Aryan Kaganof
Decolonising Wits is filmmaker and author Aryan Kaganof’s feature-length film looking at the Wits University end of what has come to be called the #RhodesMustFall movement.
If I sometimes film anything political, it is by necessity focused on the terror of normality which totally dominates all the channels which are supposed to contain free communication. The stagnation is absolute. Aryan Kaganof 2015
One does not learn the art of Blind Fiilmmaking, one lives and experiences it, for no science will give you the key to the mysteries of the soul. One cannot become a good Blind Filmmaker without turning oneself into an object of study, evincing daily interest in the complexity of one's own case. To be initiated into the mysteries of the other, you must first be initiated into your own.
After the first time she swore it was the last time. She would never fuck again. Not ever.
"A film about musicologists who can’t dance, nonetheless dancing in, and (not) talking about, a landscape they cannot see, not because they are blind, but because they; like Neville Chamberlain – whose grimly baffling lack of insight they bring to mind: are entirely out of touch with both the ontology and epistemology of the harsh South African reality they waltz in and out of."
Synopsis: a radikal re-mix by Aryan Kaganof of three Frans Zwartjes films commissioned by Frank Scheffer. Background: Kaganof was once a student of Frans Zwartjes. When Kaganof himself began lecturing himself, he began giving his students the following advice, "I always tell the classes what Frans said to me, go make your films, leave school now, stop listening to anyonbody insane enough to pretend to be able to teach you anything about film making. If they knew they would be making films themselves, not teaching."
A reconstruction of the history of South Africa’s first opera company, Eoan, and an exercise in getting at the truth, not only showing what it meant to be "a colored" during the apartheid regime, but also evoking the painful memories of that time. Interviews with former members of Eoan, photos, newspaper clippings, sound recordings, archive footage of opera performances and street scenes featuring the residents of District 6 in Cape Town give an impression of the world in which these people lived. By paying attention to the way in which the documentary was made – to questions that were not asked and answers that were not officially given – the painful truth behind the images and faces is gradually revealed.
Society Of The Spectacle (2013) is basically a remix of Kaganof's Guy Debord tribute Click Here to Unsubscribe (2008), albeit at about ten times the speed.
Elelwani is a young university-educated woman who has been brought up in an environment steeped in tradition. Her parents have promised her hand in marriage to the Vendaking and, as a dutiful daughter, she wants to obey their wishes. But in order to fulfil her promise, Elelwani must abandon her dreams of travel, further education and – most importantly – her commitment to her one true love.
Venom And Eternity For Dummies (2012) is a tribute to letterist poet Isidore Isou (On Venom and Eternity). The film utilizes excerpts from Kaganof's own first feature Kyodai Makes the Big Time (1992).
Filmed on location in The Hague September 1995 at the Crossing Border Festival A Leisure Society Of Severe Preponderence delivers a devastating assault on conformity culture, neo-liberal politics, literary pretension and the all around follies of the Western world. Using, ironically, anti-art strategies – appropriation, violation and collage, he Kaganof splinters the division between the high and the low, revelling in the contradictions and absurdities that transpire in a life lived crossing borders.
Master griot Katjira’s death, which is the beginning of this film, sets off a series of discussions within his tribe about the future of the tribe and particularly about who katjira’s successor should be. A decade after Katjira’s death no successor has been found. Will the himba die out because there is no story teller alive to tell the story of the himba’s creation, thereby keeping the tribe alive? Or will Katjira somehow speak from beyond the grave, from the place of absolute reality, in order to re-iterate the continuity of the tribe. More than ten years in the making, Craig Matthew’s documentary is a powerful and unique example of how a contemporary medium like film can be utilised as an extension of the oral tradition.
The hour-long documentary, entitled Die Ander Rebellie, delves into aspects of the recent labour unrest mostly hidden from view in daily media reports. Filmed on location in places like Hangberg, Smartietown, Cloetesville, Heuwelkroon, Boesmanskloof, Rondebosch Common and De Doorns, it features interviews with so-called activists and scenes of protest. The footage was shot right at the beginning of the trouble, before the large-scale closing down of the N2, and provides a thrilling if spine-chilling picture of how the protest started as well as the political and cultural motivations behind it. A large segment of the film focuses on the struggle music of the growingly coherent group of people who have now started to call themselves "Khoisan activists", which is nothing less than a form of brown nationalism.
