Session fifty-five, Illegal_Cinema

Film screening proposed by Camila Téllez, followed by discussion.

Rock My Religion (Dan Graham, 1982-1984, 55 min)

At first, I was looking for a film which would give us a way to think about images and the contradiction in them, and also the close relationship between eye and eyelid – a membrane which hydrates in a reflex action that frees us from what we see in an act of will. As simple as moving our own skin between the light and our pupils that absorb it. I was searching for a film that, like the eyelid, would break up its own image and the belief that still seems so established… because it’s always about breaking up images.

Then I re-encountered Rock My Religion, Dan Graham’s unusual documentary, and found it seemed to contain the possibility of the whites of the eye, eyes rolling, looking backwards, seeking a different relationship to the eyelids and visuality.

Rock My Religion will be screened in English with “simultaneous interpretation”.

Dan Graham (Illinois, USA, 1942). Catalogued as an artist and multi-faceted investigator because of the wide variety of formats he has worked with. Generally linked to Minimalism and Conceptualism. Currently living in New York.

Camila Téllez (Santiago, Chile, 1982). Artist, investigator, intruder and nomad.