In recent years we have seen an intense and speedy cultural migration and merging of art, architecture and moving image. Mash ups, remakes, fast edits, samplings, cut ups; contemporary culture is profoundly fragmented and constantly recreated. What were once avant-garde strategies have now become everyday practices. The ubiquity and diversity of gadgets, cameras and screens is a particularly prominent aspect of this softwerized digital culture. Professional filmmakers are seen to use cheap digital cameras in order to create low-tech DIY aesthetics, as exemplified by Lars Von trier and Thomas Vinterberg.

EMPIRE II is a spontaneous reflex point, a hot eye that reflects on the elusiveness and temporality of the digital image, interweaving various paths, trends and approaches to film making. Ranging from animation to cold cut editing, this selection of short films will confront us with ideas on climate change, immigration, religion, sex, fear, despair, narcissism, loss, violence, addiction, death, anxiety, pollution, spacetravel, technology and much more.

EMPIRE II european tour will open this year with an exhibition at Haus Gallery, Tallinn during the annual Art Week taking place in month of June. On this occasion artists will create a series of new photographic images/film stills which will represent their imaginary movies, movies that have not been made, will never be made or exist just as ideas. Tuning collectively into the theme of «Playing God» devised for this years Tallinn Art Week, artists respond and play to create a new narrative which will form a second publication for EMPIRE II, a follow up to the Venice Biennale book, designed, printed and published in Germany towards the end of 2018.

The exhibition will remain open at Haus Gallery until 30 June. After Tallinn, further screenings this year will take place during the month of September in both Madrid & Hastings as part of Coastal Currents festival, October in Paris during FIAC and December in Zagreb.

Artists: William Angus-Hughes, Jessica Bailey, Jon Baker, Kerry Baldry, Vanya Balogh, Sooz Belnavis, Stella Whalley & Toby Bricheno, Megan Broadmeadow, Anita Bryan, Roger Clarke, Laura Liliyana-Raffaella Cogoni, Paul Coombs & Gabriel Mulvey, Richard Ducker, Joe Dye, Spizz Energi, Gordon Faulds, Susana Lopez Fernandez, Valentina Ferrandes, Julian Firth, Glenn Fitzy Fitzpatrick, Gzillion Artist, Maryclare Foa, Mandee Gage, Andrea Morucchio, Toni Gallagher, Ray Gange, Warren Thomas Garland, Maria Teresa Gavazzi, Alina Gavrielatos, Ann Grim, Fiona Haines, Dannielle Hodson, Birgitta Hosea, Laura Hynd,  Vanja Karas, Will Kerr, Monika Kita, Kate Kotcheff, Kristina Kotov, Tomaž Kramberger, Bella Land, Bob Lawson, MC Llamas, Bobby Lloyd, Jeffrey Louis-Reed, Iavor Lubomirov, Julia Maddison, Lee Maelzer, Nerys Mathias, Jane Grisewood & Carali McCall, Joanna McCormick, Stacie McCormick, Montague Armstrong, Anna Mortimer, Sarah Pager, Martyn Pick, John Plowman, Danny Pockets, Marisa Polin, Eva Raboso, Meriliis Rinne, India Roper-Evans, Jim Roseveare, Pascal Rousson, Tracey Moberly & Robbie Ryan, Mario Varas Sanchez, Susana Sanroman, Susan Schulman, Rebecca Scott, Ashley Scott Fitzgerald, Richard Sharples, Liz Sheridan, Veronica Shimanovskaya, Steve Smith, Barbara Stanzl, Susan Supercharged, Melissa Alley & Paul Tecklenberg, Taline Temizian, Sarah Sparkes & Ian Thompson, Paul & Stanley Tucker, Graham Tunnadine, Gavin Turk, Tisna Westerhof, WhittyGordon Projects, Mark Woods

Curated by Vanya Balogh

Programming Meriliis Rinne & Triinu Soikmets

Film Programming/Technical Advice Daniel Buckley