Amber Gibson interviewed me about humour, performance, technology and gesture in her ongoing series that profiles artists working at ACMIX.
![](http://web.archive.org./web/20240831075432im_/https://emilezile.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Screen-Shot-2022-10-11-at-11.25.23.png)
Emile Zile is an artist, filmmaker and performer.
20 JULY 2022. MISCELLANIA 2/401 SWANSTON ST MELBOURNE VIC.
Curated by Mark Andrejevic, Laura McLean, and Joel Stern, this free experimental program at Miscellania club features artists, musicians, writers and researchers thinking with and against the logic of digital automation, algorithmic culture, and AI in order to trouble and subvert systems that extract, aggregate, model, and predict.
With performances and presentations by Monica Lim, Sean Dockray, Mara MacDonald, Vaughan Wozniek O’Connor, Roslyn Orlando, Emile Zile, Zacharius Szumer, Jathan Sadowski, Tom Smith, Sahej Rahal, Shareeka Helaluddin, Karen Ann Donnachie and Andy Simionato.
Logical Conclusions/Automation Effects is part of the 2022 ADM+S Symposium ‘Automated Societies: What Do We Need To Know?’ showcasing the Centre’s distinctive cross- and multi-disciplinary approach to automated systems and exploring a range of critical current and emerging problems, challenges, and conceptual questions.
Logical Conclusions/Automation Effects is presented by the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society and Liquid Architecture.
Entering the final stretch of my practice-based PhD at Digital Ethnography Research Center RMIT. Presentation to outside assessor occurred on 5 July 2021, no revisions required.
Next steps;
– Revise and rewrite chapters on public performance works ‘4500 Lumens’, ‘Audience / Performer / Lens (after Dan Graham)’, ‘Becoming The Icon’
– Write concluding chapter and refine introduction chapter
– Confirm public screening and talk in late 2021 at ACMI Cinemas
Becoming The Icon is a film in which the language of power manifests in familiar yet uncanny ways. Echoing the rhythms of political speech and gesture, artists Lilian Steiner and Emile Zile reveal the ways in which truth and conviction are more than abstract concepts, instead finding surprising roots in our embodied experience.
As debate and propaganda, intimidation and manipulation are all played out through posture, stance and gesture, the secret vocabulary of power is made apparent.
Both intimate and distanced, Becoming The Icon invites you into a seductive realm with a hidden agenda.
Becoming The Icon is the feature project of BLEED between 17 August – 30 August. New works and content will be going live throughout the feature dates.
https://www.li-ma.nl/lima/news/unfold-audienceperformermirror
On the 15th of January 2020 LIMA invites Keren Cytter, Jan Robert Leegte and Emile Zile to present their version of Dan Graham’s performance and video work Audience/Performer/Mirror. Reinterpretations by Adad Hannah, Ian Forsyth & Jane Pollard, and Judith Hopf will be exhibited as well.The works together show the possibilities of reinterpretation and give an artistic anthology, and criticism, of the work of Graham. Gabriella Giannachi (researcher & professor of Performance and New Media at the University of Exeter), Annet Dekker (curator & researcher, assistant Professor of Media Studies University of Amsterdam) and Willem van Weelden (curator & researcher, tutor media theory Gerrit Rietveld Academie,) will reflect upon reinterpretation as both an artistic as preservation strategy. Moderated by art historian & dramaturgist Suzanne Sanders.
New light on iconic work
LIMA presents a new edition of UNFOLD, focusing on reinterpretation and Dan Graham’s iconic work Audience/Performer/Mirror, 1977, De Appel, Amsterdam. During this performance, Graham describes his own actions and the reaction of the audience. The work is questioning who or what motivates who to act and respond and is a reflection on time and direct feedback. All of this happens largely through language: Graham’s flow of words is unceasing, and betrays his background in stand-up comedy. The gaze of the camera, in addition to that of Graham and the mirror, plays an important role in this. The work is effective and layered in all its simplicity and has become an iconic work. The analogy that Graham uses in the work, both at the level of technology and that of language and physicality, has invited many artists to make a homage or a new version of the work. What does Audience / Performer / Mirror stand for today? How is the work experienced; which part of the work is still relevant, what needs to be ‘updated’? LIMA invites Jan Robert Leegte and Emile Zile to translate the work to contemporary time and its digital techniques. Keren Cytter is invited to present her subtle feminist critique on the work. UNFOLD: Audience/Performer/Mirror offers the opportunity to think about reinterpretation and provides insight into both their working methods and the lasting (attraction) power of Dan Graham’s work. This core may be somewhere else for every artist, and each new work will highlight a different aspect of the ‘original’.
