The projection of light through celluloid is like a ray of sunshine coming from afar through the window, illuminating a small part of the interior. Filtered by the air, it leaves some of its energy behind, and in the reflection, it takes some of its energy with it again.
Chronochromatic Measures brings together a program of films that emphasise the concepts of time and space and the perception of colour in or during the projection.
It is a film program that consists solely of ‘real’ films, made on or with photochemical ‘celluloid’ film. The concept that these films are physical objects of certain dimensions, tangible and with a certain weight, is, in addition to the projection itself, also the basis for Chronochromatic Measures. Films are rather atypical objects: long semi-transparent strips of a precisely determined thickness and width, of varying lengths, rolled up, packed in a tin or box. For this occasion, they are shipped from different parts of the world, pass through various hands and are collected and prepared here on site. For the projection, they are temporarily unrolled: the flat disc briefly becomes a long strip again. The film projector functions as a measuring instrument for space and time.
Projection: film is illuminated for a moment, the audience observes and ends up in a condensed, ‘cinematic’ time. The spectacle of projection creates a play between micro and macro, time and space, and creates an awareness of perception, the presence of an image before our eyes, and its manifestation in our minds. What are we actually looking at? What is film, really?
The films in Chronochromatic Measures are far removed from a realistic ‘reproduction’ of reality. They follow a process of interrogating the projection apparatus rather than ‘cinema’ itself. This is also why the two parts of the program differ from each other, with a linear projection within the parameters of cinema in Sphinx and a spatial arrangement outside the cinema in Minard.
Chronochromatic Measures requires an inquiring mind. Here, mathematical approaches and chance encounter one another, and time and colour are flexible concepts. In the projections, the film works of Katja Mater, Minjung Kim, Ivan Ladislav Galeta, Viktoria Schmid, Manuela de Laborde, Esther Urlus, Alexandre Larose, Dóra Maurer, Malcolm Le Grice and Els van Riel are only briefly present. They follow each other, double up or multiply, but enjoy only a brief moment of full attention. Each image is always replaced by another.
Curated by Erwin van ’t Hart
In collaboration with LABO BxL — artist-run filmlab in Brussels
