Mimesis Magazine – Film as Performance – Issue #1 – Winter 2023
Interested in the politics of resistance as well as in forces of resistance within the unconscious, we take a close look at the margins of the personal and the political in film practices. The mimesis of the media environment that encompasses us is crucial as much as it is endemic. Considering our social encounters as remakes of visual and time-based culture, we feel the need to unravel the cinematically entangled body and its colonial, authoritarian, patriarchal, and capitalist histories. Be it in public dance choreographies, the intimate practice of reading, ancient mesopotamian storytelling, agitprop theater or neorealist cinema – in “The Fringes of Resistance” we try to carve out the mutable contours of territories of power and make them visible to us. In our first issue we sift for threads to pick up from the myths of authenticity, identification and ideology that are engraved in the images that surround us. Through essays, fiction and conversations we explore contradictions in our practices, theorize them and (try to) make them work for us and for others.
With contributions by Noor Abed, Bojana Cvejić, Mariah Garnett, Matt Polzin, Lior Shamriz and Elbe Trakal.
This Q&A video was recorded for the Steak Cinema / AjoByAjo screening in Seoul in summer 2021. The questions were sent by Jongwook Choi and Nilesh Kumar from Steak Cinema.
Watch the Griffin Poetry Prize Winner Announcement Film – with 7 poetry videos by Lior Shamriz, for readings by Ed Roberson, Douglas Kearney, Liz Howard, Gemma Gorga, Tolu Oloruntoba, David Bradford and Natalka Bilotserkivets:
May 25 – Barbara McCullough – In Conversation with Lior Shamriz
A native of New Orleans, Barbara McCullough has spent most of her life in southern California. Her initial interest was in photography but the moving image, immediacy, and possible forum for ideas set her on a path of exploration. McCullough’s work progressed to examining the creative process of artists but always maintaining a fascination with experimental film and video. McCullough sees herself as part of the continuum of African American storytellers whose aim is to preserve knowledge by capturing the essence of her culture — its life, spirit, and magic. She states, “I am dedicated to the preservation of the heritage of the African American artist/cultural worker by documenting her/his achievements for future generations to keep the music and visual poetry alive.” Her work has been shown in galleries, museums, and film festivals nationally and internationally and she is associated with UCLA filmmakers known as the LA Rebellion.
“Port Saïd, Santa Cruz, Sarmad Kashani”, a new short film by Lior Shamriz, will premiere in May 2022 in situ at the Oberhausen Kurzfilmtage in Germany.
The film is 14 minutes long. “A triptych about projections on bodies, made by projecting on my body.”
