I have manipulated the shots. Nothing is real. There is no coherent vision of truth, there is no accepted reflection of society and no expressions of cultural values, and it does not communicate any general views of human life. It is not concerned with conveying information or presenting the problems or destinies relating to her character. What I am doing is using the concept of the Absurd to reveal the workings of the mind to show that we create our own reality and there is no meaning to this reality other than what we give to it. I am exploring an intimate vision of the human situation, the meaning of existence itself.

I want to show that her existence and by extension our existence, is not determined by anything external lying outside of ourselves, e.g. our surroundings, history, God’s order, etc.; but lies within ourselves and is the result of our own decisions and behavior.

By keeping her character static sucking the stones she becomes recognizable to us through the picture of the world that she places before us. The seaside scene is an expression of her own psychological reality.  The fleeting images and sounds are the outward projection of the thoughts in her head. By opening up the world of the Absurd we can view the workings of her mind. “It presents a truer picture of reality itself, reality as apprehended by an individual”.⁴¹ Ladislav Major, Mysleni o divadle, vol. 1 (Praha [Prague]: Herrmann, 1993) 161.

My other films showing will be:

La Vie Par La Mort. 2010. 2 minutes.

Lemons and Tacks. 2011. 5 minutes.

What Do We See. 2009. 5 minutes.

The film is a response to a seeing a drawing of lemons and tacks by Carl Plackman in a kitchen in Cambridge. I was inspired to make a short narrative about lives entwined with these bitter sweet truths.

I experiment with creating visual streams of consciousness that further enrich our

experience of time. I am particularly interested in making films that relate to ways

people see; to the theory of the visual, the poetics of vision and the minds eye.

The idea is to promote different types of viewing that will transfer our attention

from what we look at, to us as the subject and our experience of looking.

Proches les uns des autres, nous étions nombreux  dans la salle d’exposition et dans l’obscurité, nous avons pris conscience de nous-mêmes, dans cet espace.  Nous pressant autour de la zone délimitée par des rubans dont usent la police et la voirie, tendus entre les poutres de bois de la galerie,  nous avons aussi pris conscience d’attendre Mehdi Farajpour, le performer.

L’espace laissé vide s’est éclairé par la projection d’une image fixe de Medhi, assis sur un banc urbain, et la tête prise dans une cage à oiseaux.

Après quelques instants pleins de notre questionnement,  il est, lui-même, arrivé, vêtu sobrement de blanc, coiffé de la cage à oiseaux  avec un oiseau vivant qui piaillait en tentant d’éviter sa tête.

Très chorégraphiquement, en mouvements mesurés des bras et tendant les jambes l’une après l’autre comme pour le geste le plus essentiel, il se déplaça lentement à travers la foule avant de délicatement pénétrer dans l’espace fermé. Il agissait aussi précisément que lentement. Le silence envahit l’espace où se percevait une énergie électrique.

He was comfortable in the space and moved around it slowly acknowledging the bird form time to time.  Then, as he moved from the back wall toward the fence, he began to become unsettled and push against the fence.  He moved further and further out into the huddled crowd, separating them to allow space for him to escape.  He pushed and pushed against the hazard tape until it eventually snapped and he was free.  He moved from the gallery out onto the street and with his back against the wall of the street he opened the birdcage door and let the bird go free.  They both were free.

Il se mouvait avec une aise assumée, lentement dans la prise de reconnaissance de l’oiseau comme forme du temps. Cependant, s’éloignant de la paroi de projection de  son image avec oiseau, pour atteindre la limite marquée,  il commença des mouvements d’instabilité avant de s’approcher de l’assistance entassée, pour se frayer un passage. Il a, alors, tiré et tiré de son corps sans s’aider des mains- il dut se contorsionner, se tendre, forcer - contre la bande, jusqu’à ce qu’elle se cassât: il était libre.

Il sortit dans la rue, alors que nous le suivions d’abord seulement des yeux à travers la vitrine, avant de l’y rejoindre. Là, appuyé du dos contre le mur, il a ouvert la porte de la cage et laissé s’envoler l’oiseau. Liberté. Tous deux étaient libres.

Why performance?  Above all the artistic mediums the body is best a portraying the immediacy of the emotional state.  It makes us aware of the physicality and poignancy of the circumstances and allows us to transcend specific references and address a universal condition. Analyzing Mendhi’s movements we see the static image on the back wall as a metaphor for stillness and comfortableness in our surroundings perhaps trapped and comfortably numb to the possibility of change.  Therefore as Medhi moved towards his own image and matched it, there was a realization that the static was giving way to the movement of change.  A realization of being trapped and a need to free oneself from this condition.  The intensity at which he pushed against the barrier was raw; his need to escape was urgent and real.

