© Christiana Perschon


© Christiana Perschon


© Christiana Perschon


© Christiana Perschon

DOUBLE 8

by Christiana PERSCHON
2016 / Double 8mm / b&w / silent / 1S / 3' 21




Double 8 offers a silent view of unsplit 8mm film, a four-screen portrait of Linda Christanell, an Austrian avant-gardist from the 1970s. She appears securely hidden by both a movie camera and the film's abundant, hand-processed solarization. Then the picture clears and the artist can be found squinting in concentration, struggling with her mechanical eye prosthesis. (Mike Hoolboom)

Director's Note:

Double 8 focuses on the encounter with Linda Christanell, artist of the feminist avant-garde of the 1970s and opens a projection space. In a decade of departure - following the male-occupied social criticism of Viennese Actionism - artists like her are questioning the social power and gender relations and claiming their place in the art business and the history of art.
In Double 8 the need for interchange with the history of film and its makers becomes tangible: as mutual viewing and being viewed. Two handheld cameras, two spools of double-8 film, four frames: two artists from different generations encounter one another by pointing the camera at each other.
The film format and the cinematic gaze define this encounter by making the protagonists appear on the split screen cascading side by side. In the artistic practice of both actors the focus is on their visual tools, bodywork, image surface, image excerpt, action space in front of and behind the camera, interaction. In the gesture of mutual filming, images are created in the eyes of the others. The gazes into the camera create a visual loop between the two women while at same time pointing at the beholder. These images constitute the two women as self-determined subjects saying: I see you seeing me - instead of being looked at as an object. (Christiana Perschon)

3 PRINTS IN DISTRIBUTION


distribution format Digital file on server (FHD)
screen 4/3 (single screen)
speed 25 fps
sound silent
rental fee 26,00 €

distribution format 16mm
screen 1,37 - Standard (single screen)
speed 24 fps
sound silent
rental fee 26,00 €

distribution format DCP on server (INTEROP 2K)
screen 4/3 (single screen)
speed 24 fps
sound silent
rental fee 26,00 €