365 Day Project

Jonas Mekas’ “365 Day Project” at the ZKM | Karlsruhe is a reflection on the course of an entire year captured in 365 short films, shows on a large-scale installation on 52 screens.

In 365 Day Project (2007), a reflection on the course of a year in 365 short films, to be shown at the ZKM | Karlsruhe for the first time as a large-scale installation on 52 screens, the viewer encounters a diverse collection of excerpts from Jonas Mekas’ life.

Landscape photographs are alternated with recordings of public events, concerts, meetings with friends, such as Jean-Jacques Lebel or Peter Kubelka, and with archive shots and philosophical reflections, which he discusses in front of the camera, in the kitchen of his Brooklyn home.

However, the elements that make up the 365 Day Project constitute more than just the idea of a consistently kept filmic diary. Moving through the project complex content and formal networks between the single films appear. In the repetition of camera movements, perspectives and light conditions, a biotope of references begins to emerge. Mekas understands how to skilfully use the oft-criticized “egalitarian” moment of the digital, to join these networks into a single work through the medial peculiarities of his small digital video camera. In 365 Day Project, his key artistic principle of “re-use”, the repeated and multiple use of filmic material from diverse spatial-temporal and medial contexts – concentrates on the material of a single year – 2007.

Jonas Mekas, <i>365 Day Project</i>, 2014 — Jonas Mekas, *365 Day Project*, 2014

Mekas’ artistic work pivots, time and again, on what for him represent biographically key themes, such as homeland and remembrance. However, here his works comprise a striking reflection on the formal characteristics of the media he uses: from classic 16-mm film via early digital video systems through to the Internet-based video archive and other experimental forms of distribution and presentation. This he develops without any trace of reserve with respect to avant-garde cinema.