VestAndPage's performance-based independent art films range from art videos over short films to feature length, which they sign responsible as writers, directors, producers and performers. They are currently in pre-production of STRATA, a performance-based feature documentary on Deep Time, and developing momentum, a series of videos, in which they host conversations under existential focus with inspiring people from the arts, culture and science.
STRATA
2021, Performance-based film
Exploring memory layers and Deep Time in human history and the geological. In caves of human prehistory at the caves of the Swabian Alb, the project brings together artists and researchers from the humanities, social and geologic sciences to investigate the human body as a place that exists in continuity with the geological. Body artists illuminate concepts of time, past and modern human cultures through performances for camera in caves. These poetic body images are nourished by documentary elements in the form of conversations with specialists from the fields of archaeology, palaeontology, geology, speleology, art history, philosophy, and time psychology.
Art, Body, Geology, Time, History, Science, Documentary
STRATA
Performance-based film
2021
momentum
In development, Video series
Art, Documentary, Zeitgeist, History, Philosophy, Science, Dialogue
momentum
Video series
2021-ongoing
Poetics of Relations
A Manifesto on Performance-Based Filmmaking
Stenke, V., & Pagnes, A. (2020). Poetics of Relations: A Manifesto on Performance-Based Filmmaking. Journal of Embodied Research, 3(1), 3 (26:55). DOI: http://doi.org/10.16995/jer.37
This video article expands upon the Poetics of Relations, the embodied research of VestAndPage (Verena Stenke and Andrea Pagnes), which informs their performance-based filmmaking theory and practice.
Embodied Practices, Filmmaking, Performance art, Manifesto, Geopsychology, Artistic collaboration, Socio-Cultural spheres, History, War, Environment
POETICS OF RELATIONS
Manifesto on
Performance-Based Filmmaking
2020
AMOR AND PSYCHE (In Times of Plagues)
2020, Short film, 9'24" min
A performatic approach to the chemical, physiological, psychological and spiritual aspects of Breath. Initially conceived during Stenke's own tuberculosis disease in 2019, the work has been resumed and actualized during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic.
AMOR AND PSYCHE
(In Times of Plagues)
Video performance poem
2020
ANAM CARA –
Mirror in the Mirror
2020, Film
(producer, writer, editor, performer)
A collective co-created performance-based film about the concept of home, as part of the HOME cycle of collective performance operas by and with VestAndPage and the Anam Cara Collective. Produced during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown in April and May 2020, the film is a journey through an imaginary dwelling, a home of sorts.
Performance, Film, Home, Pandemic, Lockdown, History, Co-Creation, Collective
ANAM CARA – Mirror in the Mirror
Collective performance-based film
2020
Una per volta – Spinning, stirring, sweeping
Video performance
(Editor, Co-writer, co-director, co-performer)
A video performance response to the 1992-performance by MARILYN ARSEM, combining layers of the historic performance archive material with actions by Verena Stenke and Sara Simeoni in 2020.
Art, History, Crafts, Storytelling, Feminism, Magic, Mythology
Una per volta –
Spinning, stirring, sweeping
Video performance
2020
SIGNUM
2018, Short film, 33 min.
(producer, writer, editor, performer)
The artists undertake a quest for real and imaginary signs – words and poetry to be revealed, composed and transcoded by the same geological strata from which they emerge and disintegrate, once they come into touch with their mutable substance, the natural elements. Here both nature and human reasoning serve as a home, labour, or border and frontier. The artists' temporary presence is marked by the diagnostic features of sedimentary rocks, porous caves and stratified layers that reshape the landscape, along which they wander in search for expressions, languages to speak, envisioning connections to be made beyond what words can name.
Performance, Film, Semiotics, Nature, Strata, Geology
SIGNUM
Performance-based short film
2018
Plantain
[Spitzwegerich]
2018, Feature, 90 min
(producer, writer, director, performer) www.plantain-themovie.de
Award Winner: Best No-Budget Feature
Starting from their personal German family story, VestAndPage embarked in May 2015 on a month-long performance walk from Germany through Poland to the Russian region of Kaliningrad, to perform and film on location of true events of post-WWII displacements. In 7 episodes, the resulting feature-length art film questions oblivion through a series of poetic moving images.
