// Date: September 16, 2009
// Time: 9PM
// Duration: ca. 70 min

// Language_Sprache: Deutsch oder Englisch -- je nach der Public. German or English -- depending on the public.

Double-Presentation (talk and screening)
of short and documentation films by Stephane Leonard and Shintaro Miyazaki
 
STEPHANE LEONARD: CONEY ISLAND, USA
DVD / PAL / 20 MIN
 
While living in New York, Coney Island for me was a retreat place where I could find strength and inspiration or just distraction before returning to Manhattan´s concrete jungle. In my numerous visits during different seasons and time of day I mostly took a camera with me to make short sketches which are now the basis of this film. I was mostly interested in the Off-Season (low season) when the fun fair and all the rides were closed and the beaches were empty. Only then I really became aware of the historical meaning and weirdness of this place.
 
Coney Islands unbelievable and impressive history is still quite clearly perceptible these days. On the pier the poorest of the poor live and fish and in the dark backroads behind the carousels one can still buy weapons and drugs. In summer this is hardly visible for the tourists, between all those colored lamps, Hot Dog and Burgershops, roller coasters and freak shows, so that one gets the feeling of a "normal“ bathing resort. However, in winter a sad emptiness of this former "No Go area", mexican and african-american workers who scantily repair the park trying to keep it in good condition, are the only ones left.

Nowadays strange entertainment shows and artists slowly seem to return to Coney Island - a tolerant place, with a lot of options and possibilities
Overpopulation and emptiness alternate like money and poverty, fresh color and weather erosion, blinking lights and grey everyday life.

In my film I am trying to show the changes and inconstancy of this place focussing on the Off-Season and a typical night in the main season. Besides, not only the portrait of a place, but also a study about the people in Coney Island and therefore about american culture in general originates. Tourists and locals, beggars, children, sportsmen, illegal and legal immigrants appear like actors in a film about the human highs and lows. Tensely the camera listens in a waiting posture, often from the frog (rabbit) perspective, to the conversations and the soundtrack which completely composed itself out of the atmospheric sounds of this place.


SHINTARO MIYAZAKI: AlgoRYHTHMS everywhere
digitally stored audiovisual documentation material / 27 MIN

Algorhythm is an alternative word formation by Shintaro Miyazaki, which combined the words ALGORITHM and RHYTHM. An algorithm is a finite sequence of step-by-step instructions, a procedure for solving a problem, often used in computers as programms or in everyday life as cooking recipes. Rhythm on the otherside is defined since the ancient greek philosopher Plato as a time based order of movement. Everybody knows the rhythm of his heart or enjoys music.

Algorhythms occur when real matter is controlled by symbolic structures like instructions written as code. Algorhythms show us that our digital culture is not immaterial, but divided in time. Time + music becomes important for understanding media. With enough scientific effort the invisible electronic or electromagnetic (wireless) signals can be made hearable. Listening to those digitally modulated signals, you can hear the rhythmic character of the signals of most digitally working devices and also of wireless consumer electronic networks like WLAN, GSM, UMTS, Bluetooth, digital TV and Radio et cetera.

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stephaneleonard.net

www.algorhythmics.net