As Slow As Possible (AV Festival 2012)


AV Festival 12 : As Slow As Possible 
International Festival of Art, Technology, Music and Film
Newcastle, Gateshead, Middlesbrough and Sunderland (UK) 1st - 31st March 2012 [PDF] website


In the run-up to London 2012 with its motto of “Faster, Higher, Stronger” we propose an alternative slower pace and relaxed rhythm to counter the accelerated speed of today.
Titled after ASLSP (As SLow aS Possible) by pioneering artist John Cage, the theme explores how artists have stretched, measured and marked the passage of time. Some works last the full 31 days, others are infinite in duration or move imperceptibly slowly: 14 seconds become 31 minutes, one hour becomes 24, and we can all dream together in a 12-hour sleep concert


Century of Birthing (2011/Lav Diaz/The Philippines)


Slow Cinema is a series of over thirty landmark films from leading international filmmakers, focused around slowness, and interwoven through AV Festival 12.
From early pioneers to new releases, Slow Cinema presents films devoted to stillness, contemplation and the everyday. Providing a retreat from conventional cinematic speed, they create a more relaxed rhythm, heightening awareness of every minute and second spent watching them. In contrast to other first-release festivals, the curated focus of AV Festival brings a critical framework and focus to this important area, and the time and space for each film to breathe.

Projections :
  • Fred Kelemen: Fate / VerhaengnisFrost;  Nightfall / Abendland
  • Lisandro Alonso: La LibertadLos MuertosLiverpool
  • Lav Diaz: Elegy To The Visitor From The RevolutionMelancholiaCentury of BirthingButterflies Have No Memories
  • Ben Rivers: Slow ActionTwo Years At Sea
  • Bela Tarr: The Turin Horse
  • Fergus Daly & Katherine Waugh: The Art of Time
  • James Benning: Nightfall 
  • Sharon Lockhart: Double Tide 
  • Andrei Tarkovsky: Stalker
  • Alexander Sokurov: Russian Ark
  • Cristi Puiu: Aurora
  • Abbas Kiarostami: Five
  • Richard Fenwick: Exhaustion
  • Nuri Bilge Ceylan: Once Upon a Time in Anatolia
  • Bruno Dumont: Hors Satan
  • Pedro Costa: Colossal Youth
  • Albert Serra: Honor of the Knights
  • Sergio Caballero: Finisterrae
  • Pablo Giorgelli: Las Acacias
  • Carlos Reygadas: Stellet Licht
  • Rirkrit Tiravanija: Lung Neaw Visits His Neighbours
  • Jia Zhang-ke: Still Life
  • Sivaroj Kongsakul: Eternity
  • Apichatpong Weerasethakul: Syndromes and a Century
  • Kim Ki Duk: Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter… and Spring 
  • Raya Martin: Independicia
  • Ben Russell: Let Each One Go Where He May



Taking its point of departure from this year's AV Festival theme As Slow As Possible (after John Cage), this symposium seeks to investigate how we might activate temporal concepts which are resistant to those normalized in mainstream commercially driven cultural forms.
How are artists, composers or musicians exploring Time in ways that often utilize the latest digital technologies but also challenge their conventional deployment? The subject of 'Slowness', albeit in its most varied manifestations embracing multiple non-linear 'speeds' and rhythms (and thus refusing any simplistic polarization with 'speed' as such), will provide a central theme for the panel discussion, and ideas relating to how Time can be multiplied, diversified, folded and suspended in contemporary art and culture will also be examined.

Panels :
  • As slow As Possible symposium (1st March 2012): Eric Alliez, Paul Morley, Laura Cull, John Mullarkey, Katherine Waugh, Rebecca Shatwell
  • Slow Cinema Discussion (9 March 2012): Fred Kelemen, Lav Diaz, Lisandro Alonso, Ben Rivers, Jonathan Romney, George Clark, Matthew Flanagan 

Articles :


Webcast :



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Unspoken Cinema resource  :

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