About UNFOLD
Reinterpretation is a core concept in music, dance and theater. Every re-performance is a translation into a new, often contemporary, context. Re-performing a work based on documentation, a script, memory or score is an essential part of artistic practice. For complex works in the field of media art and digital art, this is not common, but just as urgent. Reinterpretation of media art can contribute to the preservation and better understanding of the work. Since 2016, LIMA has put reinterpretation on the map as an artistic and conservation strategy. In the interdisciplinary and international UNFOLD project contextualizing, documenting, analyzing, understanding, embodiment and transferring digital culture are central. Relevant questions are: What is the core and production method of a work? Which techniques are used in which context? How do we translate this artistic legacy, practice and knowledge to the next generation? How do reflect and learn from different interdisciplinary practises?
Programme
5 pm Doors open
5.30 – 6.15 pm Presentation Rietveld Students (*free entrance)
6.30 pm Opening exhibition (in collaboration with De Appel): Dan Graham’s iconic work and documentation material of Audience/Performer/Mirror, 1977 De Appel, Amsterdam. Reinterpretations by Adad Hannah, Performer Audience Remake, 2008; Ian Forsyth & Jane Pollard, Audience Performer Fuck Off, 2009, Judith Hopf, What Do You Look Like / A Crypto Demonic Mystery, 2006. (*free entrance)
6.30 – 9 pm Performances Keren Cytter (Performer/Audience/Mirror, 2012), Miron Galić reenacting Cursor, 2016 in Jan Robert Leegte’s Mirror (2020) and Emile Zile (Performer/Audience/Lens, 2018) + artist talks followed by a panel discussion with: Gabriella Giannachi, Annet Dekker and Willem van Weelden moderated by Suzanne Sanders (*a ticket is required for this part of the program).
Event
UNFOLD: Audience/Performer/Mirror
With works and contributions by Dan Graham, Keren Cytter, Emile Zile, Jan Robert Leegte, Gabriella Giannachi, Annet Dekker, Willem van Weelden, Adad Hannah, Ian Forsyth & Jane Pollard, Judith Hopf and students from the Rietveld Academy.
Wednesday 15 January, 2020
5 pm Doors open
5.30 – 6.15 pm Presentation Rietveld Students (free entrance)
6.30 pm Opening exhibition (free entrance)
6.30 – 9 pm Performances & artist talks Keren Cytter, Jan Robert Leegte and Emile Zile, followed by panel discussion (a ticket is required for this part of the program)
Entrance: € 7,50 / 5,- /Free with Cineville
LIMA/LAB111, Arie Biemondstraat 111, Amsterdam
Language: English
Facebook event
Exhibition
UNFOLD: Audience/Performer/Mirror (in collaboration with De Appel)
With works by Dan Graham, Adad Hannah, Ian Forsyth & Jane Pollard and Judith Hopf.
15 – 22 January 2020
Every day from 12 – 23 pm, entrance is free
LIMA/LAB111, Arie Biemondstraat 111, Amsterdam
Graphic design by Bin Koh.
UNFOLD Audience/Performer/Mirror is supported by De Appel, Rietveld Academie and the Mondrian Fund and is part of the collaborative research project Documenting Digital Art, supported by the Arts & Humanities Research Council.
