For the opening session of our RUSHES series, we invited filmmaker and artist Jihan El-Tahri, technologist and educationalist Tunde Giwa, curator and writer Bonaventure Ndikung as well as designer, coder and new media artist Juan Pablo García Sossa to unpack the concepts of technology, collectivity and space from the intersections of their respective practices. What should the networks and technology we use look like and what interests and needs do we need to accommodate? We are looking forward to learning from their anecdotes on appropriation of technologies for cinema circulation where larger bandwidths and expensive hardware is a luxury. What informal film distribution ecosystems have shaped the experiences and realities of the Tropics? How can we explore new high-tech possibilities through the lense of analog and low-tech practices? And does the accelerated speed of interconnectedness formulate a new cinematic language/aesthetic, also freed from regressive regionalities and worn-out tropes?

AR : مع انتشار فيروس كورونا المستجد اصبحت إنتاجياتنا في العموم بطيئة وعرضية واصبح تواجدنا الرقمي الألجوريثمي عبر الإنترنت مكثفا وشبه دائم. انتشر بسرعة أكبر استخدامنا لمنصات عرض الأفلام عبر الإنترنت (العرض حسب الطلب) خاصة بعد الغلق المؤقت لدور العرض السينمائية والمراكز الثقافية وأدوار العرض الفنية والتي كانت تعرض برامج أفلام بشكل دوري مع اختلافها قبل انتشار فيروس كورونا المستجد. قدمت منصات العرض حسب الطلب التجارية مثل نتفليكس وشاهد- خاصة في بداية الحجر الصحي- مجموعة من النسخ المرممة والغير خاضعة للرقابة مثل أفلام يوسف شاهين ويسري نصرالله. وقدمت أيضًا انتاجاتها لمسلسلات جديدة وحصرية على منصاتها الرقمية. أما بالنسبة للمنصات البديلة مثل موبي و"أفلامنا" قامت بعرض مختارات من أفلام معاصرة وأفلام من الأرشيف. باختصار، أصبحت مشاهدة الأفلام جزء أساسي من أسلوب الحياة في الحجر الصحي، لذا فإن سرعة أنتشار منصات عرض الأفلام عبر الإنترنت يثير بعض الأسئلة… تدعو وكالة بهنا في الإسكندرية، بتنظيم من القيّمين الفنيين علي العدوي ويسرا الملاح الكاتبة والباحثة والناقدة نور الصافوري والمخرج والمنتج مصطفى يوسف إلى مناقشة افتراضية حول تجربة/تجارب مشاهد(ين) السينما في فترة الحجر الصحي. كيف يمكننا تصور مستقبل الجماليات البديلة والتجريبية ورصد شريحة الجماهير المتغيرة بعد هيمنة منصات عرض الأفلام حسب الطلب التجارية وكيفية جعل جعل هذه المنصات مساحات لإنتاج الأفلام التجريبية/البديلة حيث يمكننا نظريًا الاستفادة من منصات عروض الأفلام عبر الإنترنت بالتغلب على مشاكل محورية مثل تدخل الرقابة وانتشار المنتج الفني عالميًا. ولكن لتحقيق ذلك يجب اتباع نمط معين من حيث السياسات والجماليات والأخلاقيات للمنتج الفني! وكيف يمكن لمنصات عروض الأفلام و الإنتاجات الفنية عبر الإنترنت بناء جمهور جديد بعيد عن المدن المركزية والكبيرة؟ EN : With the novel coronavirus, film production became slower and accidental and our online/digital/algorithmic presence became necessarily permanent and accelerated. Cinemas, arthouse cinemas, as well as art and culture centers with regular film programming are temporarily closed. Online film platforms that have already begun before Corona mushroomed rapidly and enormously during the quarantine. On the one hand, commercial platforms such as Netflix and Shahid promoted a selection of restored and uncensored films by the prominent Egyptian filmmakers Youssef Chahine and Youssry Nasrallah, as well as streaming new series. On the other hand, alternative platforms such as Mubi and Aflamuna released a selection of contemporary and archival films. In other words, watching films became an essential part of the quarantine lifestyle, which raises pertinent questions about the prevalence of online platforms. Hosted by Wekalet Behna in Alexandria, curators Ali Hussain Al-Adawy and Yosra El-Mallah invite writer, researcher and critic Nour El Safoury and filmmaker/ producer Mostafa Youssef to a virtual conversation on the experience(s) of cinema audiences in confinements. How can we imagine a future relation between alternative/experimental aesthetics and variable audiences after the dominance of online platforms? Collectively they experiment with thoughts and ruminate how online platforms can be transformed into spaces for experimental/alternative film productions, circulation and exhibitions overcoming the major problem of censorship through a novel code of politics, ethics and aesthetic that stretch beyond the cinephiles in urban and privileged contexts.

