10 April 2024

SMOG, Avenue Van Volxem 380, Brussels
Doors open: 7:30PM
Screening starts: 8PM

On invitation by Éponine Momenceau, we are happy to welcome Charles de Meaux as our next artist in focus for the upcoming Blue Screen on April 10th. Charles de Meaux is a visual artist, film director and film producer, living in Paris. Together with Pierre Huyghe, Philippe Parreno and Dominique Gonzalez‑Foerster, Charles de Meaux founded the production company ‘Anna Sanders Films’. As an artist run company ‘Anne Sanders Films’ is aiming to provide a space for creation of new forms of production, focussing on the intersections between visual arts and cinema.

In his individual practice, which is consisting of visual installations, feature films, sound sculptures and video installations, Charles de Meaux explores the relevance of art in the world, addressing the question of otherness, and the representation of nature and landscapes.

During Blue Screen # 11 we will focus on his very short films and his ‘trailer’ works, which were born from the observation that we see more trailers than films, that we read more back covers than books, that we leaf through more reviews than we see exhibitions. His trailers “You should be the next astronaut” (2004) and “Alien Intelligence is Coming from Earth” (2007) speak of the future and in a certain sense of nostalgia. Both films, aside from being screened in exhibition spaces, also infiltrated public space by being on view on the facade of the New Media Art Museum in Busan, and at Time Square New York.

Within the program we will also watch the trailer of his film “Marfa Mystery Lights – A Concert for the UFO’s” (2006), the film is set in Marfa, Texas, the city of Donald Judd and of the ‘mystery lights’ that were spotted there, seen as an indication of alien existence. Charles de Meaux is following the psychedelic rock band ‘The Secret Machines’, while they are rehearsing a concert for the alien audience. The film documents the process of this one time performance, and is the sole trace and proof of what took place.

In dialogue with the films by Charles de Meaux, we will show a selection of short films by Eva L’Hoest, Kurt Kren, Isabella Rossellini, Ben Russel and Timmy van Zoelen.

In the second part of the evening Charles de Meaux will give a presentation that he prepared especially for this evening. Followed by a Q&A with the audience.

31 January 2024

SMOG, Avenue Van Volxem 380, Brussels
Doors open: 7:30PM
Screening starts: 8PM

We are delighted to invite you to join us in celebrating the 10th edition of Blue Screen and its 5 year anniversary, on Wednesday the 31st of January.

We started our Blue Screen program in 2019 in the first Level Five building located in the centre of Brussels with the desire to highlight practices of visual artists/plasticians who are working with moving image, to focus on their artistic practices, their ways of working and thinking about this particular medium. With Blue Screen we wanted to create a platform for public exchange, where within a wide field of interest, knowledge around these specific practices could be shared.

Every Blue Screen we ask the artist in focus of the evening to propose a next guest for the upcoming edition. For our 10th screening program, we wanted to take the opportunity to look back at the chain of affinity and complicity that has developed among the various Blue Screen artists since the inception of this concept.

Each of the artists in focus of the past Blue Screen editions will present one short film, and we'll watch them in chronological order. The evening will consist of works by:

Graham Kelly, Toon Fibbe, Anouchka Oler, Katja Mater, Fairuz Ghammam, Adina Ionescu-Muscel, Stéphanie Roland, Caroline Corbason and Eponine Momenceau.

We'd like to extend our warmest thanks to each and every artist we've met through Blue Screen in the past five years. We've learnt a lot by collaborating and discovering each of your unique practices. We are also grateful to SMOG, our Level Five neighbour, for hosting us this season of Blue Screen.

15 November 2023

SMOG, Avenue Van Volxem 380, Brussels
Doors open: 7:30PM
Screening starts: 8PM

On invitation by Caroline Corbasson, we are happy to welcome Éponine Momenceau as our next artist in focus.

Éponine Momenceau is both a visual artist working with film, as well as a cinematographer. In her versatile practice she skilfully brings together her technical expertise in the field of cinematography, while also challenging and diverting this knowledge in order to create images that are simultaneously experimental and contemplative. 

During the evening we will shine a light on three of her films. In ‘Waves become wings’ (2013) Éponine Momenceau films a women's basketball training session. The fragments of play, the postures and expressive gestures of the young girls captured in extreme slow motion, speak of a sensual beauty which is inscribed in suspended time.

The three channel video ‘Song’ (2011) is a reflection on light being an essential condition for cinema, the only material that can imprint the film material and freeze an image of reality on it. The work seems to linger in time between the moment filmed and the moment projected, allowing us to travel with this light, that is most of the time imperceptible to us.

We will finish the program with the video loop ‘Now is an infinite time’ (2018), a cyclic and hypnotic movement produced by a group of insects flying in a ray of light in the Amazon rainforest.

In dialogue with the works by Éponine Momenceau, we will show a selection of short films by Giselle Beiguelman, Scott Fitzpatrick and Benjamin Verhoeven.

We are very grateful that our Level Five neighbour SMOG will host us for this season’s Blue Screen events! 