Uprising, or the Latin form insurrection, are words used by historians to label failed revolutions--movements which do not match the expected curve, the consensus-approved trajectory: revolution, reaction, betrayal, the founding of a stronger and even more oppressive State--the turning of the wheel, the return of history again and again to its highest form: jackboot on the face of humanity forever.
“Click Here to Unsubscribe”, Aryan Kaganof’s latest short film, commemorates the revolutionary values of May ’68, 40 years on. This outstanding film had its world premiere in Johannesburg on March 15th 2008, a few days after its author settled in Sweden. We were very proud to see our name in the acknowledgements at the end as we’ve always emphasised the cinematographic legacy of Guy Debord, one of this resurrection’s spiritual leaders, in Kaganof’s work. The film starts with a quotation from Debord dating back to 1956 about cinematographic cut-ups, which were also essential to our latest film. Kaganof has re-invented the cut-up technique for this film, transforming the “random” aspect of the editing into an area of reflection and synthesis
I am not learned; I am not ignorant. I have known joys. That is saying too little: I am alive, and this life gives me the greatest pleasure. And what about death? When I die (perhaps any minute now), I will feel immense pleasure. I am not talking about the foretaste of death, which is stale and often disagreeable. Suffering dulls the senses. But this is the remarkable truth, and I am sure of it: I experience boundless pleasure in living, and I will take boundless satisfaction in dying. —Maurice Blanchot, The Madness of the Day
South African auteur Aryan Kaganof plunders George A. Romero's Night of the Living Dead (1968) and Alain Resnais' L'année dernière à Marienbad (1961) AKA Last Year at Marienbad. On the Jozi side up there’s the mysterious cerebra of noise and relative Electronic conceits, The African Noise Foundation. Fused around the sound-design of muti-instrumentalist/multi-producer Joel Assaizky (Bunny Chow; Hard Copy) and meta-conducting of AK Thembeka, the Foundation is dedicated to re/locating and exploding Africa’s melodic distortion into song. Check out link “We promise nothing. We bring the Noise.”
“A man thinks when he touches a woman’s body it is only her body he is touching. It really is her soul, her brain, her creative power.” Olive Schreiner.
Oedipus and Punishment (2005) is an adaptation of a pre-existent sketch in Aryan Kaganof's early masterpiece Ten Monologues from the Lives of the Serial Killers (1994), which the auteur made when he still went by his birth name 'Ian Kerkhof.' The film features a monologue from American serial killer Edmund Kemper who is noted for his imposing size and high intelligence, standing 6 ft 9 inches (2.06 m) and weighing over 300 pounds (140 kg), and having an IQ in the 140 range – attributes that left his victims with little chance to overcome him.
Jaap Hoogstra: Geboorte Werd Hem Zijn Dood (2005) AKA Jaap Hoogstra - A Piece of Monologue is a portrait of the gay Dutch theatre actor Jaap Hoogstra (1915–1998), who is famous for bringing Samuel Beckett to the Lowlands. The portrait centers on Jaap discussing his life as a gay man and rehearsing Beckett's fifteen-minute 1980 play A Piece of Monologue. Featuring music by Willy Alberti. Hoogstra previously appeared in Kaganof's transgressive Georges Bataille adaptation The Dead Man 2: Return of the Dead Man (1994). Jaap Hoogstra - A Piece of Monologue features excerpts from The Dead Man 2, including the infamous urophilia scene where a woman pisses on Hoogstra's face while she is standing on a bar table.
