ODD and the Czech Centre in Bucharest are happy to present a QUIET ODD session in which we reveal our love for the future now. Program as follows:
16.30 Doors open
17.00 Premiere of The Green Hell is the New Heaven, 28min, 2012, a film by Ștefan Tiron and Mihai Sălăjan
17.30 Discussion with Ștefan Tiron, Mihai Sălăjan, Claudiu Cobilanschi & Alexandru Petre
18.30 Screening of The Creeping Garden, 1h 21min, 2014, a film by Tim Graham and Jasper Sharp
The Green Hell is the New Heaven was filmed in 2012 under extreme climatic conditions in one of the most torrid summers on record. This made it the almost perfect – future NOW investigation. Two weeks into the merciless sun, slightly hallucinating from the heat stroke, dehydration and a lot of ‘asphalt yoga’, we followed trough shiny corporate parking lots & under old railway bridges some of the extremophile denizens including TOH; Tree Of Heaven of our teratophytic dreams & vivid prophecies. (TOH) Aillanthus altissima has been seeded into the mythic future-present of our speculative fictions, and possibly into most Mega-Cities of Tomorrow after it has cunningly seduced botanical hunters via proxy of biocapitalist profit dreams, exotic lust and high pollution tolerance. In our final gesture – we potted the TOH saplings, trying to invite them back into unwilling ‘culture’, a process that is always masked, camouflaged, giving it away for free(from post offices to life insurance companies and cultural capital HQ) – and advertising it as perfect office plant.
The Creeping Garden is a feature length creative documentary exploring the work of fringe scientists, mycologists and artists, and their relationship with the extraordinary plasmodial slime mould. The slime mould is being used to explore biological-inspired design, emergence theory, unconventional computing and robot controllers, much of which borders on the world of science fiction. But as well as exploring the slime mould in the lab, the film also travels out into the wild, hunting for the organisms in their natural habitat. Co-directed by artist film-maker Tim Grabham and writer and film curator Jasper Sharp, the film follows in the unconventional footsteps of Grabham’s previous feature ‘KanZeOn’ and Sharps fascination with the extended world of mycology. With an original soundtrack composed by celebrated musician and producer Jim O’Rourke (Sonic Youth, Werner Herzog’s ‘Grizzly Man’) this is a unique exploration into a hitherto untapped subject matter, observing and immersing the audience into the worlds of the observers and the observed.
Biographies
Ștefan Tiron
Ștefan Tiron (born 1976) @TironStefan writing about technoscience horror fables, putrescientia, lifedeath, dirt, rot, dark ecology, biology’s past and present dogmas, agnotology, nonhuman and humanimal politics. Further writes about free knowledge & rip-off dynamics in Bucharest (for Springerin), the Bucharest megastructure (for Archis), survivalist dumpsterdiving for Otaku Magazine, Steampunk (Idea Art+Society), space tourism for Monochrom, the Beastly Revolution and other ape-pocalyptic visions for Critic Atac.
Mihai Sălăjan
Mihai Sălăjan (born 1985, Arad). Mimi works under various monikers including Selfmademusic (electronic experimental music), Artur Ditu, Ink, Lemmy Caution and is active in many fields including experimental music, video art and illustration. He has made appearances on the Romanian art scene through the AVmotional platform, Simultan festival, Inbetween architecture festival, Street Delivery Bucharest, Biserika group and Kinema Ikon. His works where published in Omagiu, Otaku Mag, Tataia, Intermedia, 2020 fanzines, 2012 – Viitorul e acum prezent.
Claudiu Cobilanschi
Claudiu Cobilanschi (born 1972) lives at the blurry boundary between art and media, using, as a journalist, multiple media for different kinds of expression, whilst as an artist he benefits from the mutual influence of these milieus. In his practice, he approaches issues of stereotypical thinking, forecasting and physicality, projecting messages in different mediums: photography & performance, super8 cinema, studies of expressiveness in conventional images, video-documents of immigrants, DIY saunas, interactive movies. He has worked within the framework and tested the limits of institutions such as ParadisGaraj & Die Kunsthalle Bukarest, Platforma & Salonul de Proiecte Anexa MNAC, Barbara Seiler Gallery, Kunsthalle Winterthur, Depo Instanbul, Rotwand Gallery, Muzeum Quartier, IGBildendeKunst Vienna, Nida ArtColony Lithuania, HBK Saar, Romanian Cultural Institute, MotorenHalle Dresden, Kunsthalle Krems.