a.m./p.m.
a video by Herman Asselberghs
45 min., Belgium, 2004
Photos of cosmopolitan cityscapes are systematically scanned and display views of office blocks, flats, dark corners, illuminated windows and skyscrapers. On a soundtrack you hear a woman's voice recounting her story and that of the world; about images of today, about a journey. Her monologue is a fictionalised version of the impressions that Asselberghs picked up during his trip to Palestine. He consciously chose for the film to show the explosive and mediatized situation in the region by taking an absolutely minimalist audiovisual approach. The fact that he creates a detached view by using a female voice instead of his own, coupled with deviating from a run-of-the-mill documentary style, produces a complex approach to his ideas and feelings on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict.

Photography by Els Opsomer.
Graphic Motion Design by Nicolas Karaktzanis.
Soundtrack by David Shea.
Voice by Claude Wampler.
Sound engineering by Boris Debackere.
a SQUARE vzw production

Here is a text on a.m./p.m. from AS - mediamagazine by Cyril Neyrat. (in French or English)

a.m./p.m. has been selected for

Premiers Compétition- 16th Marseilles International Documentary Film Festival
Marseilles [France], July 1 – 6 2005

Ecrans Parallèles: Penser à vue - 16th Marseilles International Documentary Film Festival
Marseilles [France], July 1 – 6 2005

Courtisane – Short Film, Video & New Media Festival
Vooruit Gent [Belgium], May 14 & 15

European Media Art Festival 2005 group show
Osnabrueck [Germany]. April 20 - May 15 2005

Van Abbemuseum · ‘Journal #8' group show
Eindhoven [the Netherlands ], February 20 - May 16 2005

Internationales Forum des Jungen Films – 55 Internationale Filmfestspiele Berlin
Berlin [Germany]. February 11 – 15 2005

International Film Festival Rotterdam 2005
Rotterdam [the Netherlands], January 30 & 31 2005

HERMAN ASSELBERGHS is an artist and critic. He regularly publishes on audio-visual culture in the Belgian newspaper De Tijd, teaches at the film department of Hogeschool Sint-Lukas Brussel and co-runs the Transmedia postgraduate program in arts, media & design at the same art college. He is a founding member of SQUARE vzw and co-curates the electronic music series [sonic]square. His publications include TIME SUSPENDED [Uitgestelde Tijd] (with Els Opsomer and Pieter Van Bogaert, published by SQUARE vzw, Brussels, 2004) the artists' book Wrapped (with Els Opsomer and Rony Vissers, published by CGAC, Santiago de Compostella, 2000) and the reader Het museum van de natie. Van kolonialisme tot globalisering (co-edited by Dieter Lesage, Gevaert Publisher, Brussels, 1999). His installations have been shown at Centre Pompidou-Paris, Documenta X-Kassel, Deitch Projects-New York, CGAC-Santiago de Compostella, hArtware-Dortmund and the Rotterdam Foto Biënnale 2003.