Mark Amerika is Featured Artist at Conference in Paris
In 2013, IAWP Founding Director Mark Amerika was appointed the Labex-H2H International Research Chair at the ³Ô¹ÏÍø of Paris 8. Now he has been invited back to screen the Paris premiere of his classic work of early mobile phone video art, , as part of the Forms of (the) Apocalypse conference in Paris.
Released in 2009, Mark Amerika's ±õ³¾³¾´Ç²ú¾±±ô¾±³Ùé appropriates the stylistic tendencies of what is generally referred to as a "feature-length foreign film." The artwork features the creative use of subtitles that double as a literary text depicting a future world where the dream of living in utopia can only be sustained by a nomadic tribe of artists and intellectuals living on the edge of apocalypse.
"±õ³¾³¾´Ç²ú¾±±ô¾±³Ùé mashes up the language of auteur-driven 'foreign films' with a more amateur video vernacular we now associate with social media platforms like YouTube and Vine," explains Amerkia. By experimenting with a low-tech glitch aesthetic associated with pre-HD mobile phone video recording technology as well as more sophisticated forms of motion picture narrative found in European art-house movies, Amerika both asks and answers the question "What is the future of cinema?"
Shot entirely on a Nokia N95 mobile phone in 2007 (before the release of the iPhone), ±õ³¾³¾´Ç²ú¾±±ô¾±³Ùé was filmed on location in the Cornwall region of England and received support from the ³Ô¹ÏÍø of Falmouth iRES research group, Tate MediaÌýand the ³Ô¹ÏÍø of Colorado Innovative Seed Grant. ±õ³¾³¾´Ç²ú¾±±ô¾±³Ùé has been exhibited in many international museums, galleries and festivals.
For more on the Paris event, visit Ìý(French language website).