Off Screen X Studio Art Office

In this third edition in which ART OFFICE and Off Screen join forces a great selection has been made of films that were made with a contribution from CBK Rotterdam.

This time with new work by Sara Rajaei, Daniel Tuomey, Mirjam Somers, Daniela de Paulus and Tess Martin.
The artists will be in conversation with Petra Laaper and Luca Tichelman.

All films are subtitled, interviews are in English

Yet Another Leap Year
Sara Rajaei, 2022, NL/Iran, 16 min.
January 8, 2020, two Iranian missiles downed a plane, killing all its occupants. Inspired by essays by Susan Sontag on photography and the relationship between observing and experiencing pain within photography, Rajaei highlights this event from the point of view of witnesses and victims. The film connects the tragic event with the physical pain and soul’s grief through time. Rajaei specialized in video art at the Rijksakademie. She explores space (and its absence), the psychology of memory and how to translate it into a specific narrative technique.

Mare incognito
Daniela de Paulus, 2023, NL, 17 min.
Mare Incognito explores the gradual disappearance of consciousness during the process of falling asleep, the moment when you detach from reality and pass into a dream state. In the film, the creators’ brain activity during sleep is transmitted into space using (SKA) radio antennas from the Mullard Radio Observatory in Cambridge, UK. Mare Incognito was created is collaboration with scientists, historians and cosmologists. De Paulis (in addition to being a former dancer, radio operator) is a media artist. The concept of space is her greatest inspiration.

Frankenstein
Daniel Tuomey, 2023, NL, 18 min.
A frame by frame handmade animation, made during the period when Tuomey was confined to home due to lockdown,
The film is based on Mary Shelley’s novel, in which Frankenstein creates a human being, who takes revenge on his creator. Like Frankenstein, Tuomey decides to create a human being, namely himself, after which he comes into conflict with his drawn alter ego.

Orbit
Tess Martin, 2022, NL, 7 min.
Rotating drawings guide us along our planet’s energy flow. The movements reflect the looping of our planet around the sun, the source of all life, and make us reflect on our place in the natural cycle. Created with the phonotropic technique, where animation is created using a constantly rotating disk. Martin’s work questions our place in nature, our relationship to the past and how memory and perception define our identity. It results in short films, installations, paintings and prints.

Silent Sirens
Mirjam Somers, NL, 1 min.
Somers’ work reveals the layered relationship between humans and animals in an anthropocentric world. From her series "Daily Drawings," she explores how drawings can give rise to the development of a film. In Off Screen an initial film scene is shown that forms a blueprint for the final film.