A human being is part of a whole, called by us the Universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circles of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.” Albert Einstein 1921
Time Considered as a Helix of Semi-Precious Stones (2002) is the fifth of seven films in Kaganof's The Suprematist Compositions. These compositions are concerned with the nature of deity and are Kaganof's own personal favorites of his voluminous work, clearly inspired by the work of Kandinsky and Malevich. Synopsis: A slowly evolving re-mix experiment that seeks to fuse sound and image so that the eye hears and the ear sees. Featuring music by: Kraftwerk, Air, Underground Resistance, Thomas Heckmann, Ryoji Ikeda
Self-portrait with Nanny (2004) is a gem from last year. The faded images of Kaganof as a baby put to retro burlesque music are a reference to the silent films of long ago. Once again, Kaganof pays homage to popular cinema, for this film is a perfect essay on the durability of cinematic time, as well as on the auto referential and egocentric dimension of the work of many great artists.-Dionysos Andronis
A SACRIFICE (South Africa, 2003, 13min19sec, 16mm/DVcam) A re-mix of the experimental classic CORRIDOR (1970) by Standish Lawder, with music by Jaques Casteréde and Geez n Gosh. world premiere was at the National Arts festival in Grahamstown.
Distorted postvideo fragments featuring music by Berlin inconoclast Alec Empire set to frantically edited hypertextbombs. Text from the novel BLACKHEART by Lesego Rampolokeng who also supplies the vocals.
I walk on the rim of the abyss, and I tremble. Two voices contend within me. The mind: “Why waste ourselves by pursuing the impossible? Within the holy enclosure of our five senses it is our duty to acknowledge the limitations of man.” But another voice within me – call it the Sixth Power, call it the heart – resists and shouts: “No! No! Never acknowledge the limitations of man. Smash all boundaries! Deny whatever your eyes see. Die every moment, but say: Death does not exist.’” Nikos Kazantzakis
The Murder Mystery (2004) is an adaptation of a pre-existent sketch in Aryan Kaganof's early masterpiece Ten Monologues from the Lives of the Serial Killers (1994), which the auteur made when he still went by his birth name 'Ian Kerkhof.' This time it is the voice of the film maker interpreting a new monologue – a member of the Mafia in prison tells us of his criminal activities over gentle music that acts as a counterbalance, thanks to the contrary alchemy of the grand master.
“Nique ta mère!” (2004) is a 'Radikal-Re:Mix' of Kaganof's own Georges Bataille adaptation The Dead Man 2: Return of the Dead Man (1994) that incorporates new music and tons of new footage. The film was commissioned by the French industrial music outfit Tempsion. It premiered in Paris, March 2004, and was released as part of the RECTIFIER DVD/CD package in early 2005 on the Letrange Sonotheque label (MAL013).
Portraits of a Young Orphan Jewish Girl from Eastern-Europe (2003) is a very short film, a confirmation of the possibility of creating cinematic masterpieces with an non-existent budget. The charming portrait of this young girl is sublimated with incessant tender zooms in and out on her face and her discreet smile, to accordion music. It’s a portrait-film, a dream-like film that has no contemporary equivalent to its formal and symbolic content. It is not a declaration of love, but a brief moment of admiration for beauty and the noble side of human nature.
“We cannot abstain from watching the revelation of a being that would be an object neither for herself nor for any other gaze and yet which would effect, in the mystery of her own invisibility, the condensation of all objectivity.” Aryan Kaganof plays with the contradiction and relationship between the vulnerable, private realm and the voyeuristic, objectified domain in a film about a young woman's sexual initiation.
(South Africa, 17 July 2003, 5min, DV) This short film is a collaboration of Aryan Kaganof and Nicola Deane (director of photography) and part of the VIRGINS series. Music of Beethoven played by Anatol Ugorski.
This documentary explores kwaito music developed in South Africa in the late 1990s and includes interviews with musicians, DJ's and producers as well as music clips. It was made for Dutch television and later sold to the SABC for repeated broadcasts.
PRIMAL SCENE: in Freudian analysis the traumatic moment when the child sees its parents engaged in sexual intercourse for the first time. Short film by Aryan Kaganof.
This is an ultra rare and unreleased 6 1/2 minute Aryan Kaganof short that was shot in Amsterdam in 1992 but not edited together until 2002 after the director moved back to South Africa. Kaganof merely projected the old 1992 16mm footage onto a screen and recorded it with a digital camera in 2002. For some reason, he opted to not use a tripod, so the camera constantly moves around throughout the short.
