Stefan Panhans
Freeroam À Rebours, Mod#I.1
Artist | Stefan Panhans |
Year | 2016 |
Duration | 16:09 min |
Technical info | 4k Video, Single Channel |
Contact | |
About the video
»Freeroam À Rebours, Mod#I.1« operates at the overlap of experimental film, music video clip, performance and contemporary dance forms. In collaboration with a choreographer who is investigating in avatar movements since a while, and a team of performers (dancers and actors), the film takes its starting point from forms of insufficiency in the behaviour of humanoid avatars in computer games.
These ‘deficiency scenarios’ are translated back into real bodies, and restaged by the perfomers in existing and staged indoor and outdoor spaces. Particular focus is on the phenomenon of seemingly ‘deficient’, minor or major displacement activities, anomalies, irregularities, idle runs and repetitions in the behaviour and movement patterns of the game characters. If we all actually are more and more trimmed to the highest levels of self-optimization with its flip side of depression and addiction, the unintentional passivation of the figures in the computer game formulates an almost utopian content. By restaging and transforming these failure scenarios of avatar aesthetics with human performers the project exemplifies a kind of practicing insufficiency ‚from within’ and embraces the defects of the algorithmic machine instead of longing for its perfection.
Being deeply embedded in the movie’s motion choreography the camera movement is evolved in direct collaboration with the choreography and, alike the editing process, generates references to the aesthetics and motion patterns of action-based computer games. The clip is accompanied by a digitally composed soundtrack which together with the editing forms the propulsive, rhythmically structured montage, and partly unfolds in a staged set that is based on two estranged versions of a retail space in a computer game.
Credits
Produced and Directed by:
Stefan Panhans, 2016
Concept: Kathrin Busch, Stefan Panhans
Director of Photography:
Lilli Thalgott, Eike Zuleeg
Production Design:
Andrea Winkler
Choreography:
Mirjam Sögner
Editing:
Lilli Thalgott
Music:
Kirsten Reese
Performing, in order of appearance:
Judith Nagel
Lisa-Marie Janke
Anne Ratte-Polle
Matteo Ceccarelli
Ixchel Mendoza Hernandez
Gyung Moo Kim
Olivia Hyunsin Kim
Zwoisaint Boliver Patricia Mears-Clarke
Hannes Wegener
Camera Operators:
Lilli Thalgott, Eike Zuleeg, Florian Winkler
Phone Cam and Screer Recordings:
Kathrin Busch, Stefan Panhans, Lilli Thalgott, Andrea Winkler
Light:
Lilli Thalgott, Eike Zuleg
Assistant Director:
Andrea Winkler
2nd Assistant Director:
Simone Bogner
Set Manager:
Kathrin Busch
Casting:
Stefan Panhans, Mirjam Sögner
Costume:
Andrea Winkler
Make Up and Wardrobe:
Muriel Nestler
Postproduction:
Wolfgang Oelze
Funded by
Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg
and through the generous support of Bernd and Ingeborg Kahnert, Monika Schnetkamp
Special thanks to
Irene von Alberti, Angela Schubot, Björn Melhus, Olaf Stüber, Ivo Wessel, fluentum collection, Reinhard Braun, Sabine Himmelsbach, Kathrin Becker, Inke Arns, Nora Sdun, Sebastian Reuss, Anita Beckers, Maike Mia Höhne, Clarissa Thieme, Andrea Schneider, Jacopo Miliani, Jelka Plate, Eike Böttcher, John von Bergen, Stefanie Seufert, Jens Rochner, deliveroo