Art & Science Node

a creative & innovative community, a place and a network





FILM SCREENINGS

The OBTP film screening programme takes us on a journey to discover the role of plants on our planet. It ranges from plants as ancient witnesses of human evolution, history, and cultures to modern technologies and cutting-edge research on plants, food, and medicine, all the way to a hypothetical future in which plants and humans will be able to communicate by means of technology and new undiscovered senses.

CHICORY UNPACKED

A film by Marille Hahne

FILMMAKER: Marille Hahne

RESEARCH AND NARRATION: Jill Scott

CAMERA AND MONTAGE: Marille Hahne

COPYRIGHT: 2022 SCOTT/HAHNE


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HISTORY OF A TREE

A film by Flatform


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THE 21st SENSE

A film by Christian Battiferro


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CHICORY UNPACKED

Abstract

CHICORY UNPACKED is an art and science film essay by Marille Hahne and Jill Scott and inspired by an artist-in-residence experience in four labs of the CHIC EU Project. In this experience, we learned about biochemical research into the health and medicinal benefits of plants. The major example in this film is based on chicory (Cichorium Intybus), and the film can also be seen as an analogy for other plants with similar health and medical compounds. The film consists of three parts: “Cultivating Plants”, “Understanding Plants” and “Editing Plants” and each section can be watched separately. In both, art and science, communication about the future of plants and food needs unique ways to inform the audience about the health benefits of secondary compounds. This creative film approach encourages the understanding of what we eat, biochemistry research, our microbiome, and the medicinal and health potentials of plant molecules in the future.

 

PART ONE – CHICORY UNPACKED: CULTIVATING PLANTS. 25 mins

In part 1, “Cultivating Plants”, different viewpoints about plant production are explored, including Chicory. These range from the cultivation and wishes of a farmers’ collective to the collaborations of botanists with scientists in greenhouse research.

 

PART TWO – CHICORY UNPACKED: UNDERSTANDING PLANTS. 35 mins

In part 2, “Understanding Plants”, there are two sections. The first section features THE GMO DEBATE NOW AND THEN from 1998 and from 2022, that aims to encourage more public debate about genetically modified plants. In the second section, molecular structures and their effects on human health are explored through the playful art and science installation called AFTERTASTE: THE MOLECULAR ORCHESTRA by Jill Scott. Plant molecules are like families in an orchestra; they stimulate our senses of taste and smell to register the flavor or “aftertaste” of food in our brain. Here, by interacting with 24 molecules that bio-mimic compounds from chicory, the audience discovers their potential health benefits.

 

PART THREE – CHICORY UNPACKED: EDITING PLANTS. 25 mins

The third part, “Editing Plants”, traces the motivations of biochemists in the EU CHIC research project, who aim to genetically edit plants for tomorrow’s consumers. It explores how gene editing with CrispR-Cas9 might be a new form of breeding plant technology to enhance the health and medical benefits of chicory plants.

 

Marille Hahne Bio

Marille Hahne is professor in Filmmaking with two degrees, one in precision tool engineering (Germany) and the second in Master of Fine Arts in Filmmaking (Chicago). Since 1983, she has directed documentaries in Germany, the US and Australia and for the last 20 years, she specialized in films about Art and Science collaborations (AIL Productions and Neuromedia). She has made over 30 short productions, including portraits of artists and scientists in biotechnology. She also participated in and documented international film and theater workshops. www.marillehahne.com

HISTORY OF A TREE

Abstract

HISTORY OF A TREE is a portrait, and the subject is both a living non-human organism and the territory that it has lived in for a long time. The work has the ambition of becoming part of the field of portraiture, a fundamental component of the course of the whole history of art, rewriting, however, the nature of the subject, the methods of development and the technique of expression of the portrait. In fact, in this project the subject is a non-human living organism that is portrayed through moving images and sounds that have been localized in space, which then show the portrayed subject as an ideal witness to almost a thousand years of the history of an entire territory.

The tree at the center of the project is an oak born about 900 years ago, also known as the “Oak of the Hundred Knights”, and the place is an area around the town of Tricase. This vegetal organism, marked both by a life in continuous growth and by an immovable fixed entity, is a perennial witness to the development of a place, that of its relevance, of the stories that have crossed its path in almost a thousand years and of cultures and languages that followed each other and that still coexist. These are stories of cataclysms, expansions and economic crises, of battles, technological achievements and struggles for emancipation but, above all, of everyday life. These are languages and cultures that speak of migratory flows at the origin of the current status of Europe. The territory where this beautiful tree lives has been at the center of countless migratory flows of which the many languages still spoken today are tangible testimony: Arbëresh, Romani, Griko, Byzantine Greek, Hebrew, Yiddish, Turkish, Spanish, French and Salentino dialect.

Website link: www.historyofatree.org 

 

Flatform Bio

Flatform is a collective artist founded in 2006 and is based in Milan (I) and Berlin (D).

Find out more about them: flatform.it

The 21st SENSE

Abstract

In a dystopian future, a research institute is developing a hologram that allows humans to communicate with plants. Steve, a brilliant researcher, is convinced that such communication is possible even without it, thanks to the 21st sense.

Christian Battiferro Bio

Since his university studies, he has been focused on the creation of short films. He graduated in Cinema with a thesis on the English director Derek Jarman. He currently works as a film-maker and photographer, he’s author of subjects and screenplays for films and TV. Since 2004 he realized about 30 works including short films, video clips, documentaries and commercials. In 2008, he received a special mention at the European Short Film Festival and won “I Leoni dell’Emilia Romagna” award at Corti da Sogni Festival, with the short film Personal Disease. As a photographer he realized various reports in China, Turkey, the United States and Africa.