James Benning: Ten Skies (16mm open air)

“One of this uni­que film­ma­ker’s gre­a­test works, and on paper, one of his most mini­ma­list: ten shots of the sky, each las­ting ten minu­tes. But the expe­rien­ce of wat­ching – and hea­ring – it is fabu­lous­ly rich and inten­se. The sky­sca­pes are fil­led with life and chan­ge at the speed of light. The sound­track cre­a­tes an equal­ly rich nar­ra­ti­ve spa­ce by way of ten short sto­ries that are ​‘insi­nu­a­ted’ wit­hout ever being ​‘explai­ned.’ A mas­ter­pie­ce.” (Alexander Horwath)

“All ten skies were filmed from my bac­ky­ard in Southern California. (…) It took me fif­ty years to look at the sky like that!” (James Benning)

16mm expand­ed version:

A pre­sen­ter reads the intro­duc­to­ry text to the audien­ce, who are instruc­ted to roll up a sheet of paper and use it as a tele­sco­pe to look at the screen.

À pro­je­t­er sur le ciel, la nuit (To Screen on the Sky, At Night) is a nod to the film­ma­ker and cri­tic Dominique Noguez, who fan­ta­si­zed about the sky as a screen in a 1973 text. Always the bri­co­leur, Maurice Lemaître made this work enti­re­ly out of transpa­rent film, the visu­al sub­ject being the bal­let of dust and scrat­ches, black against the lumi­nous back­ground, like a nega­ti­ve of ​“stars and galaxies of pos­si­ble images.”