SEP-DEC
2010
24 SEPTEMBER, 7.30 P.M. 26 NOVEMBER, 7.30 P.M.
A Film about Home Palacio
Jennifer Cox Luis Alaejos y Raúl Díez Alaejos
Screenings at the Terrario (Proyecciones en el Terrario)
is an ongoing audiovisual programme held at Intermediæ
throughout the year. Films and videos with different aes-
thetic orientations are shown that are transversally linked
to Intermediæ’s ongoing research lines and programmes.
The programme also includes Sesión de noche (Night
Screenings), a space where various curators are invited to
Intermediæ Matadero Madrid. Paseo de la Chopera, 14. 28045, Madrid. www.intermediae.es
17 DECEMBER, 7.30 P.M.
El cielo gira
Mercedes Álvarez
present a programme about more experimental audiovisual
creations. Through a reflection on the selected pieces, they
provide an approach to emerging discourses and issues
in the field of contemporary art. Sesión de noche (Night
Screenings) is held at the Terrario at Intermediæ several
times a year, transforming the Terrario at Intermediæ into
an informal discussion space.
 SEP- DEC 2010 PRESENTATION SEP- DEC 2010 PROGRAM

— TIME CAPSULES: THE MEMORY OF A PLACE — 24 SEPTEMBER, 7.30 p. m.

“[…] the house is not experienced from day to day only, on the thread of a narrative, or in the telling of our own story.
Through dreams, the various dwelling-places in our lives co-penetrate and retain the treasures of former days. And after we
are in the house, when memories of other places we have lived in come back to us, we travel to the land of Motionless
Childhood, motionless the way all Immemorial things are. […] We comfort ourselves by reliving memories of protection.
Something closed must retain our memories, while leaving them their original value as images. Memories of the outside world
will never have the same tonality as those of home and, by recalling these memories, we add to our store of dreams; we are
never real historians, but always near poets, and our emotion is perhaps nothing but an expression of a poetry that was lost.
Thus, by approaching the house images with care not to break up the solidarity of memory and imagination, we may hope
to make others feel all the psychological elasticity of an image that moves us at an unimaginable depth. Through poems,
perhaps more than through recollections, we touch the ultimate poetic depth of the space of the house.”
La poética del espacio, Gastón Bachelard.
· A Film about Home, 2008 (Spain-UK). Documentary. Directed by: Jennifer Cox. Running time 40’. Original languages:
English and Spanish, with subtitles in Spanish.
Presentation by Jennifer Cox. Madrid premiere of the documentary.
This is a film about home, or perhaps I should say about a search for home: without feeling I belonged anywhere, I
decided to travel to several places, visiting and interviewing a group of people. Once there, in those places, I asked each
person the same question: For you, what is home? By asking the question, I hoped to find my own answer and perhaps
find my home.
Jennifer Cox (Marbella, 1984) is a young multidisciplinary artist who works mainly in film and photography. From 2003 to 2006, she studied
Documentary Film & Television at the University of Wales, Newport. She has had solo and group exhibits in Australia, the U.S.A., and several European
countries. Her documentary A Film about Home garnered her Best New Director Award at FOC CINEMA 08’ (Valencia). Her poetics show an interest
in memory and capturing fleeting moments and experiences in everyday life, exploring the recording possibilities of media like photography and film for
observing and translating memories.

