Wednesday, December 14, 2011

60 Seconds of Solitude in Year Zero: a manifesto

From the official press release:

60 SEKUNDIT ÜKSINDUST AASTAL NULL
Where: Port of Tallinn, cruise ship area
When: 22.12.2011
Duration: 7:30 - 8:30 pm
Ticket: 0
Entrance: at the carfax of Rumbi and Logi Street
Open doors: 7 pm
Choose your clothing according to the weather.
Warm drinks on us.
http://www.youtube.com

The single 35 mm film print of a movie created by an international collective of directors will be screened for the audience this once. During the screening the frames will catch fire, after which the giant screen will be burned by flamethrowers.

The open air screening in the Port of Tallinn is the climax of Tallinn European Capital of Culture 2011 year.

The presentation is composed of dozens of short films made by for example Naomi Kawase and Shinji Aoyama (Japan), Tom Tykwer (Germany), Brillante Mendoza (The Philippines), Park Chan-wook (South Korea), Gustav Deutsch (Austria), Malcolm Le Grice (Great Britain), Ken Jacobs and Brian Yuzna (The United States), and Aku Louhimies, Ilppo Pohjola and Mika Taanila (Finland). Numerous directors will be present.

The film is predominantly silent. Live music will be played by Ülo Krigul with his band.

60 Seconds of Solitude in Year Zero has been planned by the Estonian director Veiko Õunpuu anda actor Taavi Eelmaa. A manifesto (below) is a part of the project.