13 September 2023

SMOG, Avenue Van Volxem 380, Brussels
Doors open: 7:30PM
Screening starts: 8PM

On invitation by our previous artist in focus, Stéphanie Roland, we are very happy to welcome you to Blue Screen # 8 with an evening around the work of Caroline Corbasson.

The work of Caroline Corbasson explores the place of man in the universe through the prism of the scientific and collective imaginations associated with astrophysics and cosmology. In her research she questions the ambivalent nature of human knowledge and the way in which scientific discoveries have renewed our apprehension of the cosmos, space-time and our understanding of our origins.

During the evening we will show ‘A ta recherche’ (2019), an observational project conducted by Caroline Corbasson during a one-year residency at the Laboratoire d’Astrophysique de Marseille (LAM). The film documents the construction of the wide-field infrared spectrophotometer NISP. A tool designed to understand the acceleration of the universe by mapping about a billion galaxies.

We will also look into her most recent film, ‘ISAAC’ (2023), a portrayal of a teenager worried about the future of the planet, who decides to climb the Pic du Midi at night to get closer to unspoilt nature. The unknown route and the arrival at the summit will lead to a complete and unexpected metamorphosis.

We will finish the program with the work Shutter, a pictorial research project, filmed from a lens designed for a space telescope, that seeks to express the aesthetics of this imaging tool, which has yet to be observed.

In dialogue with the films and the work of Caroline Corbasson we will show films by Audrey & Maxime Jean-Baptiste and Giovanni Giaretta.

We are very grateful that our Level Five neighbour SMOG will host us for this season’s Blue Screen events!

Blue Screen is a monthly screening program focussing on film and video works by visual artists. The program is initiated by Emma van der Put and Chloé Malcotti and takes place at the collective artist studio Level Five, in Brussels.

Blue Screen is produced by Level Five and hypernuit, with the support of Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles (FW-B).

24 January 2023

8PM // Rue Van Meyelstraat 49, 1080 Molenbeek

Stéphanie Roland is a Belgian / Micronesian visual artist and filmmaker living and working in Brussels. Her practice resides between documentary and the imaginary, Roland makes films and installations exploring invisible structures, hyperobjects and deep time; from the ecological and political to the geologic and cosmic.

During Blue Screen # 7 we will show 'The empty sphere’ (2022) an experimental documentary by Stéphanie Roland which portrays a space object and its fall into the darkness of a space cemetery. As a reverse sci-fi journey, this essay mixes reality and fiction to guide us, like a stalker, to the outskirts of an invisible place. Next to this film we will show the video loop ‘Exoplanet’ (2022) made with a self constructed camera, which translates sound into image.

Stéphanie Roland will also give us an insight into her current research ‘Drop! Cover! And hold on!’ which is set in the areas around the fault lines of Los Angeles.

In dialogue with the work of Stéphanie Roland we will show a selection of films by Bas Jan Ader, Marjolijn Dijkman & Toril Johannessen.

21 December 2022

8PM // Rue Van Meyelstraat 49, 1080 Molenbeek

Adina Ionescu-Muscel is a belgo-romanian visual artist living and working in Brussels. She studied Psychology in Bucharest, Anthropology and Photography & Video in Brussels. Her practice involves installation, photography and video. Since 2020 she became interested in experimenting with 16mm film and started making work in LaboBXL.

During Blue Screen # 6 we will show two films and an installation by Adina Ionescu-Muscel. We will start with “I never saw her since” (2019), a film that Adina made around her family's house, confiscated by the Romanian communist regime and transformed into the headquarters of the Secret Police.

The film “Metamorphosed bodies of the star that generates us” (2021) is part of an ongoing research where Adina is using and experimenting with ‘silver halides’ to inquire about the inner world of plants. Next to these two films we will show “Constellations” (2022) an installation that she made in the cemetery of Namur, consisting of nine light boxes in which she used a chemical analysis called ‘chromatography’.

In dialogue with the practice of Adina we will show a selection of works by Alasdair Asmussen Doyle, Rosa Aiello and a collaborative film by Luke Sieczek, Caryn Cline and Jon Behrens.

23 November 2022

8PM // Rue Van Meyelstraat 49, 1080 Molenbeek

Fairuz Ghammam is a visual enthusiast who graduated as an experimental filmmaker and works as an editor, cinematographer, teacher and (co-) director in cinema beyond genres and formats. During Blue Screen #5 we will show two films by Fairuz which are revealing the transformative impacts of moving through dialogues across languages, across cultures and across generations. For the film “Oumoun” (2017), made in collaboration with El Moïz Ghammam, Fairuz travelled from Brussels to Mahdia in Tunisia, to share a prerecorded, spoken letter with her elderly grandmother. In her most recent project “Cultuur” (2022) Fairuz takes us on a walk through her hometown Kortrijk. Moving from private space to public space and back, she questions how many memories, storylines and sounds can coexist.

12 October 2022

Rue Van Meyelstraat 49, 1080 Molenbeek

The 4th edition of Blue Screen will shine a light on the pluridiciplinary work of Katja Mater. Katja Mater is a visual artist, filmmaker, editor, organizer and educator. Her practice focuses on the parameters of photography and film as non-transparent media. By creating hybrids between photography, film, drawing, performance and installation Mater documents something that is often positioned beyond our human ability to see. Interested in revealing a different or alternative (experience of) reality through capturing the areas where optical media hardly behave like the human eye, by mediating between time, space, perception and our understanding of them, while recording events that simultaneously can and cannot be – holding midway between information and interpretation.