(الوباء والسينما والمشاهد(ين PANDEMIC, CINEMA & AUDIENCE(S)

For the third edition of RUSHES, The Network of Arab Alternative Screens (NAAS) is happy to engage with Rana Yazaji, Joey Shea, Leil Zahra Mortada, and Yazan Khalili in a conversation that attempts to frame the digital move for the arts and culture. The fierce digitization of cinema – in both its production and dissemination – expedited by a pandemic brings about severe challenges to cultural policy. We will be collectively thinking about the opportunities this moment affords the arts and cultural sector in rethinking its channels of access, security, flow of capital, and governance models and practices? NAAS proposes this conversation around the limitations and possibilities of the moment, centering independent cinemas as a space for collectivity and critical thinking, and network models as “technologies of solidarity”. NAAS is a network of non-governmental cinema spaces in the Arabic-speaking region. It gathers cinema initiatives that attempt through their programming, events, space, outreach and operation to support a vibrant and sustainable cinema culture. By organizing annual regional encounters, workshops and initiatives for film circulation, NAAS aims to broaden the scope of films available to the Arab public and to encourage dialogue around cinema and its history with the hopes of tapping into the potential presented by the collective experience of watching film in a public setting. For RUSHES #3 we are looking forward to learning from the experiences and collective practice that the network and its affiliates have explored and cultivated over the past 10 years particularly about the reconfiguration into the digital space. Check out the network of NAAS members: naasnetwork.org/members

NETWORKS AS TECHNOLOGIES OF SOLIDARITY

EN : For the fourth edition of the UNITED SCREENS RUSHES series, Estación Terrena Bogotá invites Laura Huertas Millán, Luisa González and Juan Carlos Arias to a conversation and collective envisioning around the redistribution of cultural imaginaries through cinematic semi-fiction narratives and contemporary documentary practice in relation to informality in Latin American social contexts. Estación Terrena (ET) is a space for arts, research, technology and contemporary creation in the electronic sector of the city of Bogotá. Located in what was once an electronic components shop, this place gave rise to BETACOLOR, a store for the distribution and repair of video hardware. During the 1980’s, color TVs arrived in Colombia along with SONY Betamax tapes and home film equipment. Play, rewind, record over, rewind, play. From soap operas and football games, to family films and other productions, in the following decades more Colombians recorded and screened films that were then distributed on cassettes, DVDs and USB sticks in the street. Thus, through color screens, a variety of scenes and realities were leaked into the collective cultural imaginary – remixing with other realities. In 2020, both the district and the sector were affected by the disruption of the street due to the hard lockdown in response to the Covid19 pandemic, the eagerness to digitize content and the transformation of several adjacent shops into screen repair centers. Taking as a metaphor the dismantled screens found in the neighborhood, in this RUSHES session we aim to envision ways to deconstruct and re-configure our realities and to diversify mainstream collective imaginaries.

