Constant
40' / 2K DCP / 2022
DE, UK
"Constant" is a journey through the social and political histories of measurement. For most of recorded history, the human body was the measure of all things. “Constant” asks what led measurement to depart from the body and become a science unto itself. The film explores three shifts in the history of measurement standardization, from the land surveying that drove Early Modern European land privatization, to the French Revolution that drove the Metric Revolution, to the conceptual dematerialisation of measurement in the contemporary era of Big Science. Each chapter traces the relationship of measurement standardization to ideas of egalitarianism, agency, justice, and power. Cinematic and technical images that begin as products of measurement systems are stretched beyond their functions to describe the resistance of lived experience to symbolic abstractions.
Text / direction / camera / edit / sound design: Sasha Litvintseva and Beny Wagner
Producers: Guillaume Cailleau for CaSk Films, Sasha Litvintseva and Beny Wagner
3D and point cloud animation: Matteo Mastrandrea
Original music: dead hand
Additional music: Beny Wagner
Narration: Cynthia Beatt
Sound design and mix: Gabor Ripli
Color grade: Sergi Sanchez
Supported by:
Medienboard Berlin Brandenburg
Beauftragter der Bundesregierung für Kultur und Medien
Awards:
Silvestre Award for Best Short Film, IndieLisboa 2022
Best Short Documentary, Guanajuato International Film Festival 2022
Jury Special Mention, EXiS Seoul 2022
Press:
Interview: BOMB Magazine
Interview: Filmmaker Magazine
Interview: Senses of Cinema
Interview: Hammer to Nail
Review: The Film Verdict
Review: FRIEZE
Review: Edge Media Network
Review: Criterion Cast
Review: Senses of Cinema
Presentations:
2022 51st International Film Festival Rotterdam, Ammodo Tiger Shorts Competition
2022 Open City Documentary Festival, London, UK
2022 CPH:DOX, New Visions Competition, Copenhagen, Denmark
2022 Courtisane, Ghent, Belgium
2022 Indie Lisboa, Silvestre Competition, Lisbon
2022 Guanajuato International Film Festival, Mexico
2022 EXiS Seoul, International Competition, South Korea
2022 First Look, Museum of Moving Image, New York, USA
2022 Prismatic Ground, Maysles Documentary Center, New York, USA
2022 Chicago Underground Film Festival, USA
2022 Camden International Film Festival, Rockland, USA
2022 Olhar de Cinema, International Shorts Competition, Curtiba International Film Festival, Brazil
2022 MUTA International Film Festival, Lima, Peru
2022 IMPAKT festival, Utrecht, was The Netherlands
2022 Cineseries, Wexner Center for the Arts, Ohio, USA
2022 Monsters and Measures, e-flux Screening Room, New York City, USA
2022 Asia Cultural Center Cinemateque, Seoul, South Korea
2022 Imagine Science Film Festival, New York, USA
2022 Kurzfilmfestival Köln, Germany
2022 Bangkok World Film Festival, Bangkok, Thailand
2022 Critical Media Lab, IXDM, FHNW Academy of Art and Design, Basel, Switzerland
2022 This is Not Anarchy, This is Chaos, Transmediale, Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin
2022 Two Films by Sasha Litvintseva and Beny Wagner, University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, USA
2022 Set Phosphenes, Studio for Artistic Research, Düsseldorf, Germany
2023 Artists' Film Series 01/Calibration, Chemist Gallery, London
2023 Hybrid Forms and Frameworks, University of Virginia, USA
2023 The Measure of the World, Radius CCA, Delft, The Netherlands
2023 InScience Film Festival, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
2023 Ginzaza Edition 2: Control, Sony Park Mini, Tokyo, Japan
2023 Constant, Hugh Lane Gallery, Dublin, Ireland
2023 2 Annas Film Festival, Riga, Latvia
2023 A Demonstration / Constant, Cinema Aventure, Brussels, Belgium
2023 Technical Lands, Cube Cinema, Bristol, UK
2023 This Too, Is A Map, 12th Seoul Mediacity Biennale, Seoul Museum of Art, South Korea
2023 Living Togetherness, Taiwan International Video Art Exhbition, Hong-Gah Museum, Taipei
