GRID, 2021
a film by Alexandre Alagôa
Unfolding from the experimental tradition of structural film, GRID (2021) amplifies a vertiginous world through a detailed and obsessive movement of the camera pushing against a grid shape on a concrete wall, along the submerged corridors of an abandoned building. The whole film is made from a thorough and exhaustive manipulation of more than 10.000 still frames, taken daily and captured equally during each month through the course of 4 years, so revealing the different natural and atmospheric qualities specific to every season. This persistent repetition in exploring different camera movements along the space in such a long period of time reveals subtle changes in the intensity of the sunlight, interplays of shadows caused by the moving clouds, seasonal transformations of humidity and dirt, unveiling, at once, not only one, but an infinite amount of buildings, so consequently and exhaustively enhancing the possibilities to invest on the experimentation of the camera movement, of the speed of the still-frames, and the rhythm of the montage. A state of entropy is triggered — a ritual of grids, reflections and chasms; a space that devours itself; a vertigo that destroys the gravity of the Earth; a trap that captures us inside the voids of the screen of light: «That blank arena wherein converge at once the hundred spaces» (Hollis Frampton).
festivals & exhibitions:
2023, Light Matter, Cinemateca del Ecuador
2022, La Parceria, Madrid, Spain
2022, Ateneu del Raval, Barcelona, Spain
2022, Light Matter Film Festival, Alfred University, New York, USA
2022, Monstra à Solta, Centro de Artes e Espectáculo de Portalegre, Portugal
2022, Prémios / Awards, Faculty of Fine Arts of Lisbon, Portugal
2022, International Short Film Festival of Cyprus, Cyprus
2022, Animatou, Genève, Switzerland
2022, Ibrida Festival, Forli, Italy
2022, Festival International du Film de Nancy, France
2022, Bogotá Experimental Film Festival, Colombia
2022, Festival Ecrã, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
2022, What You See Is What You Get, Den Haag, The Netherlands
2022, Pan-Cinema Experimental, Curitiba’s Cinematheque, Brasil
2022, Monstra à Solta, Maus Hábitos, Porto, Portugal
2022, Short Waves, Poznán, Poland
2022, Vienna Shorts, Vienna, Austria
2022, Experimental Film East Anglia, Norwich, United Kingdom
2022, Video Art Projects, Thessaloniki, Greece
2022, Festival Oodaaq, Rennes, France
2022, Kurzfilmtage Oberhausen, Germany
2022, S/ Título: Quer Curtas Ou Não, Corrente, Lisbon, Portugal
2022, Milwaukee Underground Film Festival, Milwaukee, USA
2022, Go Short, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
2022, Monstra, Lisboa, Portugal
2022, Videoformes, Clermont-Ferrand, France
2021, Festival Tous Courts, Aix-en-Provence, France
2021, Transient Visions, Spool Contemporary, Johnson City, NY, USA
2021, Cairo Video Festival, Egypt
2021, Over the Real, Lucca, Italy
2021, La Villa en Court 2, Villa Rohannec’h, Saint Brieuc, France
2021, Concept, CICA Museum, Korea
2021, This Is Where We Are Right Now, Aggregate Gallery, California, USA
2021, Vienna Shorts, Vienna, Austria
2021, Flatpack, London, UK
2021, Split Video Art Festival, Split, Croatia
2021, Strangloscope Festival, Brazil, Online Event
about the author:
Alexandre Alagôa (1994) is an experimental filmmaker and electronic music producer working between Lisbon and Luxembourg.
Alagôa’s film and video work explores the mechanical, material and durational qualities of the audiovisual medium, and its immediate physical and kinetic impact on the viewer’s nervous system, often shattering the senses of vision and hearing into new sensible and obscure realms. Following a continuous research on conceptual art, the fluxus movement, and the structrural filmmaking approach, along with a constant curiosity on scientific issues on perception and psychology, Alagôa’s audiovisual pieces unfold into layered experiences often evoking optical illusions (such as the waterfall effect), studies on the physiology of the eye (such as phosphenes, after-images, purkinje trees and other entoptic phenomena) and synaesthetic sensations in order to destabilize, breakdown and (re)organize perceptual experience to its core elements, often inducing bodily and mental dispositions, at the same time leading the viewer to an awareness of their act of seeing and hearing.
technical specs:
Digital Video, 3:2, Black & White, Stereo Sound, 14'00''
awards:
20awards & honorable mentions
2022, Honorable Mention, Animatou, Genève, Switzerland
2022, BEST EDITING AWARD, EFEA: Experimental Film East Anglia
2022, BEST INTERNATIONAL FILM, EFEA: Experimental Film East Anglia
2022, JURY AWARD, Milwaukee Underground Film Festival
2021, GRAND PRIX: BEST FILM, Split VideoArt Festival
collections:
BnL: Bibliothèque National du Luxembourg, Luxembourga
distribution:
produced and distributed by turva
full film available online: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3mdmkqI14dM