Para la cuarta edición de la serie RUSHES de UNITED SCREENS, Estación Terrena Bogotá invita a Laura Huertas Millán, Luisa González y Juan Carlos Arias a una conversación y envisionamiento colectivo en torno a la redistribución de imaginarios culturales a través de narrativas cinematográficas de semi-ficción y la práctica documental contemporánea en relación con la informalidad en los contextos sociales latinoamericanos. Estación Terrena es un espacio de artes, investigación, tecnologías y creación contemporánea ubicado en el sector electrónico de la ciudad de Bogotá. Situado en lo que fue una tienda de componentes electrónicos, este espacio dio lugar a BETACOLOR, una tienda para la distribución y reparación de hardware de video. En la década de los 80 la TV a color llega a Colombia junto a las cintas SONY Betamax y los equipos de film casero. Reproducir, rebobinar, grabar encima, rebobinar, reproducir. Desde telenovelas y partidos de fútbol, a films familiares y otras producciones, en las siguientes décadas más colombianxs grabaron y mostraron films que luego distribuyeron en cassettes, DVDs y memorias USBs en la calle. Así pues, una variedad de imágenes y escenas se filtraron en el imaginario cultural colectivo - remezclandose con diversas realidades. En 2020, tanto la zona como el sector se vieron afectados por la disrupción de la calle debido al duro encierro en Bogotá en respuesta a la pandemia Covid19, el afán de digitalizar contenidos y la transformación de locales aledaños a centros de reparación de pantallas. Tomando como metáfora las pantallas "deshuesadas" que se encuentran en el vecindario, en esta sesión de RUSHES queremos envisionar de qué maneras podríamos de-construir y re-configurar nuestras realidades y diversificar los imaginarios colectivos dominantes.

PLAY, REWIND, RECORD OVER, REWIND, PLAY.

MERENUNGKAN KO-IMUNITAS DALAM EKOSISTEM SINEMATIK // THINKING ABOUT CO-IMMUNITY IN CINEMATIC ECOSYSTEMS

BI : "Di waktu-waktu seperti ini, mereka yang melawan penguasa tidak dapat bersandar pada cahaya di ujung kegelapan. Mereka harus memegang cahayanya masing-masing. Betapapun rapuh atau lemahnya cahaya itu sudah cukup untuk membantu menerangi jalan yang mereka yakini, dan mencegah kecelakaan fatal. Cahaya seperti itulah yang ingin dinyalakan oleh epistemologi Selatan." - Boaventura De Sousa Santos, The End of the Cognitive Empire: The Coming of Age of Epistemologies of the South, 2018. Untuk edisi RUSHES yang ke-5, antropolog dan pembuat film Rosalia Namsai Engchuan akan berbincang dengan Prashasti Wilujeng Putri, seorang seniman pertunjukan, manajer seni, programmer festival film; serta Dhuha Ramadhani, seorang pembuat film dan kurator serta dari Arkipel Jakarta International Documentary and Experimental Film Festival. Kami juga mengundang David Darmadi, seorang pembuat film dari kota Padang, Sumatera Barat, Indonesia untuk bergabung dalam percakapan tersebut. Kami mencetuskan RUSHES sebagai ruang konseptual untuk menghargai dan mengeksplorasi potensi praktik sinematik berbasis komunitas sebagai mode alternatif produksi dan penyebaran pengetahuan kolektif. Praktik sinematik ini selaras dengan seruan Boaventura de Sousa Santos untuk epistemologi Selatan: membuka cara-cara untuk belajar, mengetahui, dan berada di dunia; cara-cara yang secara performatif mampu melampaui pola pembentukan pengetahuan modern (resmi) warisan tatanan kolonial yang selama ini dipahami secara temporal, dilembagakan, dan bersifat normatif. Kami akan memikirkan gagasan epistemologi Selatan bersama-sama sebagai keharusan, hasrat dan janji. Pembicaraan kita akan dimulai dari asal mula ekosistem produksi, pameran, dan peredaran film pendek di Indonesia: (Dhuha Ramadhani tentang Sejarah ARKIPEL dan Prashasti Wilujeng Putri tentang Sejarah Sinema Indonesia) dan kemudian merefleksikan mode-mode praktik yang menjaga ekosistem ini berkembang pesat. Kisah ARKIPEL adalah kisah “menjadi” dengan teknologi, yang menempatkan kolektivitas sebagai ekonomi alternatif produksi. Meminjam ungkapan dari NAAS, praktik sinematik di sini adalah bentuk "teknologi solidaritas" yang menolak untuk berjalan di atas logika kasar akumulasi dan ekstraksi kolonial neoliberal, namun menginginkan pengakuan radikal atas jalinan relasi yang saling bergantung. Sebuah proses “menjadi” dengan teknologi melalui praktik sinematik yang lain dari konsepsi teknologi individualis, neoliberal, dan instrumentalis yang telah menyebabkan krisis lingkungan dan bencana pasca-industri. Dari pengalaman kolektif sehari-hari yang telah berlangsung dalam jangka panjang, diskusi kami akan menghindari romantisasi kolektivitas dari kejauhan sebagai suatu idealitas, namun kami akan merefleksikan pertanyaan dan tantangan yang ditimbulkannya secara kritis. Dengan mengakui bahwa situasi saat ini menuntut bahasa baru untuk berbicara dari dan ke status quo, dan untuk mempertanyakan seperti apa dan bagaimana bahasa tersebut muncul, kami akan memikirkan aspek formal dan estetika dalam film yang muncul dari ekosistem praktik sinematik di Indonesia. Kami mengundang David Darmadi, salah satu sutradara “Diary of Cattle” untuk berbagi pengalaman dan praktiknya membuat film dalam ekosistem komunitas film di Indonesia. RUSHES adalah ajakan untuk meninjau kembali apa itu sinema - dan bisa menjadi seperti apakah ia - tidak hanya secara formal dan estetis tetapi juga di luar layar: dari perspektif ekosistem yang diperluas.

