OFFoff-ON: Kozakis & Vaneigem / Savitskaya / Abrantes / Humbert & Penzel

A Moment of Eternity in the Passage of Time is a black-and-whi­te video pro­jec­ti­on with ima­ges by visu­al artist Nicolas Kozakis and text by phi­lo­sop­her and wri­ter Raoul Vaneigem. The work was shot in Mount Athos, a remo­te moun­tain and pen­in­su­la in nor­thern Greece, which is home to a num­ber of Greek Orthodox monas­te­ries. Access to the area is restric­ted to few visi­tors and women are not allo­wed. Apart from being a holy pla­ce, it is also one of esca­pe and medita­ti­on for tho­se who mana­ge to gain access. The video unfolds in an undis­clo­sed loca­ti­on, by the sea. A sad-faced, lone immi­grant con­struc­ti­on wor­ker goes about the task of buil­ding a tra­di­ti­o­nal sto­ne hou­se, at his own pace, stop­ping now and then to smo­ke a ciga­ret­te and con­tem­pla­te the mag­ni­fi­cent, total­ly still sea view. His task is faci­li­ta­ted by a few don­keys, ancient labou­rers which have now beco­me all but obso­le­te from the modern work­for­ce. Time see­ms almost to have stood still. Vaneigem’ s exis­ten­ti­al, poe­tic text builds on the qui­et, con­tem­pla­ti­ve pace of the ima­ges, reflec­ting on the natu­re of con­tem­po­ra­ry life, and its obses­si­on with work, pro­duc­ti­vi­ty and suc­cess, at the expen­se of the true expe­rien­ce of life itself. The text muses on the cur­rent impas­se and the pre­da­to­ry, natu­re of capi­ta­lism, which has redu­ced life to its « mere sha­dows», the lone­ly figu­re of the wor­ker recalls the myriad of migrants exploi­ted as che­ap labour all over the pla­net. Critical and uto­pi­an at once, it argues for the need to rein­vent a new, more huma­ne visi­on of the world, clo­ser to natu­re. Finally, the work advo­ca­tes dece­le­ra­ti­on, the merits of the « slow­ness of life » and the fun­da­men­tal dri­ving for­ce of life: love. (Text: Catharina Gregos)

In this pro­gram we pre­sent the two exis­ting ver­si­ons of the same film. Filmmaker Nicolas Kozakis pre­sen­ted his ima­ges res­pec­ti­ve­ly to Eugene Savitzkaya and Raoul Vaneigem, two wri­ters who only knew each other from their work. The wri­ters com­men­ted inde­pen­dent­ly on the same ima­ges wit­hout con­tac­ting each other. In this way, the free inspi­ra­ti­on of the two wri­ters came to sup­ple­ment the free­dom of the direc­tor. The result is a three dimen­si­o­nal prism that gree­di­ly mul­ti­plies reflec­ti­on. ​“Upon recei­ving the ima­ges by Nicolas Kozakis from some part of the world, the words of Ernst Junger from his book Sur les falai­ses de mar­b­re came to mind: ​‘Though exqui­si­te things are the pre­sent of con­tin­g­en­cy, the best (things) in life are free.’ And this is how I star­ted to inha­le and exha­le, fol­lo­wing a pecu­liar rhythm, the end­less com­mon air that sur­rounds all of us.” (Eugene Savitzkaya)

In the short come­dy Taprobana, Luis Vaz de Camoes, the gre­a­test Portuguese renais­san­ce poet, strug­gles cre­a­ti­ve­ly whi­le enga­ging in a hedo­nis­tic, coprop­ha­gic, and drug addled life­sty­le. The film fol­lows the poet, and his lover Dinamene, as he wri­tes his mas­ter­pie­ce, the epic poem Os Lusiadas. He tra­vels from the cacopho­ny of the Indic jun­gles, sur­roun­ded by alle­go­ri­cal elep­hants and rhy­ming macaques, to the fron­tier of Heaven and Hell, whe­re he is con­fron­ted by his fan­ta­sy: fame and immortality.

The American mini­ma­list poet Robert Lax (1915−2000) is prai­sed for his ori­gi­na­li­ty and spi­ri­tu­a­li­ty. He was a com­pa­n­ion of the pain­ter Ad Reinhardt and the reli­gious phi­lo­sop­her and monk Thomas Merton, who had a strong influ­en­ce on the poets of the beat gene­ra­ti­on. After deca­des of a noma­dic life bet­ween America and Europe, wor­king as a screen­wri­ter in Hollywood, as a film cri­tic in New York and as a clown in an Italian iti­ne­rant cir­cus, he has lived wit­h­drawn for 30 years on the Greek island of Patmos. In his poe­try, Robert Lax pur­sues a maxi­mum com­pres­si­on of lan­gu­a­ge — to the point whe­re only indi­vi­du­al words and syl­la­bles remain which repre­sent the essen­ce of lan­gu­a­ge. His artis­tic con­cept of reduc­ti­on, in which a pau­se beco­mes as impor­tant as the things said, makes Lax a kind­red spi­rit of the American com­po­ser John Cage. The pre­sent films are the out­co­me of a long-stan­ding friends­hip bet­ween Robert Lax and the film­ma­kers Nicolas Humbert and Werner Penzel.