Meet the dinosaurs of blockbuster cinema, the ghosts of colonial history and reflect on mortality with Serpentine Cinema: a screening of films by artists Anna Zett and Rachel Rose.
The screening included the première of Anna Zett’s modern research drama This Unwieldy Object (47min), in which the animated dinosaurs of blockbuster cinema meet the petrified ghosts of colonial history. The film follows a protagonist, driven by the search of a prehistory object, confronting bone hunters, fossil traders and palaeontologists. This Unwieldy Object sees dig sites becoming crime scenes and dinosaur fossils turn into characters playing an active part in the history of the US-American West.
Rachel Rose’s work addresses how we define mortality. In this programme, Rose presented two of her most recent films. A Minute Ago (8min 43sec) is a rhythmic juxtaposition of a violent hailstorm interrupting a sunny day at the beach and a rotoscoped revisit to architect Philip Johnson’s Glass House in Connecticut. Meanwhile, Palisades in Palisades (9min 27sec) uses a remote-control lens and a precise trompe-l’œil editing technique to link a girl standing on the banks of the Hudson river to different moments in the landscape’s history.
Supported by Pilar Corrias Gallery.
Rachel Rose lives and works in New York. Recent exhibitions and screenings include: Taipei Biennial – The Great Acceleration, curated by Nicolas Bourriaud, Taipei (2014); Rachel Rose spotlight, Migrating Forms at BAM, New York (2014) Phantom Limbs, Pilar Corrias, London (2014); Chance Motives, SculptureCenter, New York (2013); Geographies of Contamination, David Roberts Art Foundation, London (2013) and Uncanny Valleys, Electronic Arts Intermix, New York (2013).
Anna Zett is a filmmaker and writer, born in Leipzig and living in Berlin. The visual outcomes of her subjective and analytical inquiries into the dramaturgy of science are presented at galleries, conferences and film festivals. Her essay film debut This Unwieldy Object is partly based on her MA thesis titled MONSTERS OF MODERNITY (University of Humboldt, 2012) where she discussed the politics of animation in US-American dinosaur film. The film premiered as an online live stream as part of the Extinction Marathon at the Serpentine Galleries, London, in October 2014.