EN : "In such a time, those who struggle against domination cannot rely on the light at the end of the tunnel. They must carry with them a portable light, a light that, however shaky or weak, provides enough light to recognize the path as one’s own and to prevent fatal disasters. Such is the type of light that the epistemologies of the South propose to generate. Boaventura De Sousa Santos, The End of the Cognitive Empire: The Coming of Age of Epistemologies of the South, 2018. For the 5th iteration of RUSHES, anthropologist and filmmaker Rosalia Namsai Engchuan will be in conversation with Prashasti Wilujeng Putri, a performance artist, art manager, film festival programmer, Dhuha Ramadhani, a filmmaker and curator and from Arkipel Jakarta International Documentary and Experimental Film Festival, and David Darmadi, who is a filmmaker from the city of Padang, West Sumatera, Indonesia. We think of this RUSHES episode as a conceptual space to valorize and explore the potentialities of community-based cinematic practices as alternative modes of collective knowledge production and dissemination. These cinematic practices are attuned with Boaventura de Sousa Santos’ call for epistemologies of the South, unfolding other ways of learning and knowing and being in the world, that performatively transcend modernity’s temporally-conceived, institutionalised, and normative divisions of (official) knowledge formation inherited from the colonial order. We will think together through the notion of the epistemologies of the South as an imperative, desire and promise. Our conversations will start off with the genesis of an ecosystem of short film production, exhibition and circulation in Indonesia –Dhuha Ramadhani on the History of ARKIPEL and Prashasti Wilujeng Putri on the History of Indonesian Cinema– and then reflect on modes of practice that keep this ecosystem thriving. The story of ARKIPEL is a story of becoming with technology that posits collectivity as an alternative economy of production. To borrow from NAAS, cinematic practices here are “technologies of solidarity” that refuse to run on the brute logics of neoliberal colonial accumulation and extraction, but instead harbors other desires towards a radical recognition of inter-dependency. A becoming with technology through cinematic practice other to the individualist, neoliberal instrumentalist conception of technology that has brought us environmental crisis and post-industrial disaster. From the long term and everyday experience of collective practice our discussion will refrain from romanticizing collectivity as an ideality from a distance, but critically reflect upon the questions and challenges that it poses. Acknowledging that the current situation demands new languages to speak from and to the status quo and to ponder upon the question what and how such languages might be, we will think about the formal and aesthetic aspects of the films emerging from the ecosystem of cinematic practice in Indonesia. We invited David Darmadi, co-director of “Diary of Cattle” to share from his practice and experience of making film in the film communities ecosystem in Indonesia. This RUSHES is an invitation to revisit the question of what cinema is – and can be – not only formally and aesthetically but also beyond the screen: from an expanded ecosystem perspective.

