“Images drifting into the distance”, a cycle of conferences, debates, meetings, by Benoit Peeters

The Centre Pompidou program of evenings during the last three months of this year is particularly rich (Anri Sala, Kusama, Matali Crasset among others).

Here we focus on a series of upcoming debates and screening with lots of interesting guest, curated by Benoît Peeters, (writer, screen writer, producer and critic), around the question of the “image”.

JPC : En écho à un film d’Ari Kaurismäki (Au loin s’en vont les nuages, 1996), ce “Selon Benoît Peeters” s’intitule Au loin s’en vont les images. Serait-ce le destin de la culture visuelle que de voir ses objets finalement lui échapper ?

BP : Oui, et les images elles-mêmes sont peut-être en train de s’en aller, à force de se liquéfier. Les frontières entre le graphique, le photographique et le numérique ne cessant de se brouiller, l’arrêt sur image reculant au profit du flux, on a sans doute pris le chemin d’une insidieuse liquidation. Mais la mélancolie de la perte devrait les rendre plus désirables encore.

Full french text here.

An (attempted) translation by Socks:

JPC: Echoing a movie by Kaurismäki (Drifting Clouds, 1996), this “By Benoît Peeters” is titled “Drifting Images”. Could this be the fate of visual culture, to see its objects eventually escape?

BP: Yes, and the images themselves may be trying to go away, by liquefing. Since the boundaries between graphic design, photography and the digital ceaselessly fall out, while the stream profits over the image, no doubts we have made our way to an insidious liquidation. But the melancholy of their loss should make them even more desirable.

From Oct 19th through Dec. 9th: a selection of writers, filmakers, artists and comic artists will be hosted following this calendar:

(in french)

Mercredi 19 Octobre 2011
19:00 Benoît Peeters, un itinéraire
17h : projection / 19h : dialogue entre Benoît Peeters et Michel Gauthier
Lundi 31 Octobre 2011
19:00 Nouvelles métamorphoses de Tintin
18h : projection / 19h : Benoît Peeters avec Jean-Marie Apostolidès, Pierre Sterckx, Benoît Mouchart et Jaco Van Dormael
Mercredi 9 Novembre 2011
19:00 Voyages immobiles
18h : projection / 19h : Benoît Peeters avec Marie-Françoise Plissart, Stéphane Lambert et Olivier Smolders
Mercredi 16 Novembre 2011
19:00 Paul Valéry en ses images
17h30 : projection / 19h : Benoît Peeters avec William Marx, Luc Dellisse, Jean-Christophe Cambier et Irène Jacob
Mercredi 30 Novembre 2011
19:00 Archifictions
17h30 : projection / 19h : Benoît Peeters avec François Schuiten, Philippe Rahm et Didier Faustino
Vendredi 9 Décembre 2011
19:00 Chris Ware, inventeur
18h30 : projection / 19h : Benoît Peeters avec Chris Ware, Jacques Samson et Walter Hus

Let’s read more about two or threes of these debates:

Voyages immobiles (Motionless voyages), on Nov. 9th

“On est devenu soi-même imperceptible et clandestin dans un voyage immobile. Plus rien ne peut se passer, ni s’être passé”

“One has become imperceptible and clandestine in a motionless voyage. Nothing can happen, or can have happened, any longer”

Deleuze, Guattari “Mille Plateaux” (A thousand Plateaus).

A dialogue with photographer et videomaker Marie-Françoise Plissart (“Droit de regards ; Kinshasa, la ville invisible”), with poet and art critic Stéphane Lambert (essays: “L’Adieu au paysage. Les Nymphéas de Claude Monet”, and “Mark Rothko. Rêver de ne pas être”), and author and filmaker Olivier Smolders (“Mort à Vignole, La part de l’ombre”)

The debate will be preceded by the projection of Atomium in/out, by Marie-Françoise Plissart, and of “Voyage autour de ma chambre“, by Olivier Smolders, (about 26′)

Archifictions , on Nov. 30th

Architecture supplies the literature (“Species of Spaces” by Georges Perec, “House of Leaves” by Mark Z. Danielewski), cinema, comics, art. Sometimes she even stops to materialize in order to be pure fiction. Benoît Peeters will meet François Schuiten (designer of Les Cités Obscures (Cities of the Fantastic) albums and stage designer), Philippe Rahm (artist and architect) and Didier Faustino (artist and architect).

Meeting preceded, at 5.30 pm, by the projections of Urbicande, by Simone Bücher and by movies on Rahm and Didier Faustino.

Chris Ware, inventor, on Dec. 9th

Chris Ware, author of the graphic novel Jimmy Corrigan, is probably today one of the most innovative comic authors. Quebec critic Quebec Jacques Samson (specialist of his work, author of “Chris Ware, la Bande dessinée reinventée“), the Flemish composer Walter Hus (who prepares an opera adapted from Jimmy Corrigan) and Benoît Peeters will discuss with him.