ARCHIVE TWITCH is a program of contemporary experimental films and film-essays curated by the Serbian artist duo – Doplgenger. The selection is theoretically based on the concept of “poor image” (Hito Steyrl) as a possibility for an alternative economy of moving images. Isidora Illic, of Doplgenger, will be present to introduce the program and discuss the films post the screening.

Authors and collectives of the selected films use existing audio-visual materials from various databases in order to create a different visual pedagogy. Using footage from Hollywood films and appropriating the specificity of such aesthetics, both “Black’s Back” by Derek Woolfenden and “Lucky” by Salise Hughes articulate specific historical moments by different means – former is a tribute to the Black Revolution and the Black Panther Party’s warnings, and the latter situates itself at the eve of WWI. Dirk de Bruyn’s “WAP” reframes historic material to allow the voices of the deferred and dispossessed to speak of the trauma of a racist policy in Australia. “American Capitalism” by Thibault Le Texier is made by cutting and pasting bits and pieces of movies from the institutional fund Prelinger Archive; while two films by German-French collective NEOZOON explore YouTube aesthetics and amateur recordings thereby contributing to contemporary anthropological research.

Experiment is a common feature of the selection and it represents the authors’ political decision to intervene into archival footage (an image of the past) and take an active position in the process of knowledge production. The structuralist film approach of “9/11” by Stratis Vouyoucas repeatedly alternates between the television snow and the image of two WTC twin towers collapsing in the September 2001 attacks. Chris Oakley’s “Revisions” explores the function of moving images as collective memory and historical documents of modern conflict. “Newsreel 55” by the Slovenian collective Newsreel Front, combines archival footage and footage of current events depicting the social and political shifts of the 20th century on the territory of the former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.

Playing along Derrida’s concept of archive fever and taking a document as a starting point, this selection would like to question possibilities for moving images to offer discursive and dialectical film model.

Curated by: Doplgenger (Isidora Ilić & Boško Prostran)

Introduced by: Isidora Ilić

Doplgenger’s presentation in India is supported by Republic of Serbia Ministry of Culture and Information and Prince Claus Fund.