On Memory or How Can I Doublethink?

August 2 - 5, 2017

Pera Film’s season ends with the program On Memory or How Can I Doublethink? Presented in conjunction with the exhibition Doublethink: Double vision, the selected visual journeys explore the notion of memory and how memory interplays between image and text. The juxtaposed images and texts capture the power or process of reproducing or recollection. The Story of Milk and Honey by artist/filmmaker Basma Alsharif, who was born in Kuwait to Palestinian parents, and raised between France and the US, this short experimental film through a delicate weaving of fact and fiction, a tale of defeat transforms into a multi-layered journey exploring how we collect information, perceive facts and recreate history to serve our own desires. Filmmaker Louis Henderson’s works investigate the connections between colonialism, technology, capitalism, and history; The Sea is History is a free adaptation of the poem by Derek Walcott. Ken Kobland’s Shanghaied Text reflects on our 20th century notion of civilization and progress. Kobland has made several films and videos since 1975 as well as installations for the New York theatre company The Wooster Group. Chris Marker’s masterwork Sans Soleil is constructed through an unknown woman reading and commenting upon the letters she receives from a friend – a freelance cameraman who travels around the world and is particularly attached to those “two extreme poles of survival”, Japan and Africa (represented here by two of its poorest and most forgotten countries, even though they played a historical role: Guinea Bissau and the Cape-Verde Islands). Ozan Adam’s For the Blinds is the first internationally awarded, feature length Turkish science fiction film, that is not a comedy, a cult, an animation or a re-make. This film explores questions about issues such as ‘manufactured memory’, ‘memory creation’ and ‘parallel universes’. On Memory Or How Can I Doublethink? dives into the vigorous relationship between image, text, and memory.

This program’s screenings are free of admissions. Drop in, no reservations.

August 2

19:00 Sans Soleil

August 4

18:00 Sans Soleil

20:00 For the Blinds

August 5

15:00 The Story of Milk and Honey

The Sea is History

Shanghaied Text

The Story of Milk and Honey

The Story of Milk and Honey

The Sea is History

The Sea is History

Shanghaied Text

Shanghaied Text

Sans Soleil

Sans Soleil

For the Blinds

For the Blinds

Doublethink
Double vision

Thinking has changed radically, but many people don't appear to have noticed. Our institutions have been stuck on linear Neo-Platonic tracks for 24 centuries. These antiquated processes of deduction have lost their authority. Just like art it has fallen off its pedestal. Legal, educational and constitutional systems rigidly subscribe to these; they are 100% text based.

Doublethink <br>Double vision

Return from Vienna

Return from Vienna

Józef Brandt harboured a fascination for the history of 17th century Poland, and his favourite themes included ballistic scenes and genre scenes before and after the battle proper –all and sundry marches, returns, supply trains, billets and encampments, patrols, and similar motifs illustrating the drudgery of warfare outside of its culminating moments.

It’s better to burn out than to fade away

It’s better to burn out than to fade away

In 1962 Philip Corner, one of the most prominent members of the Fluxus movement, caused a great commotion in serious music circles when during a performance entitled Piano Activities he climbed up onto a grand piano and began to kick it while other members of the group attacked it with saws, hammers and all kinds of other implements.

From Cypresses to Turkish Landscapes

From Cypresses to Turkish Landscapes

Among the most interesting themes in the oeuvre of Prassinos are cypresses, trees, and Turkish landscapes. The cypress woods in Üsküdar he saw every time he stepped out on the terrace of their house in İstanbul or the trees in Petits Champs must have been strong images of childhood for Prassinos.