Livestream Premiere event for MAKING A SCENE, Spring Show 2021, the annual student work exhibition. Film directed and curated by Natou Fall & Zeina Koritem. Introduction by Hernan Diaz Alonso followed by screening and panel conversation.
Contact to view full film. View the Archival Stream here
Exhibition Text
BIT BY BIT, THE PAST
RECOVERS THE PRESENT
THROUGH
AN IMAGINARY MISE-EN-SCÈNE
OF A VISUAL EXPERIENCE
WHICH EVER CONVENES
MANY GAZES
– Jean Luc Godard, (Hélas Pour Moi, 1993)
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Mise-en-scène is a French expression that can be translated as both a verb and a noun. As a verb, it is the “act of staging,” the action of “putting onto the stage.” As a noun, it is the setting itself, the milieu of production, which facilitates the making of a framed image.
The expression thus contains two meanings. On the one hand, it refers to those processes that aim to produce and articulate the relationships between different layers of an image: movement, sound, foreground, background, light and color, etc. On the other hand, it refers to the total effects of those relationships in space and time. To “make a scene” is then both to frame an image and to embody it; to produce a screen, so that scenes can be seen.
960 E 3rd is a second home for the student body. Given the challenges of the last year, the story we wanted to tell mirrors the spectrum of intense and even sometimes contradictory emotions and sensibilities that, in turn animated the past academic year: uncertainty, emptiness, nostalgia, screen immersion, and hope.
An experimental film, MAKING A SCENE is a meditative journey through the 1/4 mile long building that is home to an architecture school in the heart of Los Angeles, SCI-Arc. Corridors and studio spaces left empty due to the pandemic are brought back to life with screen installations displaying student work, public events, and student life online from the 2020-2021 academic school year.