Foveal Experiments is an attempt to understand the viewing modalities of experimental cinema, video and artist films. This series of screenings were originally thought as a way to initiate an exchange of contemporary films and videos between India and Western Europe. Indeed, the field of experimental and essayistic cinema remains largely dominated by North American pro- ductions reinforcing a certain idea and frame of reference for the current experimental cinematic practices.

The project is an attempt to understand the changing and already changed modes of viewing moving image in museums and art galleries. A large number of galleries, museums and art organisations are creating spaces for film viewing. Do films and videos have a different impact on the viewers based on where it is watched? What is relevance of a collective experience of watching when mobile devices like phone and tablets are increasingly becoming a more popular viewing device? Does the film history combine become a part of art history or vice versa? – These are a few questions that the project seeks answers to in an attempt to throw light on the interfaces through which we experience media and its connection to history and culture.

The project presents three programs with a range of contemporary filmmaking practices from filmmakers and artists working with different aesthetics, format and registers. Making a visual mix-tape, the films compiled under three modalities allow different positions and interpretations of the concept to be presented.

The first part of this series of program was presented in New Delhi in February while a second part was screened in Paris in March 2015.

This program is curated by Charu Maithani and Julia Gouin.

Download program booklet containing conversation between Charu Maithani and Julia Gouin.

FOVEAL EXPERIMENTS
6 – 12 February, 2015
At Khoj , Delhi

Three programs with a range of contemporary filmmaking practices from filmmakers and artists working with different aesthetics, format and registers.

Program #1 : Displaced Geographies

This program articulates films that have in common a reworking of landscape as a cinematic territory.

/ Continuous screening /
Encounters with Landscape (3x) (2012), Salomé Lamas, 29‘
Painted Diagram of a Future Voyage (Who Believes The Lens?) (2013), Mochu, 5‘
Night Noon (2014), Shambhavi Kaul, 12‘
Rumaging for Pasts: Excavating Sicily, Digging Bombay (2001) Ashish Avikunthak, 27‘

/ Special screening at 11AM and 3 PM everyday /
Wolkengestalt (2007), Silvia Maglioni & Graeme Thomson, 12‘
Saras (2012), Sahej Rahal, 1‘45
Narmada (2012) Manon Ott & Grégory Cohen, 40‘  

Program #2 : Soundscape Narratives 

This program raises our attention to the uses of sound and elocution in a selection of diverse contemporary filmmakers‘ practices.  

/ Continuous screening /
Mount Song (2013), Shambhavi Kaul, 9‘
A Film (2012), Franziska Kabisch, 3‘3
Nayi Kheti (2013), Pallavi Paul, 11‘
Chicxulub – Tierra Extraterrestre (2013), Helene Garberg, 6‘30  
Kalighat Fetish (1999), Ashish Avikunthak, 23‘
A New Song for Nilli (2013), Sindhu Thirumalaisamy,11‘25  

/ Special screening at 12 PM and 4 PM everyday /
I Am Micro (2012), Shumona Goel & Shai Heredia, 15‘
Notes Via a Soundscape of Bollywood (2014), Gilles Aubry, 32‘40

Program #3 : Images without Camera

The films presented here use documentary footage, YouTube uploads, low resolution images made for quick circulation, popular culture images, CGIs and even no image at all, to suggest reappropriation and recirculation in contemporary image-making practices.

/ Continuous screening /
K (Rêves Berbères) (2007), Frédérique Devaux, 4‘
Noise Reduction II: Chinatown (2014), Rahee Punyashloka, 15‘
Transit (2011), Sabrina Ratté, 4‘06
Satyagraha (2010), Jacques Perconte, 6‘  
Herbe (2014), Les Ballets Russes, France, 3‘
Tube Tracks #3 (Blind Data) (2013), Silvia Maglioni and Graeme Thomson, 12‘
The Invention of the Desert (2014), Thibault Le Texier, 7‘10
Code Work (2006), Abhishek Hazra, 6‘3  

/ Special screening at 1 PM and 5 PM everyday /
The Uprising (2014), Peter Snowdon, 80‘

FOVEAL EXPERIMENTS
12 March, 2015
At Cinema La Clef, Paris

Kalighat Fetish (1999), Ashish Avikunthak, 22‘
Saras (2012), Sahej Rahal, 1‘45
I am Micro (2012), Shumona Goel and Shai Heredia, 15‘
Painted Diagram of a Future Voyage (Who Believes The Lens?) (2013), Mochu, 5‘
Jan Villa (2010), Natasha Mendonca, 20‘
Night Noon (2014), Shambhavi Kaul, 12‘