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:
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, 2022
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
