R.U.R.-al
“Place: an island. Time: the future. This is the central office: organizing living matter …”
Proto-science fiction writer Karel Capek's R.U.R. is the inspiration behind Marie Jager's 16mm film of the same name, which will be screened this Sunday in Los Angeles. R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots), originally published in 1920 in the author's homeland of Czechoslovakia, was the first of several works, such as War with the Newts and The Absoulte at Large, that dealt with futuristic and technological themes and imagery. The play introduced to the world the word "robot," which was coined by Karel's brother, painter Josef Capek, from the Old Church Slavonic word rabota, meaning "servitude."
A "meditation on how to 'photograph' the future and create fiction without narrative," Jager's 1993 film is "science-fiction without special effects," shot with non-professional actors, including Michael Asher, Eli Langer, and Francois Perrin, among others. It's part of a two-week series of performance, film, and video at Daniel Hug Gallery in Chinatown. This Sunday the 11th at 7pm sharp.