Centre Pompidou

Hors Pistes 2016 : The Art of Revolt

23 Apr - 08 May 2016

Mel O’Callaghan, 2016
© Courtesy of the artist, Galerie Allen, Paris and Belo Galsterer, Lisbon
HORS PISTES 2016 : THE ART OF REVOLT
23 April - 8 May 2016

Devoted as ever to the moving image, the Hors Pistes festival this year is organised in two sections: the first in January features the distinctive and original films produced or co-produced by Hors Pistes, the second in April focuses on the theme of protest and civic struggle.

Every year, Hors Pistes shares in the production of works already planned or specially commissioned for the festival, and over a long weekend filmmakers Agnès de Cayeux, Dorothée Smith, João Vieira Torres, Chloé Maillet, Louise Hervé and others present their films of performances staged for Hors Pistes. In April, the Hors Pistes festival takes over the Centre Pompidou’s Galerie Sud 2, Forum -1, Cinéma 2, and Petite Salle. Always close to contemporary developments, Hors Pistes this year looks at civic struggle and its multifarious representations on today’s art, with artists rethinking, repurposing, refocusing or escaping a series of scenarios. Hors Pistes revisits the great historic figures of the street demos and ciné-tracts or agitational shorts of 1968, and more contemporary actors such as whistleblowers and virtual rebels, in a Forum -1 open to speech and action. Philippe Parreno’s demonstrating children, Marco Godoy’s choral slogans, Justine Triet’s choreographed protesters: all are pieces that explore the idea of the protest, a seemingly spontaneous, almost natural, civic reaction that nonetheless has its history, its practices, its codes and myths. Against this background of collective action there emerges another form of struggle, more individual but nonetheless networked, that of whistleblowers such as Snowden, Assange or Manning, who represent new modes of destabilisation, recasting models of civil disobedience. Taking a broader look, Miltos Manetas’ Looking for Internet presents the Web as a new terrain of resistance, home to video agitation and witness. Part testimony, part rallying cry, part resistance to official images, the production of agitational shorts has continued, multiplied, mutated, the genre being transformed by the proliferation of recording techniques and modes of distribution. For this year, thirteen artists have been commissioned to produce agitational shorts of their own. These two intense weeks will see artists, intellectuals and activistes/hacktivists come together at Hors Pistes to “challenge-propose-shock-inform-question-assert-convince-think-yell-denounce-self-educate”, so as to “promote discussion and action” – as one definition of the ciné-tract put it in 1968.

Organiser : DDC / Les cinémas, Sylvie Pras, Geraldine Gomez
 

Tags: Miltos Manetas, Philippe Parreno