Different Systems of Chaos
Anya Lewin, Steven Eastwood
Anya Lewin is an artist, organizer of events, and educator. She has a crush on narrative but is not sure how narrative feels about her. She has made installations, performances, single channel videotapes, essays, and work for the web environment. Her work has been exhibited internationally in such places as Beijing, Belfast, Cuba, New York, London, Paris, San Francisco and Siberia. She was the founder and programmer of Cornershop, a cross-arts gallery and performance space in Buffalo, NY that ran from 1997 to 2000. She has most recently curated Another Cinema, a series of screen based events which challenge traditional notions of cinema, and Hybrid Discourse (co-curated with Joasia Krysa) – a series of events investigating digital media in the context of the Culture Industry. This has led to DATA browser a series of readers on the intersections of art and technology to be published with Autonomedia. (http://www.data-browser.net ) She lives in England and is a lecturer and researcher at the University of Plymouth.
Steven Eastwood is a filmmaker whose practice spans artists film/video, fiction and documentary. His film works have screened nationally and internationally at arts cinemas, galleries and festivals including the ICA, BAFTA (The Grierson Awards), The Edinburgh Film Festival, UPLINK Arts factory Tokyo, Catalyst Arts in Belfast, the Lux Centre and Lux Open, Anthology Film Archives NYC and the Cube Cinema in Bristol. His latest short film, 'Of Camera', seeks to exploit the many intricate devices involved in film narrative, construction and presentation. It is an attempt to expand the notion of 'performing', to intervene in the process of filmmaking and to extend the language of film and tape. 'Of Camera' recently screened at the ICA London, Brief Encounters Festival, Bristol, Raindance East Festival, London and Osnabruck Media Arts Festival, Germany. Previous films include: 'Different Systems of Chaos (2003), The End (2002), Those Who Are Jesus (2002), I Make Things Happen (2001), Maldoror Chapter Seven: The Spectator of Outrageous Contortion (2000). His films have been signed to ATOM films, entered into the BFI archive and distributed widely.
27:00, Color, Stereo, GB, 2003
Lewin, Eastwood: Different Systems...
What happens when you put together Belarus president Alexander Lukashenko, a Lithuanian art school for 12 to 18 year olds, and the BBC? In April of 2003 a four-day collaborative performance took place at the Alytaus Dailes Mokykla art school. Over the duration the Director of the school (artist Redas Dirzys) performed as the Director of the school, the teachers portrayed teachers, the students acted as students, and two visitors with video cameras played the role of broadcasters. Different Systems of Chaos is a playful examination of the role of bureaucracy in education and art. It is a film about the artist versus the administrator, about soviet and post soviet Eastern Europe, and about an artist who never wanted to repeat anything, not even for the BBC.