During the Blue Screen #4 evening we will show a selection of Katja Mater’s work, focussing on the notion of time and space. ‘Two Intersecting Loops of Silence’ (2022) is a prototype Mater made of a vinyl record that makes audible the intersection of two loops of silence. For the 16 mm film installation ‘As Much Time as Space’ (2017), Katja Mater made recordings of the house of modernist artist couple Nelly and Theo van Doesburg and combines architectural details of the house with her own drawings. Projected as a split screen, we look at a play between past and present, which every once in a while merges to form a new reality, providing a surreal time experience. In the second part of the evening, Katja will share with us an insight into the current project she is working on.

In dialogue with Katja Mater’s work, we will show films by Els Van Riel, Sarah Pucill and Maika Garnica & Ans Mertens.

11 March 2020

Rue Paul Devaux 3, 1000 Bruxelles

This evening we will look into the videos and performances of Anouchka Oler. Her work can be seen as desperate attempts to affect and understand the Other. Taking the shape of a magic show, stand-up comedy routine and experimental philosophy, Oler’s joyous practice consists in composing a community of interdependent beings, who all seem to be going through some sort of perpetual existential crisis. The spectator is invited to take part in speculative narratives, discussing topics such as affects, collective living, experimental ways of life, material environment and their interactions. Humans, sculptures and objects are given the rare opportunity to examine these topics both on the surface and in depth.

First we will start with Anouchka Oler’s work ‘Episode 2’ (2014) in which we see a group of decorative or utilitarian sculptures contesting, questioning or refusing the functions that are normally assigned to them. The film considers their usefulness not only from a functional, but also from a social standpoint, to the extent that the objects play specific roles for the person that exploits them. In the second part of the evening Anouchka Oler will present her new performance film ‘All Insure, All Unsure’ (2020), a conversation between Lucky and Drama More : Lucky is a Leo, Scorpio rising with a Capricorn moon, Drama More is a Taurus Gemini Cancer. Their conflicting birth charts bring Drama and Lucky to have a divergent conversation regarding doubt, leading to contemplations and digressions which are opening up a way to tell other stories.

In dialogue with the work of Anouchka Oler, we will connect two short films by Martha Rosler and Segundo de Chomón.

11 December 2019

Rue Paul Devaux 3, 1000 Bruxelles

Toon Fibbe was invited by Graham Kelly to be the next Blue Screen artist. The driving force of Toon Fibbe’s practice lies in the thinking, writing, acting and enacting of characters. It is this activity that spawns objects, texts, videos and performances. His work deals with the metaphors -bodily and ghostly metaphors in particular -that are employed to understand economic processes, currently and throughout history. It departs from the idea that political economy has always shared an affinity with the ghostly, visible for instance in a metaphor like the invisible hand of Adam Smith.

For this second Blue Screen evening Toon Fibbe will give us an insight in his practice through his work ‘FINANCE//BODY//HORROR’ an audio-visual presentation dealing with ghostly monstrous and bodily metaphors employed to understand finance – showing us how finance not only structures our lives, but moves through us, shapes and transforms us while it is slicing and dicing us into subjects for financial gain.

Next to that, Fibbe’s installation ‘Pantomime of Spirits’ will be on view, giving us a tour through a decaying 3d model of the now inoperative building of the Brussels Stock exchange. A building that could no longer meet the requirements of the current digitatized stock market. The soundtrack consists of Ferhat Oz singing live stock market data by using an application that I programmed. As we listen to his body amplifying live stock market data, he moves through the different spaces of the building, his voice and market data resonating against the lavish symbols of a now defunct stock market building. The camera follows his presence through the 3d model, Ferhat’s body producing the sound however remains absent.

We will connect two short films by Julien Prévieux and Beny Wagner, to speak in dialogue with the work of Toon Fibbe.

13 November 2019

Rue Paul Devaux 3, 1000 Bruxelles

We open Blue Screen with the work of Graham Kelly, by screening his recent film Hello Joe (2018), that he covertly produced overnight in a series of rented Airbnb accommodations. The film is constructed entirely from elements found and filmed within a number of private homes that he accessed through the online service. Domestic spaces are merged together in this portrait of an emerging corporate territory within the declining value of privacy.

As a follow up to ‘Hello Joe’ Graham Kelly will talk about his work in progress ‘Highly Recommended’ (working title), which is an ongoing project that utilises the online freelance digital labour service Upwork. For this new work he is simultaneously taking the roles of both client and editor, commissioning Upwork users from various fields of CG audiovisual production (screenwriters, voiceover actors, sound designers, 3D modellers and animators) to produce content based on their personal memories.This delegation of digital labour across multiple continents intends to expose and analyse the complexities of the loosely-regulated globalised gig economy and the pitfalls for the individuals within it.

We will connect two short films of Deborah Stratman and Corinna Schnitt in dialogue with the work of Graham Kelly.