New K-TOTEM design encourages expression!
Since today, the K-TOTEM at Kortrijk station has been dressed up with a brand new design by Kortrijk filmmaker and all-round creative Charles Dhondt.
Charles is primarily a freelance filmmaker, working on various film projects. He also takes on applied (audiovisual) assignments as an assembler, cameraman, art director, visual artist, teacher, dancer and singer, etc.
For the K-TOTEM, he selected stills from a short screen test for one of his films DANCE ME DRAW ME SING ME, on which he applied his own illustrations as an extra layer. With this design, he wants to encourage people to express where things are stuck. People, especially Flemish people, do not find it easy to express themselves through movement. Yet this would greatly benefit our general well-being. Charles wants to encourage people to express themselves from the underbelly without guilt and shame. "We hardly dare to feel big or small, it is up to us, step by step, to light the flame."
Screentest DANCE ME DRAW ME SING ME
Who are you?
My name is Charles Dhondt (°1994, Kortrijk) live and work in Kortrijk. At the end of 2018, I obtained my Master's degree in Audiovisual Arts at KASK in Ghent. I mainly reside between Kortrijk and Brussels, where most of my friends and colleagues live. I currently work as a freelance filmmaker on several film projects, in addition to my more practical (audiovisual) assignments as an assembler, cameraman, art director, visual artist, teacher, dancer and singer, etc.
Where do you draw inspiration for your work?
From anything, but perhaps most of all from the experience and perception of the immediate environment. Its behavioural patterns and psychology, shame, guilt, fear and anger,... How it relates to each other like a web to be untangled. The pleasure of seeing whether someone puts on a mask or dares to reveal themselves in a group. Above all, I am trying more and more to streamline my body as a compass with my thoughts that sometimes point in a completely different wind direction. To sum it up: the antennae themselves.
What are some trends in the creative world that inspire you?
The curiosity and gluttony surrounding Artificial Intelligence that both inspires great fear and offers a dire creative opportunity. The playing field is shifting and we will see what impact it will have on us as humans and creators. An (over)stimulation has already started some 15 years ago via the widespread use of the 'smart phone', its continuous stream of images and distractions causing a rapid saturation and rigidity of the eye, but artificial Intelligence and its visual application additionally demonstrates the persistent need to discover, but with the fear or chance of losing oneself in it further. So again, it is mainly this dichotomy that inspires me. In addition, a greater interest in the cosmic, the strange or alienesque, the incomprehensible and unreasonable.
Which creatives or artists do you look up to?
My primary examples are filmmakers like R.W. Fassbinder, D. Lynch, L. Visconti, D. Jarman, J-L. Godard, W. Herzog, the Czech New Wave, poet Delphine Lecompte, singer and teacher Julianna Bloodgood, etc. Also befriended creators such as sculptor Gilles Dusong, musicians Daisy Ray, Loverman, Lazzaro & Benjamin Abel Meirhaeghe, filmmaker and musician Moon Methven, filmmakers Louisiana Mees-Fongang and Hannah Bailliu, designer Paule Josephe, dancer Ezra Fieremans, theatre maker Sophia Bauer, illustrator Timothee Boubay, etc.
At which place in Kortrijk do you unwind? Or do you just get energised?
A lot of different places:
- Boekenhuis Theoria
- Begijnhof
- Baggaertshof
- Frank
- DeDingen
- Budascoop, Budatoren, BK6, Oranjerie & the Broeltorens.
- Buda beach, Leieboorden and old Leie arm towards Wevelgem.
- Abdijkaai Outdoor swimming pool
- The neo-Romanesque interior of St Anthony's Church, the exterior of OLV Church, the forecourt of St Michael's Church and the viewpoint of St Martin's Church.
- International Rose Garden and Castle Park 't Hooghe.
- Hangar K
- City Park 't Plein and passage to Groeninge Park with gilded sculpture, St John's Quarter and its architecture
- Old wooded park vanished Surmont castle next to E17.
- Bar Botaniek
Where do you see yourself in five years?
Semi-nomadic existence with grounded financial security, travelling around the official film circuit with a long-player, passing on knowledge, etc. Extension of where I am now, five years after graduation.
