Imago Mundi: Challenging what is accepted

The film Imago Mundi re-stages a 17th century still life – bringing its symbolic criticism of religious and secular power structures into line with those of a post-colonial, neo-liberal and globalising world. It does so in order to propose a re-reading of both the representation of politics and the politics of representation. Leading us on an excursion through the layers of symbols, work processes and the art forms of film, photography, dance, theatre, music and literature it uncovers the normative parameters that form the invisible or unacknowledged cultural cage in which we spend most of our time. In the interaction of political discussion, art forms and levels of meaning the film is a text which can be read as part of a discourse on political art and political activism. –www.amourfou.at

Producing art, producing a discourse, producing a(n altered) worldview; the movement carried through by Lisl Ponger’s Imago Mundi – Challenging what is accepted comprises a mutual reflection of these three areas, and, more significantly, interventions to effect changes in their position in the constellation. First of all there is the production of art, seven classical art forms to be precise, which the film presents examples of and interweaves. Beginning with a Vanitas still life, “The Knight’s Dream” by Spanish Baroque painter Antonio de Pereda (mid-17th century), music, dance, theatre, literature, photography and film follow, either inspired directly by, or loosely associated with, the still life. Film takes the form of a synthetic wrap incorporating all the others. If the starting point is the arrangement of a tableau vivant for a photo shoot (Ponger’s contemporary reconstruction of Pereda’s painting), numerous other set pieces are woven into this initial text: the composition of a piano work, a scene from Büchner’s Woyzeck, a passage being read from Dimitri Dinev’s novel Engelszungen (Angel’s Tongues). What may seem on the surface to be a re-enactment of random elements from Europe’s cultural heritage produces, when placed in context, a metamorphic image of a line of thought critical of representation and relating equally to various eras and genres. The rest of Imago Mundi.- Challenging what is accepted turns out to be thoroughly ‘transformational’ too. The film stages contributions to a discourse relating to criticism of the current uses and abuses of power in the form of a symposium (with a banquet afterwards). The portrayal, however, does not obscure its own reproductive nature. On the other hand, just how important the ever-new approaches of the change-effecting gesture is, is demonstrated by the cathartic final act. The (world)view composed in minute detail beforehand disintegrates into fragments and splinters; a ‘way of seeing’ feels its way towards traces which might point the way to the future. (Christian Höller) Translation: Steve Wilder / Tim Sharp –www.filmvideo.at

Festivals:

Documenta XII, Kassel (16.6. – 23.9.2007)
Calcutta – India International Women Film Festival (9. – 17. 12. 2007)
dokumentART Film & Video Festival Neubrandenburg (D) / Szczecin (PL) ( 22. – 27. 09. 2007)
FID Marseille (4. 7. – 9. 7. 2007)
Diagonale (19. 3. – 25. 3. 2007)