NORWICH.- AURORA is a uniquely multidisciplinary, artist-orientated and resolutely ambitious festival based in Norwich which focuses on the manipulated moving image via film programmes, discussion events, installation work and live performance.
Under the theme The Infinite Measure, this year's festival (12 16 November) looks at uncertainty, impermanence, the meditative and sublime in the moving image. Featuring guest programmes with major artists Robert Beavers, Barbara Sternberg, Patrick and Michle Bokanowski and Michael Robinson; new installation work; guest- and self-curated thematic film programmes; live performance; discussion events and the best new work from across the world, this year's festival is an essential date in the international calendar for artists, students, critics and public alike.
Guest curators Thomas Beard (Light Industry, New York) and Binna Choi (Casco, Utrecht) present thematic programmes which refer to the festival theme, whilst as part of a special screening and discussion event, writers and filmmakers Iain Sinclair (Lights Out for the Territory); Chris Petit (Radio On); Grant Gee (Joy Division) discuss the 'physical measure' of the Norfolk landscape itself, together with filmmaker Emily Richardson, whose new film Cobra Mist, which explores the eerie ex-military landscape of Orford Ness, is showing in installation form at the festival.
An extensive programme of discussion events and Meet the Artist sessions as part of the festival's Forum strand provide opportunities to meet artists, including events which look at the photographic 'ongoing moment', with Jo Lanyon (Picture This, Bristol) and filmmaker Cordelia Swann amongst others. Guest artist Robert Beavers, a major figure in the US avant-garde movement, will conduct a unique Study Day session exploring his work in greater depth with curator Mark Webber a rare opportunity, and the first such event the artist has conducted in the UK. Elsewhere in the Forum strand, filmmaker and composer Patrick and Michle Bokanowski, whose celebrated feature film L'Ange was once described in Cahiers du Cinema as 'A 2001 produced under the same conditions as Eraserhead' will also speak about their work in a screentalk session.
New work at the festival includes installations by artists RJ Hinrichsen, Elizabeth McAlpine, Vicki Thornton, Karen Gaskill and Audhild Dahlstrm and a film competition which presents the best new artists' films and music videos from across the world, selected from over 1,200 submissions to the festival. The winning films, announced on Sunday 16 November, are to be selected by an international jury which includes writer Sukhdev Sandhu, curator Edwin Carels and artists Michael Robinson and Laure Prouvost.
The programme doesn't stop at the cinema, with live events every evening during the festival with New York-based experimental musician Aki Onda, rising star of electronica Mira Calix, percussion collective Powerplant and a rare performance by Roger Eno as well as previews of the new Channel 4 Animate films, feature films, parties and more.
