Matevž Jerman

During the residency I'll be developing the concept for the project titled Reminiscing Futures, an experimental audiovisual contemplation which will strive to recreate historical moments frozen in time through the lense of a camera and interweave them in a subtle and haunting dialog on the futures that failed to happen. The short film's imagery will be composed as a series of different reconstructed tableaux vivants in super slow motion, inspired either by iconic photographs of important historical events or intimate poetic portraits and impressions. Each of the vignettes will derive from a specific moment in the past and will try to envision futures considered possible or striven to at the time. From the second world war, through the rural impressionistic portraits and landscapes of the socialist Yugoslavia in fifties and sixties, up to the cultural and political turmoil of the 80's many different photographers of the era (such as Janez Marenčič, Marjan Pfeifer, Stojan Kerbler and others) captured the spirit of the times. Some of their photographs will be subject of reconstruction in the film, other are still to be decided. One of the key layers of the project will consist of the anachronistic usage of music and a voice over or audio extracts. The theoretical background will be leaning on Jacques Derrida's and Mark Fisher's writings on hauntology and lost futures in the era of late capitalism.
The goal of the residency will be developing the script and the concept of the short experimental film and simultaneously exploring Austrian artistic photography in order to expand the concept beyond ex-Yugoslav references and trying to rediscover connections and patterns between the two countries with a long common history.