19 November @ 20.00 (doors open @ 19.00)
In the 1960s, the Norwegian filmmaker Erik Borge argued the need for more “free artistic short films” in Norway, which he defined as “the deviant product – the strange, the difficult, the angry”.
The Deviant Product is a series of screenings around Norway investigating the ambiguous space between art and film, and asking what kinds of deviance and dissent we should be looking for in moving images today. Guests are invited to nominate works they consider important, in some way, for renewing a conversation about alternative and experimental film in a Norwegian context.
This Stavanger edition is an end-of-2022 season finale for this year’s series with two special guests, local artists Cory Arcangel and Anna Ihle (who will be fresh from opening her show at Kraft, Bergen the night before). Cory will be presenting a short clip of legendary multimedia artist’s Nam June Paik robot in action, while Anna has chosen Helsinki-based artist Flis Holland’s recent video Subserotic Bulge. Mike Sperlinger, the director of PRISMS, has nominated the final element of the programme: a live performance by another local artist, Anette Gellein, which she first presented as part of the previous Deviant Product event in Tromsø.
After the screening Anette, Anna and Cory will be in conversation with Mike about the works.
Program
I Always Liked The Sedative Effect Of Flowers
Anette Gellein
c. 20 mins
A brand-new text-based performance building on Anette’s film-in-progress, based on her research into vocal and pedal effects.
“I have always liked flowers. For no reason whatsoever. They are beautiful, mystical, tactile and nasty if you look close. But the truth is that I don’t know anything about them. Neither do I care enough to study them. Still I love them, superficially, but it’s ok. Like butterflies, I love them too. Some things can be just that, just your own version of itself. I don’t even know where these flowers came from. I woke up from a bad dream and suddenly they were in my hands. This total disconnection is beauty, it’s synthetic. It’s fake.”
Subserotic Bulge
Flis Holland
(2021, 18 mins, Finland)
In 2019 an iron meteorite was filed to dust, stirred into cream, and fed to 36 people. Flis’s uterus was rife with tumours soon after. Their belly swelled as a fleshy block pushed its way out at astonishing speed. From the first poke of a finger, to WebMD, to x-rays, every diagnostic tool came up short. But Flis’s telling of it is rather different to the medical notes. The video asks about diagnosis, and how certain people’s testimony is dismissed as unreliable. From meteorite falls to trans experiences of the medical system, it’s a documentary that slips into sci-fi – and it’s not always clear which part is which.
Living with the Living Theater (extract)
Nam June Paik
(1989, 3 mins)
Korean-born artist Nam June Paik was a seminal figure in video art. His video sculptures, installations, performances and single-channel videos encompassed one of the most influential bodies of work in electronic media art.
In this rarely-seen clip, a robot designed by Paik takes its first steps into the unsuspecting streets of New York.