In Vivo

The museum for film and the art of the moving image in the Netherlands. Visit the exhibition or cinema and discover our collection with more than 50.000 films.

Eye Filmmuseum

7 February Eye is closed

Eye Filmmuseum seen across the river IJ © Marcus Koppen

Eye Filmmuseum, © Marcus Koppen

campaign image Cinema Ecologica

still from In Vivo (Karel Doing, GB 2021)

still In Vivo (Karel Doing, GB 2021)

poster Cinema Ecologica: Karel Doing's In Vivo

header Karel Doing: Phytography + In Vivo

Cinema Ecologica: header Karel Doing Workshop

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In this elegy humans appear like ants, walking around their habitat in a pre-programmed way, while animals and plants act like individuals. This upside-down world has a strange attraction; simultaneously alienating and deeply familiar.

Karel Doing mined collections - including Eye’s - for his latest film. As in all his work, the celluloid’s emulsion is present as a skin that breathes and interacts with the living world in several ways: granular, ephemeral, tinted, shaking.Time and space fade in this combined film, documentary, home movie and symphony. The latter includes snatches of the filmmaker’s personal history including meeting his friends and family. He used fytography – a technique the artist helped develop in recent years as an environmentally-friendly alternative to photography chemicals. A re-occurring doomsday clock counts down, reminding the audience that species are going extinct right now. How long before the realisation dawns that our destructive behaviour is irreversible and threatens to destroy everything we love?
Lecture
On 14 June 2022, at 19:15, preceding In Vivo’s screening, Karel Doing will provide a lecture on phytography featuring short films and the results of a workshop he will provide at Eye that afternoon. Botanical juices will be used to record traces of plants on film emulsion outside in the sunlight.
On the 14th Gareth Davis will play live on clarinet and electronics.

Film directors have used fiction to show how humanity relates to nature, in every genre. Think, for instance, of disaster films, ones about pandemics, underwater creatures that can talk or plant-based life forms who colonise the minds and bodies of earth’s inhabitants.

Cinema Ecologica

Karel Doing makes fabulous images on a layer of emulsion using flowers and leaves. After giving a workshop earlier this afternoon, where the participants collaborated on two animations made using plants from the immediate surroundings of Eye, the results are shown during this in-depth lecture featuring Doing’s short phytographic films and Doing’s latest film In Vivo, with live music by Gareth Davis.

Karel Doing gives a film lecture on phytography, illustrated by short films and the results of a workshop he will be giving this afternoon in Eye. This involves recording traces of plants on the film’s emulsion using plant sap, outside in the sunlight. The evening will close with Karel Doing’s latest film, In Vivo. Preceded by three short films:

Karel Doing: Phytography + In Vivo

Filmmaker Karel Doing provides a workshop aimed at recording plant prints on film emulsion using botanical juices and sunlight. Together you will create two 16mm animations using flowers, plants or herbs you bring along or that you pick from Eye’s immediate surroundings. The phytography workshop’s results will be screened the same evening in the shape of two film loops with an improvised soundtrack.

You don't need a darkroom to make phytograms as this technique relies primarily on the chemical reaction between plants and photographic emulsion. The basic procedure is as follows: select a plant and carefully pick the leaves or select flowers and take apart the petals. The leaves or petals should be relatively flexible and flat in order to make good contact with the films’ emulsion. Soak the leaves or petals in a solution of water, soda and vitamin C. Place the paper, or roll out a strip of film, on a table or other flat surface in full daylight (the film strip can be as long or short as desired). Apply the soaked plants to the film, taking care that none of the solution is spilled on the emulsion and secure maximum contact between the plants and the emulsion. Leave the filmstrip with the applied organic material in full sunlight for quick and high contrast results and in the shadow for slower and less contrasty results. Carefully remove the leaves, petals or flowers and submerge the filmstrip in normal photographic fixer or use a strong salt solution as fixer. Wash the paper or filmstrip well and use some ecofriendly soap as wetting agent. Gently brush off any remaining organic residue with your hands and let your results dry before handling further for projection, exhibition or scanning.

Workshop Phytography

show for: 704810 2022-06-11 11:30:00

With a film lecture and the results of this afternoon’s botanic film workshop

With filmmaker Karel Doing and musician Gareth Davis

show for: 707977 2022-06-14 19:15:00

The results will be presented the same evening as 16mm loops.

In Vivo

Karel Doing / GB, 2021 / 61 min.

In this elegy humans appear like ants, walking around their habitat in a pre-programmed way, while animals and plants act like individuals. This upside-down world has a strange attraction; simultaneously alienating and deeply familiar.

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Cinema Ecologica