• Level Five is a cooperative studio for and by artists. We collectively organise and take care of our spaces and the people making use of them. In this way we create a durable foundation for each of our artistic practices and initiatives.

Level Five is a cooperative studio for and by artists. We collectively organise and take care of our spaces and the people making use of them. In this way we create a durable foundation for each of our artistic practices and initiatives.

Blue Screen #3: Anouchka Oler

In the Blue Screen programs we dive deeper into the practice of a specific visual artist working with video or film. In conversation with the invited artist, Chloé Malcotti and Emma van der Put react on the work with a selection of short films by other filmmakers. The invited artist then proposes a next guest for the following program. In this way, the selection of the artists in focus derives from a dialogue with the previous guests and is thereby aspiring to create new encounters within different art scenes.

This evening we will look into the videos and performances of Anouchka Oler. Her work can be seen as desperate attempts to affect and understand the Other. Taking the shape of a magic show, stand-up comedy routine and experimental philosophy, Oler’s joyous practice consists in composing a community of interdependent beings, who all seem to be going through some sort of perpetual existential crisis. The spectator is invited to take part in speculative narratives, discussing topics such as affects, collective living, experimental ways of life, material environment and their interactions. Humans, sculptures and objects are given the rare opportunity to examine these topics both on the surface and in depth.

First we will start with Anouchka Oler’s work ‘Episode 2’ (2014) in which we see a group of decorative or utilitarian sculptures contesting, questioning or refusing the functions that are normally assigned to them. The film considers their usefulness not only from a functional, but also from a social standpoint, to the extent that the objects play specific roles for the person that exploits them. In the second part of the evening Anouchka Oler will present her new performance film ‘All Insure, All Unsure’ (2020), a conversation between Lucky and Drama More : Lucky is a Leo, Scorpio rising with a Capricorn moon, Drama More is a Taurus Gemini Cancer. Their conflicting birth charts bring Drama and Lucky to have a divergent conversation regarding doubt, leading to contemplations and digressions which are opening up a way to tell other stories.

In dialogue with the work of Anouchka Oler, we will connect two short films by Martha Rosler and Segundo de Chomón.