Cinema Povera: Spectres of the Spectrum - 2nd May 2010!

OKO are proud to present a special screening of Craig Baldwin's 'Spectres of the Spectrum'

Plus found footage films and performances

2-5pm, Sunday 2nd May

Old TK Maxx Unit, Plaza Shopping Centre, Leeds

Baldwin’s pioneering mash-up mines 50’s sci-fi, educational and industrial films, appropriated and re-born as a visionary sci-fi space/time travel epic:

“Through an increasingly abstract montage of live action, archival film, broadcast video and ‘exploded’ interviews, the fantasy narrative warps into disjointed, abstracted, audio-visual phrases, suggesting the breakdown of personal ego/memory, historical representation, and, yes, of course, space/time itself.”
[Canyon Cinema]


Plus found footage films and performances

featuring ‘Old Man of the Mountain’ by Harappian Night Recordings: a collaboration between Syed Kamran Ali and Harry Wheeler.



Craig Baldwin at Canyon Cinema
 
Other Cinema, San Francisco
 
'Media Meltdown' - an interview with Craig Baldwin

Cinema Povera: 'The Waste Land' - live expanded cinema performance

Cinema Povera: 'The Waste Land' - live expanded cinema performance

Saturday 1st May 2010

5.30-7pm

Old TK Maxx Unit, Plaza Shopping Centre, Leeds

Published in 1922 in the aftermath of the First World War, T.S Eliot’s epic poem of the 20th Century still divides opinion and remains as mysterious today as when it was first written.

Against the backdrop of a devastated Europe with the portentous rise of nationalism, social fragmentation and growing economic turmoil, The Waste Land was written in an atmosphere of uncertainty and creative experimentation. Europe had seen the unparalleled horror of the First World War with death on an unimaginable scale and the seeds of fascism were firmly planted in the ruins. In Britain, two million were unemployed after economic collapse, and the traditional social order was falling apart. This was a period of economic turmoil, hardship and desperation yet paradoxically it was also a time of unparalleled wealth and technological advance.

 

Written over a number of years and dedicated to his close friend Ezra Pound, The Waste Land is a complex work, yet it contains some of the most intense and beautiful lines ever written.

Chris Hall and Ian Harker present a new interpretation of the poem finding a striking resonance in today's confused and turbulent age of flickering images, financial crises, and permanent war. Although in later years Eliot distanced himself from interpretations of the poem as social commentary, the poem can be seen as a desperate search for the affirmative and a refusal of a barren society.

The Waste Land will be read as part of a multi-sensory expanded cinema performance incorporating live projection and a live performed soundtrack.

The performance will last an hour and admission is free.

Cinema Povera: 1st and 2nd May 2010!