Birth of the Seanema 2004
Birth of the Seanema 2004
MINI DV, 4:3, BLACK AND WHITE, SILENT, 70 MINUTES, THAILAND/US, NO DIALOGUE (ENGLISH SUBTITLES) / SCRIPT: SASITHORN ARIYAVICHA AND PANSIRI SITTHICHAIKASEM / CAST: ANONYMOUS PEOPLE OF A LOST CITY AND CHALUAY THONGSOOK / PRODUCTION CO: FOUND FOOTAGE / SCRIPT READER AND CONSULTANT: PANSIRI SITTHICHAIKASEM / PRODUCTION CREW: CHITSANUCHA RITTIRAKSA, SAKAJWICH KEAWKAMTHONG AND MONTHIRA THAWORNWISIT / SEANEMA LANGUAGE CONSTRUCTOR AND ALPHABET DESIGNER: JIRASAK SONGSANGKAJORN / PRINT SOURCE/RIGHTS: COURTESY THE ARTIST
Ariyavicha’s films seem to meander past logic, underlying instead the primacy of the visual sense to access a psychological realm of language and forms. Ariyavicha has described Drifter as a collection of images without any intention to tell a story. The sparseness of filmic actions in the silent Birth of the Seanema allow beautiful invented calligraphy, to hover for a moment, and then to fade away. The camera rests on urban machines, on the glass and steel materials and structures of modernism, on night scenes, and on scenes of the sea and horizon that are reminiscent of Hiroshi Sugimoto’s seascapes. Combined with Ariyavicha’s poetry, these sequences create a portrait of a mind’s eye. Images and text appear in an ebbing rhythm. Her ‘image collections’ allow a meditative, daydream-like space where imaginary images are invoked through the acts of looking, looking past and reading. A dragonfly tells us: ‘I am your forgotten memories.’ ‘I am your invented memories,’ says another.
Contact: Wed 21 Oct 12.30pm (with Dangerous Supplement + Straight 8 + My First Film + Drifter) and Sun 8 Nov 3.00pm (with My First Film + Drifter) / Cinema A
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