After 1968: The Economy of Resistance

Regarded as a defining moment in the twentieth century, we mark 50 years since 1968 by exploring cultural expression in an age of crisis, through international artists’ films, documentaries, clips, 16mm works and much more, alongside readings and discussion.

‘It is when you have done your work honestly, when you have contributed your share to the common fund, that you begin to live. Then, as Whitman said, you can take out your soul.’- Eugene Debs

Why –

1968 promised so much. A global insurrection, its example remains. However, the long tail of that protest epiphany has swept much of the year’s revolutionary potential under the late capitalist carpet. Faced with catastrophic threats on numerous fronts, life can often impossible at worst, an act of great enduring at best.

But an understanding of the constantly dynamic relationship between labour, leisure and resistance in both spheres can reveal hidden potentials often lost on first glance. Half a century since we first came face to face en masse with the ‘spectacle’ of capital, it is now time to realise that the first tool in a systemic analysis and its accompanying alternatives is the ability to look differently.

Who –

Louis Benassi is one of our finest celluloid agitational artist film-makers, working in single screen and installationally with multiple projectors. Former programmer of the experimental film section of Edinburgh International Film Festival, a collaborator with Jonas Mekas and many others, a curator, producer and event organiser, he is a pivotal member of an international network of engaged celluloid artists.

In this programme, his extensive work is shown alongside numerous collaborators, fellow travellers and activist associates, including Ben Rivers, Mike Dibb, Lilly Jacobs, Lijana Jakovlevna Siuchina, Susu Laroche, Bea Haut, Jane Fredericks, Joslyn Willauer, Evi Kalogiropoulou and Schtinter, to name only a few.

What –

40 short films in all forms, from celluloid to digital, made to found, old and new, borrowed and far from blue, but red in frame and lens: artist films drawing from the shards, fragments and detritus of commodity culture, to radically reframe its possibilities. These are works of salvage, rafts in a sea of social and financial distress. They are both warning shots and lighthouses. Nothing is true; everything is permitted.

There are also live performances by Sophie Cameron, Hector Castells-Matutano, Dean Todd, Joe Latimer, recorded readings by Stephen Watts, songs and anti-competition giveaways in the spirit of the themes.

A limited edition pamphlet designed and printed by Lilly Jacobs will be available to those attending this event.

This event is followed the same evening by a Whitechapel Gallery off-site screening at Close Up Film Centre. ‘After ’68: There are Three Ways to Resist but the Enemy is One’ features 16mm triptychs to excite, incite and agitate the mind, body and spirit of the self and the collective.

After 68 is a time and place that never ends… On Sunday TRAVEL in its spirit and with some of its personnel on a package holiday to the end of time . . . http://purge.xxx/purge-projects/a-purge-package-holiday/