George Dyson (US) will kick off the festival with a keynote lecture about time in the digital universe: No Time is There: Why the Digital Universe is Different From Ours.

The digital universe–now growing by more than 5 trillion bits per second–goes back to a 32-by-32-by-40-bit matrix that took form in 1946. “Decisions between elementary alternatives, and enforcement of these decisions are initiated not with reference to time as an independent variable but rather according to sequence,” Julian Bigelow, the architect of this 5-kilobyte matrix, explained in 1949 – before it was customary to refer to these elementary alternatives as bits. “Time, therefore, does not serve as an index for the location of information,” he added, “but instead counter readings are used.” Because these counters have come to be known as clocks, it is easy to believe that time in the digital universe is equivalent to time in our universe – but nothing could be further from the truth.

This lecture is organised in collaboration with Stedelijk Museum as part of Temporary Stedelijk 3. It can be visited separately from the conference and the festival.

The exhibition at NIMk presents several installations, sound– and film works that explore different modalities of time. They seemingly halt the experience of time, deal with speed in the city, resist the sequential montage of classic cinema, or leave the visitor in suspension because action is continuously deferred. Immersive, pensive, scientifically precise or overwhelming, all these works tickle the brain and the senses.

The exhibition opens at 16:00. At 16:30 hrs, the opening ceremonies will start, including public interviews with artists participating in the exhibition.

Works by Joe Gilmore (UK), Julien Maire (FR),  Tao G. Vrhovec Sambolec (SI/NL), Philipp Lachenmann (DE), Juliana Borinski (BR/DE),  Mark Fell (UK) and (on show only for the duration of the festival) Daïchi Saïto (JP/CA) will be shown.

Joe Gilmore
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(2012, installation)
The new generative sound piece by Joe Gilmore explores space, geometry and complexity through sound synthesis. The multi-speaker installation uses chaotic algorithms, and flocking / swarm synthesis. The sound ranges from short impulses scattered around the space in different configura- tions, to extended complex tones and chaotic noise signals.

Julien Maire
Perpendicular Cinema
(2011, installation, produced in collaboration with V2_lab)
Julien Maire’s Perpendiculair Cinema resists the directivity of the montage. A complex mechanical interface, made of blocks of reflective metal, inter- cepts, controls and models the clear and blurry areas of a projected slide. The slow scanning is similar to the assiduous attention of a researcher. This concentration resists the flow and focuses on details in an image and their conditions of appear- ance, looking for a grammar, a construction and a deconstruction of perspective and narrative. The three-dimensional effect and the materiality of the image and of the device that allows the development is accentuated. The installation reads a script that is perpendicular to the image in the optical space. The movement no longer appears in the equation of the difference between successive images but in the optical performance of a fluid, continuous real time.

Flip Dots Mirrors
(2011, installation)
Forty-eight flip-dots coated with first surface mir- rors (FS mirrors) reflect part of a slide image of people sitting on a tribune.

Tao Sambolec
City Velocities – Body Speeds
(2012, new work, commissioned by Sonic Acts, NIMk & STEIM)
City Velocities – Body Speeds focuses on the tactile experience of travelling at speed in an urban environment. It does not provide an inter- pretation; instead it embodies the phenomena of speed, re-creating the experience and thus con- fronting the visitor with its existence.

Philipp Lachenmann
Space_Surrogate I (Dubai)
(2000)
A half hour film made from a single image. A solitary airplane stands in the desert. Hot air, shimmering like a mirage, is the only perceivable sign of the passage of time. The 30’ film sequence was digitally produced from a one still picture.

Space_Surrogate II (GSG 9)
(2003)
A five seconds long film sequence from 1977 is transformed into an extremely slow moving still image of eight minutes. Nine men, members of the German anti terror squad GSG 9, cross the picture from left to right. The sequence was digitally produced by interpolating 11.000 artifi- cial images between 120 original film frames.

Juliana Borinski
Liquid Crystal Display
(2008–2009, installation)
In the expanded cinema installation Liquid Crystal Display a few drops of a crystalline solution are placed on an empty slide in a cus- tomised projector. The crystallisation process and all its associated movements are projected live. Using the projector’s heat, the reaction time varies from 20 minutes to a few hours (depending on the solution’s concentration and the temperature and humidity in the exhibition space). Each slide is replaced after the ‘image’ has stabilised.

Mark Fell
Factoid #3
(2011, installation)
Philosophy has investigated the linkage between the structure of consciousness and the structure of the present, but it has not taken sound into consideration. How does sound contribute to this linkage? Thinking of the repetitive temporal struc- tures of techno, or the prolonged tones of Tibetan music – some primary relationships between time, consciousness and sound could be imagined. Informed by recent studies in the psychopa- thology of time, Fell’s intense and confrontational installation Factoid #3 promotes a destabilised association between time, the self and sound. Phenomenological emphasis on flow, linearity, and the present as embedded in both the previous and the imminent, are rejected in favour of disas- sociated suprasequential nows. This work contains extremely bright flashing light, high intensity sound and generative temporal structures.

