A Long Time Between Suns A two-venue solo exhibition by The Otolith Group 15th February 2009 - 5th April 2009
Gasworks and The Showroom are collaborating to produce a two-part exhibition titled A Long Time Between Suns, the first solo presentation of The Otolith Group�s work in London. The Otolith Group, comprised of artists Anjalika Sagar and Kodwo Eshun, approach questions of archive and futurity through a moving image practice which often adopts an essay-like form. Rather than returning to the past as a means to reconnect with its perceived historicity, the Group envisages a future in which the past is treated as a relic that has the potential to inform the present and modify the future.
A Long Time Between Suns will begin at Gasworks with the artists� first two films Otolith (2003) and Otolith II (2007). Otolith is set in the 22nd Century, when the human race is no longer able to survive on earth and must live outside its gravitational pull, on the International Space Station. Dr. Usha Adebaran Sagar, the future descendent of Otolith Group member Anjalika Sagar, is an exo-anthropologist researching life on an earth that she can experience only through media archives. Otolith imagines a mutant future that simultaneously harks back to the post WWII era of non-alignment so as to indicate a connection between the production of commonality in South Asia, USSR and the present.
Otolith II is set in the near future and mixes fiction, archival material and documentary footage filmed in Mumbai and Chandigarh. The film explores the affective pressure exerted upon inhabitants living in contrasting and competing versions of the city of tomorrow. Otolith II investigates the politics of futurity in which predictive models of the masterplan, the corporate scenario and real estate speculation converge to extract labour, convert attention and capture potential for profit.
The second part of A Long Time Between Suns will take place at The Showroom's new location in June 2009 and will present Otolith III (2009), the final film in The Otolith trilogy. Otolith III takes The Alien, the unrealised screenplay of the legendary Bengali director Satyajit Ray, as its point of departure. Written in 1967, The Alien would have been the first science fiction film to be set in contemporary India. Otolith III returns to 1967 to propose an alternative trajectory in which the fictional protagonists of The Alien attempt to seize the means of production in order to create the conditions for their existence as images. Filmed in London, Otolith III is an experiment in temporal and geographical displacement which The Group call a premake, a remake of a film before the original.
At Gasworks and at The Showroom, the films will be screened in a specially commissioned environment designed Will Holder.
Part II will take place at The Showroom in June 2009
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Events Devised with The Otolith Group and supporting institutions, a series of public events will be presented from February to June 2009. The events offer audiences the opportunity to revisit a number of the curatorial and discursive projects formulated by The Otolith Group since 2002.
Wednesday 18 February 2009, 7 � 8.30pm Communists Like Us at The Nehru Centre , 8 South Audley Street, London W1K 1HF A dialogue between photography and subtitles presented by The Otolith group provides the point of departure for an archival constellation of the maoist imaginary. Organised by the Serpentine gallery as part of the exhibition India Highway.
Thursday 26 February 2009, 7 � 8.30pm LondonunderLondon Mark Fisher presents his audio-essay LondonunderLondon followed by a conversation with Sukdhev Sandhu and Kodwo Eshun on the cinegeographies and radiophonic terrains of postwar london.
Sunday 15 March 2009, 3 � 6pm Facs of Life Filmmakers Silvia Maglioni and Graeme Thomson present work in progress from their forthcoming film Facs of Life, which takes video footage of Gilles Deleuze�s lectures at the University of Paris VIII, Vincennes (1975�76) as its starting point. The artists will touch on the question of the inarchiv� (the unacknowledged or inoperative archive) and their quest for an impersonal cinema of �betweenness�.
Wednesday 1 April 2009, 7 � 8.30pm Collaborative Filmmaking: a Discussion John Akomfrah, founding member of black audio Film Collective (1982�1998) discusses the histories and potentialities of transnational collaborative and collective filmmaking practices with The Otolith Group.
Events taking place during Part II of A Long Time Between Suns will include a seminar with The Otolith Group in collaboration with Afterall, and screenings of forthcoming work by Eyal Sivan and unseen work by Chris Marker. An artist book, published by Sternberg Press in collaboration with Gasworks, The Showroom and Il Trifoglio Nero, will bring together The Otolith Group�s essays, statements, lectures and photo-works from 2002-2008 alongside transcripts of The Otolith Trilogy. The book will contain a conversation between curators Emily Pethick, Anna Colin and The Otolith Group, and new essays by critics TJ Demos and Irmgard Emmelhainz. The book will be released in June 2009.
Gasworks 155 Vauxhall Street London SE11 5RH
Nearest stations Vauxhall: Victoria line and National rail Oval: Northern line
