soul flashes is a programme of artist films presented in the IKOB black box over the course of 2026. The programme is divided into four cycles, each corresponding to one of the classical elements: water, air, fire, and earth.
The ancient concept of four simple substances – the liquid, the gaseous, the incandescently consuming and the solid – to explain the nature and complexity of all matter has been deeply influential across cultures and ages. Though modern science now classifies chemical compounds according to atomic theory, the symbolic power of the classical elements and their appearance in our everyday lives continue to resonate. soul flashes also attributes each element to a season: water for winter, air for spring, fire for summer and earth for autumn emphasizing the narrative and bodily qualities of each element.
Through the lens of these filmmakers, viewers experience different facets of human interaction with the forces of nature: attempts to control and exploit, to compound and embrace. Throughout cinematic history, the act of filming and the consumption of moving image has been riddled with fantasies and realities of power. With works spanning a period from 1928 to the present day, the programme shows the violence, beauty and comedy of our relationship to landscape and other living creatures.
In the films presented, elements can become characters unto themselves. soul flashes thereby proposes an underlying current of existence that escapes documentation and rational understanding, an expanded form of consciousness where we acknowledge a constant exchange with surrounding matter and energy. Viewers are invited to the depths of the ocean, to fly naked into the sky, drink from an oasis, or crack though the ice. When we are lucky, the soul flashes through.
27.01.–29.03.2026
༄ 1st cycle: water ༄
Roman Signer, Einbruch in Eis, 1985. video, 1’7. Bonnefanten Maastricht
The Swiss artist Roman Signer is best known for his 175 Super-8 films made between 1975 and 1989. In these early, silent short films Signer conducted all kinds of unusual, sometimes dangerous, experiments with objects and vehicles, using natural elements as well as fireworks and explosives to poetic and hilarious effect. In Einbruch in Eis, the artist walks out onto a frozen lake until the ice breaks and he falls into the freezing water. He turns towards the camera as it zooms in on his terrified face.
Eva Claus, To Be A Day, 2025. 16mm, 4:3, color, sound, 8’
A window to the outside world, just like the camera’s frame. To Be a Day captures the sun casting its light over a vast seascape on Fogo Island, Canada. Between sunrise and sunset, a series of white dots appear. These white circles reflect the moonlight, guiding fishermen as they walk across the pier to their sheds and boats in the early morning.
Jean Painlevé, Les Oursins, 1928. 35 mm, s/w, no sound, 10'. © Archives Jean Painlevé / Les Documents cinématographiques, Paris
Jean Painlevé (1902-1989) was a French filmmaker and biologist. Over the course of his life, he shot more than two hundred films on a wide range of subjects (from seahorses, octopuses to vampire bats, folk dances, liquid crystals or pigeons), with a predilection for marine life. This is a silent black and white documentary, showing the characteristics of several species of sea urchins.
Alice Dos Reis, Mood Keep, 2018. HD film, 15’
Mood Keep focuses on the critically endangered Mexican axolotl, a water creature with regenerative abilities that refuses to metamorphose into maturity. In the film, set in a near future, axolotls in captivity collectively decide to develop eyelids. In charting the connections between the axolotl’s post-colonial history, unique - almost unearthly - biology, and recent online popularity as one of the world’s cutest creatures, the film traces the prevalence of cute imagery in contemporary semiotics.
The films are screened consecutively and looped continuously during opening hours. The second cycle of films, air, will begin on 31st March 2026.