Intermedia and Expanded Cinema, both as critical approach and artistic practice, left an indelible mark in a period of Japanese art history that is broadly considered to be one of its most dynamic moments in the wake of its postwar reemergence. Rather than assuming the interpretations of the terms were the same as their counterparts abroad, we decided to commission translations of a selection of key texts that we felt were instrumental in shaping the specific discourse around these terms.
Anabases is a project initiated by the artist Eric Baudelaire and conceived as a conversation between his own practice and the research of the philosopher Pierre Zaoui and the cinema theorist Jean-Pierre Rehm. It revolves around the notion of ‘anabasis’, a topic that has been explored in various fields and times, from Xénophon to Alain Badiou, through the poets Saint John Perse and Paul Celan. Anabasis is used to describe a period of ‘uncertain wandering and without guide’ through unknown and dangerous lands that ends when one returns to the native land. Each chapter collects documentary materials which are at the root of projects: chronologies, archival photos, maps, pages from books and newspapers. These documents tell a story that becomes the starting point of forms and films that Baudelaire realizes.