Screening from 23–26 February: Daïchi Saïto
Never a Foot Too Far, Even
(2011, double projection, 16 mm)
Appropriating a brief fragment from a 35 mm print of an old Kung Fu movie, Never a Foot Too Far, Even is an action movie without action. Presented in double-projection with two 16 mm film projectors and loopers, with images from two separate rolls overlaid to form a single image, the film focuses on an obscure figure who finds himself on a forest path, caught between perpetual motion and stasis.

During the festival, the exhibition is open from 24-26 February 11:00-19:00. Furthermore until 15 April 2012 the exhibition is open Tuesday through Friday 11:00-17:00, Saturday and Sunday 13:00-17:00.

Time only happens once. Time is precious because it cannot be reproduced. Time is irrevocable. We try to make good use of time, but maybe time tries to make good use of us. What would happen if you tried to escape from the clutches of time? Or if you let yourself be led by a structure that allows you to lose yourself in time?

Participate in a walking tour created from a concept by Jacqueline Schoemakers. Participants receive a topographic map and have to do their utmost to follow the straight line that is drawn on it. The tour starts at the Paradiso, but where it ends is anybody’s guess. There is no meaningful movement from A to B in this walk; there is no urgency to get anywhere. You can enjoy the walk at any time during the day or night, even after the festival – and it is best experienced alone. At 17:30 each day during the festival there is a get together to exchange thoughts about Time Travelled and Time Lost with others who have done the walk.

A map for Time Travelled and Time Lost and an information leaflet can be obtained at the festival desk. Informal get together each festival day at 17:30 in De Balie. Start is at Paradiso.

Paul Sharits
Shutter Interface
(1975, 32’50, four-projector installation, colour)

In the hypnotic work Shutter Interface – recently restored by Greene Naftali and Anthology Film Archives to its long-unseen, four-screen version – a quartet of 16 mm projectors stand side by side, figure-like, on imposing pedestals facing a long wall. Four looped films of varying lengths are un-spooled and re-spooled in jewel-like swathes of colour interspersed with single black frames.

In the hypnotic work Shutter Interface – recently restored by Greene Naftali and Anthology Film Archives to its long-unseen, four-screen version – a quartet of 16 mm projectors stand side by side, figure-like, on imposing pedestals facing a long wall. Four looped films of varying lengths are un-spooled and re-spooled in jewel-like swathes of colour interspersed with single black frames.

Bass frequencies abound on the opening evening of Sonic Acts. Beyond Time presents an audiovisual spectacle with dubstep, subsonic minimal techno and avant-garde electronica. Roly Porter and Emptyset use the echo and low frequencies associated with dub music to create a sonic space that dislocates our perception of time. Live projections by Rod MacLachlan and Joanie Lemercier (from AntiVJ) reinforce the disorientating potential of the sub-bass. Mark Fell’s radically asymmetric beats ignore time signatures completely in an infectious computer-generated recuperation of the sounds of acid, timed to the millisecond. The evening opens with a homage to filmmaker Bart Vegter (who passed away in 2011). Films by Ian Helliwell and Ryohei Shimada will also be screened.

Bart Vegter
De Tijd
(2008, 9’00, colour, no sound)

A flat, monochrome image slowly evolves into a dramatic spectacle, where colour allows lines and conical forms to subtly dissolve and solidify. In the end, the colours lose their intensity leaving only the basic structure of the image ‘the skeleton’. De Tijd is an abstract, computer-generated film in which colour plays the principle role.

Ian Helliwell
Letratone Leader
(2009, 3’35, stereo sound, colour)

The image consists of strips of super 8 leader foot- age subjected to various colour inversions.

Ryohei Shimada
Garden
(2010, 9’00, video, stereo sound, colour)

Patterns of grass, trees and flowers are created using 8, 16 and 35 mm film. The film is a collabo- ration with the Samurai Jazz Quintet.

Noodlanding – Dreamtime with Youth Lagoon and Emptyset.

Youth Lagoon (US) is twenty-two year old Trevor Powers (US). Intimate and dreamy electronic music. His debut album The Year of Hibernation came out in 2011. Hidden beneath the melodies is a voice that is eerie yet nostalgic.

Emptyset (UK) is a Bristol-based production duo which explores classic 1990s minimal techno, suffusing them with the city’s culture of bass-heavy productions. Their sound has been described as ‘techno meets dubstep folded back onto techno again’. Emptyset acts as a research project, connecting the ideas and pleasures of a modern dance floor with experimental approaches to music.