Event
L’École du soir Cinéma #2 | I See Infinite Distance Between Any Point And Another
Tuesday 31 October 2023
Screening with response by Daisy Lafarge (In-person)
Screening
I See Infinite Distance Between Any Point And Another (2012)
Duration: 33 minutes 32 seconds
HD video, colour, stereo sound
Response by Daisy Lafarge
Etel Adnan's highly influential writings, in French, English and Arabic have been read around the world. Her epic poem, Sea and Fog, published by Nightboat Books, in 2012, evokes the sea and the fog as metaphors for power and time, exploring the nature of the individual spirit and the sentience of the natural world.
The Otolith Group's film, shot largely in Adnan's Paris apartment, centres on a reading of the first chapter of her poem, Sea. The sound of Adnan's gentle voice, and the quiet but ever present ambient noise in her apartment, create a powerful, meditative atmosphere that draw upon the powers of philosophy to pursue the continuous mutation of matter into velocity. If poetry can be understood as a study in constraint, the film, I See Infinite Distance Between Any Point and Another, can be understood as an experiment in concentration and a study of gestures, that speaks of the mobility of language and the movement of the ocean.
I See Infinite Distance Between Any Point and Another (2012) following from Hydra Decapita (2010), is part two of The Otolith Group's trilogy of works on hydropolitics and hydroaesthetics. The Radiant (2012), completes this trilogy.
Schedule
5.45pm
Doors open
6pm
Intro: The Otolith Group (audio recording)
Screening: I See Infinite Distance Between Any Point And Another (33 minutes 32 seconds)
Response: Daisy Lafarge
Exhibition viewing
8pm
Doors close
Booking
The screening event is free and open to all. Book a ticket via Eventbrite.
The screening is raising funds for medical Aid for Palestinians, donate the cost of a cinema ticket or what you can directly to MAP.
QR code available at the event.
L’École du soir Cinéma
Inspired by Senegalese film director Ousmane Sembène’s concept of cinema as ‘night school’ or l’école du soir for collective study, Cooper Gallery will transform into a temporary cinema over four evenings of screenings of moving image by The Otolith Group. Each screening will be complemented by audio readings from The Otolith Group and responses from invited artists and writers in Scotland. These screenings from part of The Ignorant Art School Sit-in Curriculum #3.
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> More about the exhibition
Biographies
Daisy Lafarge is a writer based in Glasgow. She is the author of the novel Paul (Granta 2021), which was a New York Times Editor’s Choice, and the poetry collection Life Without Air (Granta 2020), which was shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize. Lovebug, a book on the poetics of infection, is published by Peninsula Press in 2023.
The Otolith Group is an award-winning artist led collective founded by Anjalika Sagar and Kodwo Eshun in 2002.
Their moving image, audio works, performances and installations are characterized by an engagement with the legacies and potentialities of diasporic futurisms that explore modes of temporal anomalies, anthropic inversions and synthetic alienation.
Approaching curation as an artistic practice of building intergenerational and cross-cultural platforms, the collective has been influential in critically introducing particular works of artists such as Chris Marker, Harun Farocki, Anand Patwardhan, Etel Adnan, Black Audio Film Collective, Sue Clayton, Mani Kaul, Peter Watkins, and Chimurenga in the UK, US, Europe, and Lebanon.
Access
The gallery is on two floors. First floor has ramped access and disabled toilet.
Second floor is accessible via lift and for wheelchair access via a stairclimber. The screening will take place on the second floor.
Please email in advance if you require lift or stairclimber access so we can arrange support.
Large print versions of the exhibition information handout are available, please ask our Guides.
All enquiries please contact: exhibitions@dundee.ac.uk
Image credit
The Otolith Group, I See Infinite Distance Between Any Point And Another, 2012 (video still)
Courtesy the artist and LUX.
Funding support
The Ignorant Art School at Cooper Gallery, DJCAD is supported by the National Lottery through Creative Scotland.
Cooper Gallery
Exhibitions@dundee.ac.uk