Vertiginous documentary, shot in effective black-and-white, treats two painful histories. The first is a love story about a truck driver who, on his way from Johannesburg (South Africa) to Luderitz (Namibia), is haunted by thoughts of his girlfriend and their recently severed relationship. His memories are expressed in an often recurring scene, in which songs by Alec Empire, Macy Gray and Robert Schumann roughly tell the story. This small history is alternated with the tragic fate of the Namibian Heroro people, many thousands of whom died early last century in concentration camps that had been set up by the German colonisers near Luderitz. The depiction of this history is cruder and more poignant, with slanting frames, odd camera angles and a multi-layered sound sculpture. The dilapidated barracks and officers' quarters are the last remnants of the miscarried, so-called civilisation projects in Africa.
The two sides of the end of culture–in all the aspects of knowledge as well as in all the aspects of perceptible representations exist in a unified manner in what used to be art in the most general sense. In the case of knowledge, the accumulation of branches of fragmentary knowledge, which become unusable because the approval of existing conditions must finally renounce knowledge of itself, confronts the theory of praxis which alone holds the truth of them all since it alone holds the secret of their use. In the case of representations, the critical self-destruction of society’s former common language confronts its artificial recomposition in the commodity spectacle, the illusory representation of the non-lived.
While still living in Amsterdam under his birth name 'Ian Kerkhof,' Aryan Kaganof co-penned the script for his friends Victor Nieuwenhuijs and Maartje Seyferth's debut feature Venus in Furs (1995), which is undoubtedly the most faithful cinematic adaptation of the S&M-themed Leopold von Sacher-Masoch novella of the same name. A number of years later after moving back to his homeland of South Africa, Kaganof directed his own tribute to Sacher-Masoch's classic work.
In 2000, Kaganof collaborated with four other filmmakers on the cinematic manifesto Sonic Fragments - The Poetics of Digital Fragmentation (2000). Later, Kaganof would re-edit his segment and release it as the 'remix manifesto' Sonic Fragments: The Radikal-Re:Mix. The original film was a tribute to its narrator Charles Manson. Unfortunately, Mr. Manson does not narrate the remix.
This transnational production featuring a South African- born director, a Dutch leading man, and a Japanese cast and crew tells the story of a passionate love affair between a convict and a porn star, which is undone by greed and private ghosts. Escaping from the Japanese police, Jack meets Keiko, a money-hungry adult film actress and the younger sister of his ex-wife. He takes refuge in her flat and soon they fall in love. Jack is unable to leave her apartment because he quickly learns that both the police and the dreaded yakuza are after the criminal. He grows distraught and despondent, spending hour upon hour alone as Keiko works long hours on the set. At one point, Keiko visits the yakuza don who placed the hit on Jack and agrees to hand him over in exchange for a pile of cash. But she has one stipulation: that she get to spend three days with her soon-to-be deceased lover. The boss agrees only if she engages in kinky sex with him. The deal seems set until unforeseen events occur.
Acèphale is an artistic cell of solo and group performances involving various members. It has performed internationally in such countries as the United States, Germany, Italy, Holland, Mongolia and Japan. Acèphale takes its name from the clandestine cult organization formed by Georges Bataille in 1938. Its present reincarnation was intuited by Sir Djeffery Babcock and Aryan Kaganof in 1994.
This is a never released piece of video art created by Aryan Kaganof when he still went by his birth name 'Ian Kerkhof' based on an installation he created in 'tribute' to Dutch actress Sylvia Kristel. Part doc and part video art, there is certainly a sort of tragic and forlorn tone to film that seems to sum up Kaganof's thoughts on Kristel's life and career.
Short documentary on Japanese noise artist Merzbow by South African filmmaker Aryan Kaganof. Filmed on location at the Kamakura Temple, Japan, 1997.
Documentary about and with the Japanese electronic composer and artist Merzbow.
But happily Kerkhof the uncompromising iconoclast is back. With his newest film RON ATHEY: IT’S SCRIPTED (the original title RON ATHEY: SO MANY WAYS TO SAY HALLELUJAH had to be changed because there is already a 2 hour documentary in production under this title) he has delivered a convincing artistic achievement. Those without strong stomachs will probably find the overwhelming amount of injection needles and razor blades a bit too much, but the film is so cleverly constructed that one cannot look away.
