DATE: DeCeMber 14th, 5.30 pm.
Performance Ale Bachlechner + film screening “Mixtape #1” + Q&A with Phil Collins
CRYING AND LYING, Ale Bachlechner, 2023, 30′, German and English
“My mother cried for forty days and forty nights.
As long as I have known her, I have known her to cry.
I used to think that I would grow up to be a different sort of woman,
that I would not cry, and that I would solve the problem of her crying.” (Sheila Heti “Motherhood” 2018)
Crying and lying are two activities with which you can reliably ruin your life. Strikingly, they are often associated with femininity. The performance casts a spotlight on some intricacies of intergenerational trauma and the narrative dimensions of the family. Even though “the family” has proven to be anything but crisis-proof or safe, it’s still one of the most prevalent life goals.
Tightly interlacing live performance and prerecorded video the artist admits publicly to her strong craving for narrative and dramaturgy. The concept of a hopefully quick, linear and progressive succession of milestones in your so called private life and career is countered by the figure of the late bloomer who hits them late, in the wrong order or never. Drawing on autobiography and feminist authors the performance introduces a queering of reproductive temporalities.
Developed with Jonathan Kastl and Olivia Platzer.
Mixtape #1, 2024, Phil Collins, 117′, originalversion with english subtitles
Mixtape #1 is an unorthodox overview of Phil Collins’ work in moving image over twenty-five years. Drawing its title and concept from the ‘mixtape’ – a devotional form of music compilation notorious for its tendency (and tenderness) towards poetic overture, insinuation and desire – this genre-bending compendium brings together a heady blend of episodes, excerpts, ‘wild’ footage, and unseen fragments from his extensive filmography. The mixtape brings to the fore interactions between form and feeling, and underlines proximities between giver and receiver. Such connections have long characterised Collins’ practice and are revealed here as a sustained mode of production.
Mixtape #1 includes, amongst other, scenes from they shoot horses(2004), an endurance dance marathon in Ramallah, Palestine, filmed during the Second Intifada; it revisitsTira Los Muros (2022), a public assembly and cumbia street party for social justice and prison abolition which the artist organised in Oaxaca, Mexico; and it eavesdrops on karaoke enthusiasts in Bogotá, Istanbul, Jakarta, and Bandung, singing The Smiths in the world won’t listen (2004-2007).
Elsewhere, excerpts of the melodrama soy mi madre (2008) show Collins’ lush cinematic take on the popular format of the telenovela, shot in Mexico City and the first of his films to employ professional actors; This Unfortunate Thing Between Us (2011), with two nights of alternative teleshopping first performed in Berlin and broadcast live on German television, takes a typically irreverent look at the commodification of personal experiences; while scenes from the long-term collaborative project Desire Lines (2022-ongoing) in Jamaica gesture towards decolonial, queer collectivity expressed through dance, dialogue and performance. Braided together alongside music videos, animations and ephemeral scenes, Mixtape #1 operates in a heterogenous mode of abundance.
HD video and 16mm, VHS, Hi8, Digital 8 and mini-DV
transferred to HD video; colour, sound
Courtesy Shady Lane Productions, Berlin
Directed by Phil Collins / Producer: Siniša Mitrović / Editor: Stefan Ramírez Pérez / Sound mix: Jochen Jezussek / Colour grade: Stefan Engelkamp, Stefan Gohlke / Postproduction and mastering: Concept AV, Berlin / Commissioned by European Media Art Festival, Osnabrück / Special thanks: Mason Leaver-Yap, Katrin Mundt, Stefan Gohlke, Karla Maria Davis
Content Notes: blood, weapon, abuse of power, theme of death, verbal violence, syringe, themes of racism and homophobia
