Arts Centre Vooruit, Ghent, Belgium

Programme

20:00 FILM PROGRAMME (compilation 9 short films / videos)
21:00 LIVE PERFORMANCE Pierre Hébert
21:30 BREAK
21:40 FILM Deanimated – Martin Arnold
22:40 END

On Courtisane’s website, you will find the detailed programme

On the theme: Without a trace. Erase/delete – photoshop reality

Taken from: Garfield Minus Garfield—a web project created by Dan Walsh, dedicated to removing Garfield from the Garfield comic strips in order to “reveal the existential angst of a certain young Mr. Jon Arbuckle”—funny!

The tuned comic strips by Dan Walsh illustrate that erasing, removing, rubbing out or concealing signs and images has never been as easy as it is in today’s era of digital hybridization. The immense possibilities in image processing, compositing and trimming have led to the development of a “Photoshop reality”, a corrected reality which has penetrated unnoticed the heart of our visual culture.

However, the act of erasing is never without trace: there always remains a residue, a print upon the surface, a ghost where once was an image. Whether we are speaking of bare scratching or of calculated digital layering, each erasure leaves a trace behind, each absence suggests a (missed) presence. This ambiguity is even stronger in the context of the moving image, which only exists itself thanks to a sort of progressive “erasure”, each image canceling the previous one.

On the live performance by Pierre Hébert

‘Only the hand that erases can write the true thing.’ is a quote of Meister Eckhardt somewhere at the end of the 13th century. It’s the title and starting point of a performance by Canadian artist Pierre Hébert.

This is an extract of a solo performance by Pierre Hébert, with recorded music by Stefan Smulovitz, presented at St-Joseph university in Beirut. This is a french version of the multilingual performance “Only the hand that erases can write the true thing”.

The film and video programme of Erase/delete

Courtisane takes this idea to build an evening with this performance and film, video and media works that focus on erasing and the impossibility of total disappearance.

Some nice examples are “No ball, no glory” by Tammuz Binshtock and “invisible boards” from “Yeah Right!” by Spike Jonze. More examples and interesting blog posts on the programme on Diagonal Thoughts (by one of the curators of Erase/delete, Stoffel Debuysere).