T
dearjennifer.org
he memory of a place, or the place of memory. freezer storage area of a slaughterhouse, and that the primary
Places of memory, or the memory of places… In uses of the building have changed. It is no mere coincidence 26 NOVEMBER, 7.30 p. m.
any of these speculative games, where ideas of that the processes related to constructing a memory of so many
past, present and future confront each other, the collective stories in permanent tension with individual stories · Palacio, 2009 (Spain). Documentary. Directed by: Luis Alaejos and Raúl Díez Alaejos. Running time: 100’. Original
common denominator is a search and a journey and as a poetic construction are the common thread guiding language: Spanish.
through time toward a space. During this era of Jennifer Cox, Raúl Díez Alaejos and Luis Alaejos, and Mer-
Presentation by Luis Alaejos and Raúl Díez Alaejos.
displacements where the significance of a nomadic life takes cedes Álvarez in giving images to memories or constructing
on new –though not necessarily memories where a void has been Palacio is an unexpected visit to an old hotel full of mysterious, disturbing architectonic symbols which at one time was the tall-
coherent– meanings, and where left through forgetting, or where est building in all Latin America, located in Montevideo. Digging through the symbols, the most delirious are some of its 1500
the notion of territory is still tied to memories must the form of fiction, inhabitants: some with their simple everyday lives, others laden with spiritual mystery, or extravagance and madness.
the predispositions of the powers given an absence of experiences.
that be and the control they hold Luis Alaejos studied film in Los Angeles, where he made several short films. His productions with Raúl Alaejos include the projects Rewind and La
Charca, which won awards in 2001 at the Festival de Navarra and CamelArt, respectively.
over individuals, the question in An emblematic hotel with mys-
anthropological terms about place terious architecture, converted Raúl Díez Alaejos studied Audiovisual Communication at the Universidad Europea de Madrid and has directed several short films. He teaches experimental
as a space of belonging becomes into an apartment building in the television workshops and has participated in the Neokinok.tv experimental television project and in MediaLab Madrid.
almost inevitable. It doesn’t matter capital of Uruguay; a dying rural dosalolejos.blogspot.com
whether this question is posed with village in Soria with only a dozen
knowledge of the answer, or with remaining inhabitants; the defini- 17 DECEMBER, 7.30 p.m.
or without feelings of nostalgia, or tion of home. Three approaches
with or without a relationship to a to the pace of life in places where · El cielo gira, 2005 (Spain). Documentary. Director: Mercedes Álvarez. Running time: 114’. Spanish.
precise mental or physical space: observation is the key to explor- Presentation by José Antonio Otero.
in short, it is a questioning of the ing memory. Journeys to places
very being asking the question. impossible to decode without Aldealseñor, a village in the high plains of Soria, has only 14 remaining inhabitants. They are the last generation,
travelling through time, journeys after a thousand years of ongoing history. For now, life goes on. But soon, the town will die quietly, without witnesses.
The three documentaries included for returning to time: to a time of The residents of Aldealseñor and the work of painter Pello Azketa have something in common: things have started to
in this series are diachronic stories observation, of memory, history, disappear before their very eyes. The narrator returns to her hometown and is present at this ending while attempting to
giving rise to a poetics of transition story, to the time of place. Pos- recapture her first images of the world, those of childhood.
related to a place and the people sibly the best way to bring these
Mercedes Álvarez (Aldealseñor, 1966) holds a degree in Philosophy and Educational Science from the Universidad del País Vasco and in 1998 she
who are a part of it in its defini- lines to a close and extend an completed her Master’s Degree in Creating Documentaries at the Universitat Pompeu i Fabra (Barcelona). She has worked as an editor at TVE (Spanish
tion as a space of “relational and invitation to share the searches public television). In 1997 she directed the fictional short film El viento africano and served as editor on José Luis Guerín’s film, En construcción. El
historical identity” (Augé). Time of these directors and those who cielo gira is her documentary debut, a feature-length film that has won many awards and participated in numerous film festivals, including those held in
Capsules, the name of the series, offered their testimonies in these Málaga, Rotterdam, Tribeca, and Valladolid. Her most recent documentary Tierras bajo un sol invernal favorable, with screenplay by Arturo Redín, has a
metropolitan setting and themes including urban development, land exploitation models, and the memory of cities.
draws on the enigmatic concept films, is to cite two passages:
of devices with an archaeological purpose, the transcendental blindness as a metaphor for the constructive procedures of José Antonio Otero (Miranda de Ebro, 1968). With a Master’s Degree in the Theory and Practice of Contemporary Visual Arts (UCM, 2000/2002),
meaning of the term already having been treated ironically in memory embodied by painter Pello Azketa in El cielo gira; he teaches History of Photography at the Instituto Europeo de Diseño and Cultural Management at the Instituto Superior de Arte in Madrid; currently, he
the Warholian mythology. It is no coincidence that this series and the image of the kiss one of the residents of Palacio gives is the latter’s management society coordinator. In 2009, he designed and directed, with Colectivo Mnemocine, the project titled Imaginar la memoria,
consisting of a workshop and an exhibit on the history of Salinas de Añana, a town in Álava, portrayed through its residents’ participation.
is held at a contemporary creation centre located in the former to a clock.

Series co-curated by David de Rozas.