BRITT HATZIUS
German artist Britt Hatzius will visit AMIFF with her exciting and thought provoking interactive project "Blind Cinema". Please note that the performance at AMIFF will be in Norwegian, as it involves Norwegian children performing.
About Britt Hatzius
After completing a degree in Fine Art Media at Chelsea College of Art London in 2002, Britt works in photography, video, film and performance. Her work refers to or often takes the format of the moving image, both in its technical and conceptual form, exploring ideas around language, interpretation and the potential for discrepancies, ruptures, deviations and (mis-) communication.
As part of her practice she has collaborated with numerous visual artists, performers, theatre directors, sound artists, musicians, dancers and is engaged in visual-sound collaborations with the collective ‘Not Applicable Artists’.
Since the completion of an MA in Photography and Urban Cultures at Goldsmiths University London in 2005 she also works within academic research at Studio INCITE (Critical Enquiry into Ethnography and Technology) and CUCR (Centre for Urban and Community Research).
Foto: Simon Arazi
About "Blind Cinema"
In the darkness of a cinema space, the audience sits blindfolded. Behind each row of audience members is a row of children who in hushed voices describe a film only they can see. Accompanied by the soundtrack (which has no dialogue), the whispered descriptions are a fragile, fragmentary and at times struggling but courageous attempt by the children to make sense of what they see projected on the screen.
Based on the method of audio description, ‘Blind Cinema’ as a live event is an experience where the act of watching a film becomes a shared investment: A collaborative and imaginative act between seeing children and blinded adults. It embraces the fact that the act of trying to find the right words to describe (even if at times being ‘at a loss for words’) and of trying to hold onto the consequently unstable images created in the mind’s eye, will always only be an approximation. To articulate in words in order to share experiences involves a struggle, a struggle that seems to be closest to those in the midst of discovering language’s potential and limits.
In focusing on that which lies beyond the sense of sight (leaving the illusory reality of cinema to re-enter that of the imagination), the attention oscillates between each shared but internal world guided by the whispering voice, and the shared physical space of the darkened cinema.
The film screened during the performance will be seen by each group of children for the first time. Hence, each performance will have a new group of describing children. Each screening is preceded by a workshop with the group of children, aged between 9 and 11 (tbc), performing on the day.
CREDITS
Direction & concept: Britt Hatzius
Dramaturgy: Ant Hampton
Film: Britt Hatzius, Simon Arazi, Boris Belay, Maxim
Design & production (blindfolds & contraptions): Britt Hatzius, Maria Koerkel, Gert Aertsen
Creative producer: Katja Timmerberg
Thanks to: Thomas Tajo, Georgia Venetakis, Geertje De Ceuleneer, Axel Cleeremans, Campbell WorksGallery, Susanne Dietz, Neil Benun, Miila, Nico, Alice, Josh, Marina, Rebecca, Anne Haaning, Dunkan Speakman, LABO BxL, Houle, Cunio and Bown (music) andeveryone who kindly attended the many try-outs.
A co-production between Vooruit (Ghent), Beursschouwburg (Brussels) and Bronks Theatre (Brussels).
www.britthatzius.co.uk