Art, Biography, History, Philosophy, War
Plantain
[Spitzwegerich]
Feature film based on a month-long performance walk
2018
Topolino
A Globetrotter's Fairy Tale
2014, Silent video series
(producer, writer, director, performer)
A series of performance-based silent videos as work in progress shot at Mount Sodom, the Negev Desert, the Dead Sea, the Bosporus, Tuscany, the Chinese Wall, Glacier Perito Moreno, and Antarctica. Topolino is lost, lonesome and nostalgic, on his journey to extraordinary places. In a search for the myths that surround them, he entangles himself in failures and encounters first of all himself.
Adventure, Art, Comedy, Drama, Family
Topolino
A Globetrotter's Fairy Tale
Performance-based film
2014 ongoing
sin∞fin
Performances at the Core of the Looking-Glass
2012, Trilogy episode short, 45'42" min
(producer, writer, director, performer)
Produced in Antarctica, the concluding episode short of the sin∞fin trilogy engages through narratives on the comprehensive spheres of nature and the universe. The trilogy of art films of collaborative performances in epic locations around the world teeters between the real and the visionary and is amplified by the unfamiliar environments.
DVD | VOD | www.sinfin-themovie.de
Adventure, Art, Biography, Documentary, Drama, Environment, Science, Philosophy
sin∞fin
Performances at the Core of the Looking-Glass
Performance-based film
2012
sin∞fin Performances at the Holy Centre
2011, Trilogy episode short, 37'14" min
(producer, writer, director, performer)
Produced in Northern India and Kashmir, the second episode short of the sin∞fin trilogy highlights the sphere of society and religion. The trilogy of art films of collaborative performances in epic locations around the world teeters between the real and the visionary and is amplified by the unfamiliar environments.
DVD | VOD | www.sinfin-themovie.de
Adventure, Art, Biography, Documentary, Drama, Environment, Science, Philosophy
sin∞fin
Performances at the Holy Centre
Performance-based film
2011
sin∞fin
Performances at the End of the World
2010, Trilogy episode short, 38'52" min
(producer, writer, director, performer)
Produced in Chilean Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego, the first episode short of the sin∞fin trilogy focuses on the inner sphere of microcosm and the intimate domain of the individual and the couple. The trilogy of art films of collaborative performances in epic locations around the world teeters between the real and the visionary and is amplified by the unfamiliar environments.
DVD | VOD | www.sinfin-themovie.de
Adventure, Art, Biography, Documentary, Drama, Environment, Science, Philosophy
sin∞fin
Performances at the End of the World
Performance-based film
2010
Panta Rhei – Tracing History
2011, Video, 6'47" min
A video poem about the trust in change.
Art, Asia, Dao, Philosophy
More Info
Panta Rhei | Tracing History
Video
2011
Decameron
2009, Video, 12'44" min
(producer, writer, director, editor, performer)
A video poem in seven chapters about the question of existence. Shot in 2009 at the Tuscan village of Certaldo, birth place of Decameron author Boccaccio, who lets his protagonists shelter in a secluded villa just outside Florence in order to escape the Black Death, which was afflicting the city in 1348.
Art, Biography, History, Literature, Philosophy
De-Cameron
Video
2009
Crossing
2009, Video, 4'05" min
A journey through isolation and reflection with pathogens as mnemonics of Deep Time.
Colonize
Video
2009
Crossing
2009, Video, 2'51" min
Award winner: Culture Prize of the City of Nassau, Video Poetry Prize La Parola Immaginata
On a street corner that looks paved like a chessboard, people wander anonymously in opposing directions. They join each other and separate along two intersecting lines on the road, appearing and disappearing as if they echo the impermanence of life. There is a moment in which they double in perfect harmony, but direct communication is inexistent.