www.60sec.ee

60”
In the first decade of the 21st century entirely new aspects of human behaviour have emerged.
59”
Readiness and opportunity to be voluntarily spat on by a bunch of idiots 24/7, readiness and opportunity to aim your own gob 24/7 at a by-passer’s asshole, indiscriminate global forum and freedom...
58”
…to listen at any given moment the Microsoft audio logo or the judgement of the public passing on whatever kind of intimate aspect of human existence, humorous mobile ring tone as a soundtrack. It is more disgusting than cheese and other dairy products to a cow.
57”
The practical mind has caused a tragic flattening of life. I have no will, nor voice to speak in someone else’s name, nor to raise my fist towards the cold gaze of the stars when standing in a crowd.
56”
I go to the cinema, to be able to look into a mirror, albeit for a moment, that does not lie and deride.
55”
Not to enjoy emotions, but to pray for myself and my delusive love. Amidst people, without producing one single moan and completely alone.
54”
I do not find it necessary to quote Plato’s definition of democracy here. I am not bothered by lame theatre of politics. I am bothered by the entire world. The reason and consequence of the world. Lies and darkness.
53”
I want light. I want for that light to flicker on my face in the darkness of the screening room, giving me on average an hour and a half of faith into the possibility of life. Possibility of love. And faith that goodness does not have to be justified in any way.
52”
I am bothered by commercial pragmatism, the idea that people’s pure and spontaneous creativity is subordinated to business, rapacity, practical thinking, narrow-mindedness and cowardice.
51”
Accepting such subordinance to me seems like voluntary self-castration, as a result of which none of the participants end up with a higher voice, never mind feeling human.
50”
Devaluing intimacy to blunt orders of advertising and pornography makes me hide as a child under the bed that, for which I could cry.
49”
But I am no longer a child and I can no longer cry. There is an inseparable part of consciousness, which, when verbalised for a public discussion is a crime to the possibility of a soul existing.
48”
I want to draw a screen in front of the world and onto that your name in blazing shadows. You, from whose tears we have dripped to this planet. Accidentally. Without permission to stay out for longer than a second. Without a map that would show the way out.
47”
I don’t want to read the word ”love” only from the mail-order catalogue slogans.
46”
I will not let the public define, pack nor sell the ridiculousness of my human existence, the sad bragging of a lost monkey. Trade will not expand to the soul’s territory; I would rather burn it out than have garden gnomes, Sunday trousers or piggybanks shaped from it. This is war and the question is about survival.
45”
The ideology ruling the world is despicable as it tries to forcibly base the life of man and man and man and nature on the most primitive instincts.
44”
I would very much like to hear what do the Sunday trousers and piggybanks have to say about the cosmos, but the trouble is that trousers tend to speak about what they know best – arse, shitting and fucking. And as for the piggybanks, they don’t speak at all, they are mute and silent, some are full to the brim, others only half filled with pennies.
43”
They say that when a man dies, his soul falls into a sea of darkness. Eyes are the last tunnels through which the light shines, thus the dying man ought to gather his remaining shreds of strength and crawl to where the light or lantern shines. You could also place a candle, lighter, burning cigarette or a luminous widescreen in front of the dying man’s eyes.
42”
A flame or a ray of light is the door, a point on the map, a mark of the exit line from this world, which is controlled by the blind greed of a lousy Demiurg.
41”
Fire is the boundary, where physical matter becomes etherised matter. A matter that makes up my thoughts, imagination and soul. My projector and my camera.
40”
Soul is not merely a heartbeat or a thousand-year-old equestrian statue on the central plaza of Old Europe’s capital.
39”
It is the mewling of sad and vicious cats rutting on the steps of the statue.
38”
Soul is not the rusty car bonnets of New Europe where the same cats bask in a sun dappled, begging for affection from every hand, promising unconditional love to every ear that hears the meowing.
37”
It is the readiness of those cats to sink their teeth into every generously softened stroke. Fangs rasping through gravel, dirt, taxpayers’ expectations, social status, foie gras and excrement. All the way to the roots.
36”
Imagination is soul and it can be written, filmed and sung. It can be watched, read and listened to. It can be acquainted with.
35”
Man has a sacred, helpless and indivisible area, the boundaries of which become visible to the eye only in the cinema. Where sad lie speaks as mightily as happy truth, giving even the tiniest detail the right to live.
34”
Frame by frame, sliver by sliver, drop by drop until charring. And even the last particle of the ash has the right to BE.
33”
Screen is the iconostasis, from where the mystery of unconditional love can be sensed. Permissibility of possibility.
32”
I take a million euros to the desert and there it is merely paper with numbers.
31”
Only irrationality and a selfless act give the soul back its territory. Drags it back from the jaws of Molok so it wouldn’t disappear into its gut and dissolve into shit.
30”
The rule is a question of culture, the exception a question of art. Everyone speaks the rule: cigarettes, computers, t-shirts, tourism, war. No-one speaks the exception. It cannot be spoken. It can be written: Flaubert, Dostoyevsky. It can be composed: Gershwin, Mozart. It can be painted: Cezanne, Vermeer. It can be filmed: Antonioni, Vigo. Or it can be lived, and is thus called the art of living: Srebrenica, Mostar, Sarajevo. It is part of the rules to want the death of the exception. It is the rule of European culture to organise the death of the art of living. Jean - Luc Godard 1994.
29”
Is culture something that is more like art or something that is more like the grimace of civilisation? Is art the same as culture? Is goodness an exception or rule? I do not know.
28”
In my world goodness does not need a single lawyer.
27”
...I run to your feet, to you who are not waiting for me, like many others. I do not know what your face is like. I have never been able to imagine anything. I only see the world before me and a little bit on the sides, my own wide open eyes running in front of me, blood on the lashes, I see a birch leaf falling on a stranger’s warm cheek, a cold water bullet shooting into a puddle reflecting sand and the heart whisper of a stranger, a foot that squashes a butterfly on Rosa Luksemburg Strasse...
26”
The most sublime moments, my ecstasy and the depth of my sadness I owe to cinema. To those men and women who have managed to shoot their longing from any corner of the world through any walls erected from plastic, concrete, gold or shit directly into my primate brain, turning me into something more than just a chunk of fucking and devouring meat.
25”
No blade cuts too deep, no lie is too callous. No frame is superfluous. No film lasts too long. My clock goes backwards. Until the opening credits.
24”
Creativity with clean conscious does not fear anything – it is all-victorious and allencompassing, it is unstoppable. There is not enough military force, power or money.
23”
Its aim is to create works of art that would be self-destructive, would not enter the stream of exchanged values and become a commodity.
22”
My soul enters the projector as a film, sparks as lightning, blows a kiss over the jungle of heads into the back rows, where dusk strangles those who have lost hope, so they could believe in the possibility of a miracle. Not in the pyramidbased hierarchical model of the world.
21”
To then plunge into flames, without leaving a single euro or dollar or anyone’s pleased mug looking at the bank account. Leaving just the eternal repositioning of atoms and a postcard from my lover, which has been burned on the spume of my heart’s blood.
20”
Everything is repeating. A new one comes, loses hope, touches happiness´despite that and rouses in the arms of a miracle. This is not simply consolation – it creates the feeling of lightness and happiness.
19”
Pure spending is of ennoble impact. A person thinking only in practical categories does not understand that art could be interested in big losses and catastrophes. That a trauma could become an open door of a prison cell, which is burnt on the iris with a camera-stylus.
18”
Pragmatism that spreads everywhere has created a breach between the rules of life and human needs. Non-productive spending is a passion for cleansing. Rationality – owning, maintaining and consuming is nothing but fear. Claustrophobic static. To be freed from fear is to spend without the slightest desire to increase your capital – art, play, mourn, ritual... Fear is not a force of nature, it is a mood disorder. It can be cured by giving away with no regret not the superfluous, but the dearest. Gold is the most beautiful melting, a man while walking backwards smiling to oneself, love while burning to ash in the heat of the bodies.
17”
The increase of sensibility and any kind of awareness of the mechanics of one’s functioning has paved the way to mannerism, ennui and incredulity to all that is alive.
16”
I am a butterfly larva, laid under the skin of greed-based happiness myth. Into the fat tissue of a petit bourgeois buttock. My job is to eat. I eat efficiently and happily, without ever concealing my motivation, autonomously and not bearing the interest of ”climbing higher based on ever-improving results”. Why? Where? From large intestine to stomach? Or closer to sexual organs? I know nothing about Maslow’s hierarchy. I only know that tomorrow I will spread my wings for a couple of seconds and fly into the closest light bulb. Knowing that I am an inside enemy – a beautiful useless butterfly, whose wings are just for flying into a candle flame, helps me to forgive even the most repulsive criminals of my time.
15”
Purgatory is inevitable, but the dignity of the entering stride and the greeting words to the scorching comrades is for us to choose.
14”
Therefore I dare to face the end with a flower in my buttonhole, film posters on my walls like a little boy and a flamethrower in my hand. Light all the candles in the dark cathedral.
13”
Let the soul burn. It is made of fire. Only the important remains.
12”
Raising like smoke from everyone’s private quotidian convent walls.
11”
Proving the irrefutable truth of an individual’s indivisible experience amidst public hegemony.
10”
I can only be measured in Fahrenheit and frames per second.
9”
Each frame is burnt to the end and nothing can be rewound.
8”
It means that we are in a hurry. To be born while still alive.
7”
Ready!
6”
Aim!
5”
Fire!
4”
Water!
3”
Earth!
2”
Wind!
1”
Spirit!
0”
The world can be shaped by people. “60” of Solitude in Year Zero” shows with a myth-like simplicity an end, a clearing out and then a seed for the next one to come into existence. It is a great event which takes place in Tallinn bay, a unique cinematic installation, during which a film program composed of up to 120 60-second films will be watched while being burned.
Taavi Eelmaa
Veiko Õunpuu

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