Occasional Criticism

It is necessary to establish… that there is only one true cause because there is only one true God; that the nature or power of each thing is nothing but the will of God; that all natural causes are not true causes but only occasional causes.
—Nicholas Malebranche

A Theatre is a rarity, to be selected with care, anticipated, experienced, discussed at great length, long remembered. But a film more or less is neither here nor there.
—Dorothy Richardson

In the spirit of the publication, in which writer Mike Sperlinger explores the idea that any screening is ultimately an occasion for speculation and sociability, we do not know which film will be showing at the Delphi that night. Preceding the film is an audio recording from another cinema, captured thirty years ago in Berlin by film curator and writer Madeleine Bernstorff. The audience will receive a copy of Occasional Criticism and an invitation to carry on the conversation with Sperlinger and Bernstorff over dinner around the corner, at Künstlerhaus Stuttgart.

To coincide with the launch, a one-off podcast discussion between Mike Sperlinger and Madeleine Bernstorff – about his publication, her recordings and the strange contemporary fate of cinephilia – will be available from the Gemini Journal on the online publication platform Schlosspost.

Occasional Criticism – a chapbook about cinema, criticism, being an audience and the ways film bleeds into our everyday lives can be ordered via hello@anorakanorak.com for €5,00 plus shipping.

The event is part of Gemini, a twofold exhibition, magazine, and series of events curated by anorak and realised in cooperation with Akademie Schloss Solitude, Künstlerhaus Stuttgart, and Delphi Kino.

Image: Construction of the New Jersey Turnpike, 17 November 1951. Courtesy of the Library of Congress