Perfect Garden
Mara Mattuschka, Chris Haring
We are taken to an occupied establishment – a sort of self-defined subcosmos of reality – to observe a sensual search for pleasure and fullfilment. Men and women dancing, desiring and interacting. Their choreographed body game becomes a symbiotic extension of an excessively hedonistic subconscious. Amidst all this physicality, a mob capo looks to take over the restaurant and find the meaning of life. Mara Mattuschka spells out Chris Haring’s dance routines via inventive camera settings. Perfect Garden is a utopia, perfectly stylized.
Mara Mattuschka
Mara Mattuschka, born in Sofia in 1959, studied ethnology and linguistics at the University of Vienna. She later completed a master’s degree in painting and animation under Maria Lassnig at the University of Applied Arts Vienna. From 1997 to 2001, Mattuschka taught as a professor of fine arts at Braunschweig University of Art (HBK). In 2005 she was awarded the Austrian Prize for Film Art.
Films by Mara Mattuschka (Selection)
Stimmen 2014 | Burning Palace 2009 | Running Sushi 2008 | ID 2003 | SOS Extraterrestria 1993
Chris Haring
Born 1970, the Austrian choreographer Chris Haring works with international choreographers and groups, including: the DV8 Physical Theatre, man act and Nigel Charnock from England and pilottanzt and Willi Dorner from Austria. Working with media artist and composer Klaus Obermaier, he developed video dance performances that were shown around the world. The main sources of inspiration for his pieces are science fiction and the notion of the human body as a cybernetic landscape. As the artistic director of Liquid Loft, Chris Haring performed in the Austrian Pavilion at the EXPO Zaragoza 2008. It was also with Liquid Loft in 2010 that Talking Head came about, a work that deals with issues of identification and self-representation in the social media culture of today.
Films by Chris Haring (Selection)
Burning Palace 2009 | Running Sushi 2008 | Part Time Heroes 2007 | Legal Errorist 2005