On March 21 2019 I was in Amsterdam to present my performances ‘I follow Yoko and Yoko Follows Me’ 2012 and ‘Audience / Performer / Lens (After Dan Graham)’ 2018 at Transformation Digital Art conference at LIMA Amsterdam. As it was a meeting of media archivists, museum workers, cultural shephards and technologists I spoke specifically around the idea of reinterpretation of historical performance art as a form of preservation, oral history and unrequited commentary. Alongside panelists Anne Marie Duguet (University Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne), Adam Lockhart (University of Dundee) with moderation provided by Serena Cangiano (University of Applied Sciences and Arts of Southern Switzerland).
‘Wearing the Skin Suit: Interpretation and Reperformance of Historical Performance Art’
Transformation Digital Art 2019 LIMA media art platform.
Thanks to Gaby, Manique and all at LIMA. March 21 2019. Photos by Jose Miguel Biscaya.
Becoming The Icon development with Lilian Steiner at Artshouse North Melbourne, CultureLAB City of Melbourne.
Becoming The Icon is a new performance duet created and performed by Lilian Steiner and Emile Zile.
Through an exploration of gesture, two bodies explore political speech and the body as a conduit of thought, emotion and truth.
Concept/Performers: Lilian Steiner & Emile Zile
The first development of Becoming The Icon occurred in October 2018 with the support of the Arts House Culture Lab residency program (with financial support by City of Melbourne). The second stage development will take place in May 2019 at Arts House North Melbourne followed by a public presentation in 2020.
On Saturday 11 August I’ll be performing a version of Dan Graham’s
1975 work; Performer / Audience / Mirror.
A performer faces a seated audience. Behind the performer, covering the back wall (parallel to the frontal view of the seated audience), is a mirror reflecting the audience.
Performer / Audience / Lens (after Dan Graham)
Emile Zile 2018
Export Happenings is a part of the MEL/NYC program, coinciding with the
2018 Melbourne Winter Masterpieces exhibition presented by the National
Gallery of Victoria in collaboration with The Museum of Modern Art in
New York.
In late May I will be in Los Angeles for the Saas-Fee Summer Institute of Art at Otis College of Art and Design Los Angeles.
— Art and Politics in the Age of Cognitive Capitalism —
http://saasfeesummerinstituteofart.com
Saas-Fee Summer Institute of Art (SFSIA) is a nomadic, intensive summer academy with shifting programs in contemporary critical theory academy that originated in Saas Fee, Switzerland in 2015 and moved to Berlin in 2016. SFSIA stresses an interdisciplinary approach to understanding the relationship between art and politics. This year, in addition to the Berlin academy, we are hosted in Los Angeles by Otis College of Art and Design with participation of the MA Aesthetics and Politics in the School of Critical Studies at CalArts.
The academy was founded by fine artist and theorist Warren Neidich, is co-directed by art critic and poet Barry Schwabsky. Sarah Beadle is Director of Administration. It was conceived in 2014 as part of an ongoing effort to engage contemporary artists in political, socio-economic, philosophical and historical discourses concerning the power of art. Importantly it realizes that art plays both a generative and emancipatory role in producing theory while at the same time being aware of Neoliberal capitalism’s recuperative prowess.
The program runs two weeks and is structured with half-day seminars, deep readings, and workshops. In the evening SFSIA holds a lecture series, which is open to the public.
Faculty
Alva Noë, Andrew Culp, Arne De Boever, Barry Schwabsky, Candice Lin, Ed Finn, Eleanor Kaufman, Florencia Portocarrero, Graham Harman, Jason Smith, Jennifer Teets, Johanna Drucker, John C. Welchman, Juli Carson, Kenneth Reinhard, Mary Kelly, N. Katherine Hayles, Nima Bassiri, Renee Petropoulos, Reza Negarestani, Sanford Kwinter, Suparna Choudhury, Warren Neidich.
Join Emile Zile and Philip Brophy for a conversational and unmoderated exchange as they select, screen and discuss each other’s video work. Both artists move horizontally between visual art, filmmaking and performance, working beyond the confines of strict categorisation. Their methods and tools are post-cinematic: scavenging and re-presenting the moving image material that surrounds them.
11 September 2017, 6.30pm
Free entry, bookings requested
Australian Centre for the Moving Image, Federation Square Melbourne
https://www.acmi.net.au/events/emile-zile-and-philip-brophy/