The film follows three rapists in South Africa, who live in a rape culture. Sexual, verbal, political, moral and psychological rape is common practice.
I think at bottom, that the structure of the film is the structure of the person's mind who made it, and if that is a mind that is striving for effect because it is striving for effect, the film will be empty, however interesting it happens to be on the surface. If it is a mind that has been able to organize its own experience, and if that experience is cohesive and of one piece, it will be a poetic film. Arthur Miller
What makes Techono: Space and flow in the radical frame such an exceptional documentary is the manner in which the interviews are woven intoa 50 minute long techno videoclip. The filmmaker has fully exploited all the existing digital video techniques iin order to showcase the dizzying possibilities of the medium. Cut-ups and computer effects combine perfectly with the science-fiction images from Ken Ishii's Japanese manga video Extra - the best evidence that the techno movement has become an international culture that encompasses the entire globe.
Filmmaker Aryan Kaganof goes behind the scenes of Matthew Barney's impossible to find short "March of the Anal Sadistic Warrior (1998)."
Based on the writings of: J.G. Ballard, Charles Manson, Jeffrey Dahmer, Henry Rollins, Roberta Lannes, Edmund Emil Kemper, etc. The structure of this film is literally that of the title: ten monologues adapted from various fiction and documentary sources which combine to produce an unsettling work that does not pretend to analyse nor to understand the serial killers.
The Dead Man returns, but it's too late to save us. We are already dead.
Howard and Selene are two English-speaking foreigners living in Amsterdam who begin a casual affair that turns serious and then starts to deteriorate. It is the second part in Aryan Kaganof's Urban Wasteland Serial.
Short film in which a group of children get to know the Enge Knijperman (the Grisly Pincher Man) who falls madly in love with the Onderstebovenvrouw (Upside-down Woman). However the 220-Volt-Witch and the Toilet Slave set out to spoil things. Experimental short by Aryan Kaganof, made under his birth name Ian Kerkhof.
"Love is the only thing subject to negotiation in feature film debut which betrays admiration for the formal rigidity of Straub and Zwartjes." "The film, KYODAI MAKES THE BIG TIME, caused a commotion in the Netherlands when it won the Golden Calf for Best Film (the Dutch Oscar equivalent). The film went on to win the Jozef Von Sternberg Prize For Innovative Narrative Structure at the Mannheim Film Festival." "KYODAI MAKES THE BIG TIME – What was the public’s reaction to this? Your first film – is it like your first time having sex? Which I guess is a subjective question, but I’m thinking experimental, unnerving, liberating, a learning experience, a humbling experience, leaving you wanting more ? SEX SHOULD ALWAYS BE LIKE YOU'RE HAVING SEX FOR THE FIRST TIME."
The film opens with a rubber-clad woman stepping sensuously out of a limousine. The camera lovingly closes-up on her stilletoed foot... She enters a dark desolate warehouse, and meets two men, who proceed to chain her up and worship her body. Originally projected on three screens simultaneously. Music by legendary noise musician Merzbow.
1991 experimental short by Aryan Kaganof, made under his birth name: Ian Kerkhof
1991 experimental short by Aryan Kaganof, made under his birth name: Ian Kerkhof
1991 experimental short by Aryan Kaganof, made under his birth name: Ian Kerkhof
1990 short experimental film by Aryan Kaganof, made under his birth name: Ian Kerkhof
1990 experimental short by Aryan Kaganof, made under his birth name: Ian Kerkhof
There is nothing you can do about it. You are overwhelmed with images. They carry you away. they replace you, you are dreaming. The spectacle is life as a dream. We all want this. —Julia Kristeva
Philosophical road-movie about the deranged paedophile Friedrich Nietzsche and his murder obsessed self-mutilating sister Elisabeth. Publisher: [South Africa] : African Noise Foundation, [2012?] Edition/Format: DVD video : English Notes: Originally filmed in 1997-1991, edited in 2002. Credits: Editor, Thempeka Laduma, original music Ramon dos Santos. Cast: Djeff Babcock, Andrea Spook, Cassandra Aki. Description: 1 DVD (33 min.) : sound, color ; 4 3/4 in. Details: DVD; Dolby digital. Responsibility: written and directed by Aryan Kaganof.
