Roger Tellier-Craig

After the impressive Gulistan, Land of Roses (VdR 2016), the Kurdish filmmaker Zaynê Akyol returns with these conversations with imprisoned members of the Islamic State, alternating their words with aerial views of the countryside. An unexpected look at a far-reaching current political issue and a film whose subject matter and rhythm create an impressive cinematic object.

Éloi, whose father was killed in a hunting accident a year ago, is called to take part in a strange tribute ceremony in the country. There, immersed in a disturbing world of strange mystical codes, he learns that his father was tracking a huge buck with awe-inspiring antlers alongside the “Indian”. After several outstanding short films, Aurtenèche delivers a first feature that obliquely references the legend of Saint Hubert, who encountered the Almighty while hunting a stag. A cryptic thriller, hidden manuscripts, the quest for self-knowledge, psychotropic drugs: La Contemplation du mystère boldly shifts between moods and genres.

Wilcox exists outside the norm. Deserter, delinquent, or survivalist, he quietly roams, looking to put down roots or for what could simply be called freedom.

Escales is the result of the manipulation of electronic signals using digital means. Electricity, as raw material, is being sculpted, transformed and altered to be reborn as architecture. Inspired by hotel lobbies, the video recreates the ambiance of these aesthetically rigorous spaces which, despite their aim at being inviting, are in fact impersonal and cold.

"Littoral Zones peaks around the corner of an entryway – looking out over the threshold and seeing a world of crystalline light anticipating our departure. But the room spins with our uncertainty to exit, and with each turn the light in the doorway becomes all the more enticing. The marvelousness of the light compels us to keep turning, but when the video settles on departure we find ourselves confronted with a multitude of paths, each more complex and inviting than the last." - Nicholas O'Brien

"In Landfall, viewers are surrounded by a purple-hued jaunt across the hills and valleys of synthesized countryside. Moments of geometric clarity flicker into view, showing the façade of a building or the corner of an imagined site. However, as these features and forms come into view, their rearrangements and reconfigurations reinforce an ambivalent feeling toward their construction and usefulness. As the upper half of the video becomes occupied by a ceiling of stripped stalactites, the glimmers of architecture become more pronounced, playing off the features of the space that has formed around us. " - Nicholas O'Brien

"It’s not until we arrive at Habitat does the wandering eye of Ratté’s interlocuteur find respite in a cascading curved form soaked in the color of a pale sunset. The revelation of this habitat creates a visual serenity rarely found within the quivering feedback lines previously employed in Ratté’s work. The simplicity and exactness of the vertical lines that dance across the screen in Habitat suggest a kind of transcendental arrival at a near-perfect modular frequency where the input and output harmonize. These lines are pulled back like stage curtains to expose once more the gleaming horizon, this time delicately tinged with a rainbow spectrum created from gamma ramped signal saturation." - Nicholas O'Brien

Like much of Sabrina Ratté’s video work, this collection for Undervolt & Co. explores the visual and sonic relationship between modular synthesis and simulated space. In all three pieces – Littoral Zones, Landfall, and Habitat – Ratté uses her signature modulator technique to intricately layer a series of moirés and checkerboards that bring depth to the otherwise flat surface of the video screen. Where others create depth through recording or simulating hallways and tunnels, Ratté bends the signal of the video itself to carve out corridors of an undetermined distance.

Video feedback experiment, also known as Melting Signals I. AZDEN VPC-10, 1 min, sound.

The double reality, that of shadows and that of objects, which manifests itself in time, light and space.

A poetic exploration, through digital manipulation, of the limits of simple images such as water and the moon.

Working, as in other films, with relatively simple materials and a contemplative stance, Ratté begins by exploring the flickering movement of light and its distortion as it is translated into the digital realm, using chromatic excess as a means to corrupt her sources' integrity. These somewhat inform images of natural events slowly morph into geometric grids with which moving human silhouettes are later juxtaposed before we are finally sent back to the abstract shapes that opened the film, now harmonised with these colour-looms and figurative forms.