RUSHES // CONVERSATIONS BEYOND THE SPATIAL AND THE TEMPORAL

"To sum up: Our role on the planet is entirely political. Our role, with or without technology, is to make social structures, relationships between people, and between groups. This will enable us to survive as a species on our cosmic vessel. Immortality. We shouldn’t just be making movies we should be changing reality." Jean-Pierre Bekolo, “Welcome to Applied Fiction” [1] The impact of cinema on reality is shaped by the confluence of collectivity and space, among other things. The coming together of communities in a space creates and enables the circulation and exhibition of cinema. In fact, whether it is the silver screens of the multiplex, cinephil videoclubs or pirate tent screenings, the screening space is the place where bodies and minds engage and interact, formulating and incarnating their specific cinema culture. The cinema space turns into a material but metaphysical, durational but metatemporal place for society to reflect on and recreate its opinions, values, ethos, morals, aesthetics, politics and identities. Technology has been a catalyst of societal transformation, having served as a significant tool to enhance access and democratisation, across history, though the most rapidly since the digital revolution. The digital has created a new awareness of space, promising new tools and opportunities for culture to exist and manifest itself detached from limitations of temporalities and geographies. The increased pace of interconnectedness brought forward by the digital has caused a social acceleration that manifests itself also in the circulation of film – it allows for the dissemination of film and video art within seconds reaching large audiences worldwide. At the same time, technology is perceived as a “new frontier” to be conquered, threatening to become a mere mythical formulation, subject to a perpetuation of schemes of colonial occupation and capitalist domination. [2] Drawing parallels to the dawn of train travel, railway operators couldn’t afford to exclude anyone from travelling, but emulating the social norms of the time, its ethics and understandings, it created a system based on “classes” of passengers. While innovations in digital and internet technologies enables us to imagine new possibilities in reorganising cinema distribution across the Global South, how can we decanonise the current discourse and think technology and digitality from a pluriversal perspective, disrupting geographical imaginaries subject to vertical structures. What informal film distribution ecosystems of the South should we draw our attention to? How can we explore new high-tech possibilities through the lense of analog and low-tech practices? And does the accelerated speed of interconnectedness formulate a new cinematic language/aesthetic? While we know by now that the international film distribution ecosystem remains a highly static and opaque apparatus, which has traditionally perpetuated colonialities and left independent/auteur filmmakers from the Global South or its diasporas, indigenous, LGBTIQ or femme filmmakers in disadvantageous positions when it comes to telling their stories in their own ways, the project UNITED SCREENS is interested in forging alliances between cultural realities that exist in vulnerable positions, economically, politically, and culturally to understand and learn from each other beyond geographic proximities to imagine a new cinematic infrastructure for the circulation of independent film and video art powered by technology. Confined to the digital space following the restrictions to social gathering, we want to seize the moment over the next seven months to incubate how this architecture can be supported and mediated by new digital and internet technology. The reason we choose to focus these discussions on the Global South is because we are interested to learn from the cinema practitioners active in the divergent and subversive cinema culture alive (and kicking) through adverse conditions – their bongo [3] inspires us to position the project and it’s research to raise pertinent questions on dominant cinema culture. So, how can we appropriate technology to work for communities rather than corporations? And how can technology be moulded by communities horizontally and bottom up instead of a cookie-cutter solution imposed on them? How can we learn from informal and “shadow” networks and spaces to building a cinema circulation ecosystem that strengthens alliances between cultural realities that exist in vulnerable positions – economically, politically and culturally? And finally, what many stories would evolve out of these exchanges! THE RUSHES are programmed virtual conversations hosted by the UNITED SCREENS network and its affiliates, based in varied parts of the world and contexts. Curated by the individual host spaces, we invite film practitioners and technologists to reflect on and beyond the questions posed previously. Through these moderated virtual conversations we are hoping to learn from different contexts and practices of resistances, subversions, appropriations, cooperations, documentations, financing and accomplishments to integrate these learnings into working towards a decentralized cinema circulation ecosystem. Between each Rushes, we would encourage the audience to send us feedback and questions that will be incorporated into the programming of the content as well. All of these learnings will be the prelude to the physical programme envisioned to bring these voices together in a physical space to forge in discussions, workshops, symposia, screenings over the course of 2021/2022 on how we can collectively shape reality.

ARCHIVE

Pirotecnia (Mute Fire) | Federico Atehortúa Arteaga | PW: Matallana2

The Neighbour before the House | Shaina Anand |

Film is Elsewhere | Shaina Anand |