Atlantic Ragagar + Last Things - Rewire

Atlantic Ragagar by Gilles Aubry – 32 min, 2022, Zwitserland
The Sidi Bouzid beach near the Moroccan port city of El Jadida is famed for its crystal-clear sea and extraordinary biodiversity – there are dozens of species of algae. However, some of them are used by pharmaceutical and food companies to produce agar powder. The nearby factories producing canned fish and phosphate fertilisers pollute the water and air. This documentary by Swiss sound artist, musician, and researcher Gilles Aubry uses performative interventions which erase the distinction between the human and the natural to explore the multilayered relationship of the locals to the ecosystem which is a source of both awe and their livelihood.

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Last Things by Deborah Stratman – 50 min, 2023, Verenigde Staten, Portugal, Frankrijk
Evolution and extinction are approached from the point of view of rocks in this film by artist and filmmaker Deborah Stratman – a humid take on minerals, where sci-fi meets sci-fact, with music from, amongst others, Thomas Ankersmit and Okkyung Lee. This project originated from two novellas of J.-H. Rosny, the joint pseudonym of the Belgian brothers Boex who wrote on natural, prehistoric, and speculative subjects – sci-fi before it was a genre. The film also draws upon a wide range of theory, critique, literature, and art to, in one way or another, reflect on how humankind and human reason can be removed from the centre of evolutionary processes. Passages from Rosny and interviews with Bjørnerud form the film's science-fictional/science-factual spine, but stones are its anchor. To touch stone is to meet alien duration. We trust stone as archive, but we may as well write on water. In the end, it’s particles that remain.