Owen Land

New Improved Institutional Quality is a reworked version of Owen Land’s Institutional Quality from 1969. Like it’s predecessor, it’s structured around a test of perception and comprehension, which also makes up the soundtrack. A middle-aged man appears seated by a desk, attempting to follow the given instructions, however gradually slips out of our common sense of reality, to appear instead inside the illustrations of the test. While no longer responding to the instructor, the man seemingly enters deeper into an imaginary or parallel world.

Owen Land has been described as one of the most seminal and original film-makers of his generation. Born as George Landow in 1944 in Connecticut, USA, it was as George Landow he won recognition for his experimental films in the 1960s and 70s. In his earliest works, Owen Land explored the inherent qualities of the film medium, becoming a forerunner of structuralist film. His later works are inspired partly by television and consumer society, but also by his ambivalent association to American Christianity. Coupling visual ambiguity with mind-blowing word-play, he imbues his films with his special brand of quirky humour.

Curator: Joa Ljungberg