Panel Real Cinema, Part 2: Gerard Holthuis

Film bears a specific relation to reality, but the reality effect of film is not necessarily connected to the fact that film is a record or reality. A theorist and a filmmaker present their highly personal views on ‘real cinema’.Arjen Mulder: What’s Real about FilmGerard Holthuis: The Art of ChatterArjen Mulder’s (NL) position is that film’s special effect has nothing to do with the ‘special effects’ served up to us on celluloid. Movement may be the essence of film, but its effect on the viewer is an unfathomable silence. He calls this feeling of silence and stillness at the heart of the event ‘extramedia’, because it defies every attempt to record it in a particular medium – image, word or sound. You cannot capture the extramedia, but you can cause it to appear. Writer and theoretician Arjen Mulder has a background in biology. He has written several books on media art and the relation between technical media, physical experience and belief systems. Recent publications of his are Understanding Media Theory (2004) and De vrouw voor wie Cesare Pavese zelfmoord pleegde (2005).Gerard Holthuis (NL) started as sculptor and switched to moving image and sound at the Free Academy in The Hague. During the 1980s he worked as editor, cameraman and production manager. He was co-founder of the Filmstad Foundation, a workshop for experimental filmmakers. The last few years he has worked on his cyclus Careless Reef in which he films the underwater landscape in a way that transforms our perception. He concentrates on the image and on seeing in a time when the chatter about art seems to dominate. This talk was part of the panel 'Real Cinema', held on 24 February, 2008.