Pourquoi la performance? Parce que, parmi tous les médiums artistiques, le corps est le meilleur  pour  dépeindre l’immédiateté d’un état émotionnel.  Il nous fait prendre conscience de la matérialité et  de la prégnance des circonstances et nous aide à dépasser les référents restreints pour penser à la condition universelle.

En analysant les mouvements de Mehdi, nous comprenons l’image fixe sur le mur du fond comme une métaphore de l’immobilité et de la position inconfortable subies dans notre environnement,  peut-être pris au piège et sans nulle possibilité de changement. C’est pourquoi, comme Medhi se déplaçait vers sa propre image, et l’atteignit, il provoqua la prise de conscience que le statique peut céder face au mouvement, au changement. Une prise de conscience de notre emprisonnement  et de la nécessité de se libérer soi- même de cette condition. L’intensité avec laquelle il poussa,  contre la force d’inertie du mur était rude, crue tant sa nécessité de s’échapper était urgente et réelle.

The performance shows Mehdi artistic emotional condition and at the same time serves as a metaphor for conflict.  As a viewer I had an immediate reaction at the time of experiencing the performance and also a delayed imaginative and thoughtful response afterwards, which shows the quality and reflective nature of  his performance.

Why the bird?  For me the bird represents flight, and the acknowledgement that its survival depends on claiming territories and defending turf.  The drive propelling a tiny bird is like the drive that propels a person to fight their enemies, to defend their territory or to free themselves.  Mehdi did not use many birds but chose to use one, bringing the battle and metaphor of fight and flight to human dimensions.

Cependant, l’état émotionnel et artistique liés que la performance  produisit en Medhi peut se lire comme une métaphore de conflit.

En tant que spectatrice, j’ai eu une réaction immédiate au moment du partage de cette expérience de la performance mais aussi une réponse différée réfléchie par la suite, preuve de la qualité et de la nature réflexive de sa performance.
Pourquoi l’oiseau? Pour moi, l’oiseau représente le vol et la reconnaissance de ce que sa survie dépend de la revendication et de la défense des  « territoires du gazon ». Propulser  ainsi un petit oiseau est comme propulser quelqu’un pour combattre ses ennemis, pour défendre son territoire ou se libérer.

Mehdi n’a pas pris de  nombreux oiseaux mais seulement un, ce qui entraîne la métaphore de la lutte et de la fuite à la dimension humaine.

Dans sa performance, Mehdi donne forme à  de telles idées avec l’emprunt de  symboles anciens de la danse, l’oiseau, la barrière, la porte ouverte. Ces images aident à transposer une réalité que nous pensons juste au centre de l’expérience et de la pensée. Elles attisent les émotions, elles dépassent le temps, excitent l’imagination et sont porteuses d’idées à travers les cultures.

Pour moi, l’oiseau et le dépassement joyeux s’y associent pleinement. L’oiseau comme image de la liberté et de la vitesse, toujours en mesure de s’orienter lui-même jusqu’à son nid.

Avec un oiseau pris au piège, Medhi parle aussi des mensonges qui piègent, et emprisonnent dans la confusion, incapables de revenir  nous –mêmes,  à la réalité, parce que nous sommes des messagers aveugles de la tourmente.
L’oiseau et l’homme ont en commun, la  lutte pour l’existence et simultanément l’expérience de la fragilité de l’être.

Through his performance, Mehdi gives form to these ideas through use of ancient symbols of dance, the bird, the barrier, the open door.  These symbols help the to convey a reality that take us right to the centre of experience and thought.  They stir up the emotions, they transcend time, excite the imagination and are senders of messages across cultures.  For me there is a huge association between the bird and joyful transcendence.  The bird is a symbol of freedom and speed who is  always able to orientate themselves home.  By using a trapped bird Mehdi also speaks of the treacheries of being trapped in confusion and unable to orientate ourselves back to reality, we are blinded messengers of turmoil.

What the bird and human have in common is a shared struggle for existence and both experience the fragility of being.

An excellent performance.

Mehdi Farajpour à la Galerie Le Confort des Etranges. by Trisha McCrae, Artist & Filmmaker