Screenings/ExhibitionsPosted by Marc Atkinson Sat, July 03, 2010 18:36:38There will be an exhibition of one of my films 'Reveal' for the Open Prize. More information below.
PRIVATE VIEW & PRIZE CEREMONY 22 July from 6pm
In 2009, Open Gallery launched a competition to find a new video artist to join the Artscape Project in an ongoing commission for video paintings. The competition was open to all graduating students and Postgraduate Film & Video students from Art Colleges across the UK.
From 22-24 July, we will be exhibiting the work of 10 shortlisted artists in the stunning disused Nichols and Clarke warehouse on Bishopsgate. The Open Prize, designed to celebrate young artists working within the video painting medium, has attracted in excess of 500 entries. The winner will be selected from the shortlisted group of ten and will receive funding towards their future video projects and exhibitions with Open Gallery.
The prize will be judged by Ben Lewis (BBC), Ziba de Weck (Parasol Unit), Marc Valli (Elephant and Magma Books) and Hilary Lawson (Artscape Project), and awarded during the private view and prize ceremony on Thursday 22 July. There is a limited guest list for the event on 22 July. Please email gallery@opengallery.co.uk for details.
Video SketchesPosted by Marc Atkinson Fri, April 30, 2010 09:45:35Inspired by the work of
Jeff Sher and by my frustration with the length of time it often takes to create video projects, I have decided to start making some short
Video Sketches.
I do not want to impose any particular restrictions, but imagine that they will be observational and photographic. The process will involve me carrying a camcorder at all times and I imagine that this may result in me looking more closely and reflecting more on my own daily activities and the world around me.
The videos will essentially be a sketch pad from which other ideas may or may not develop. I will try to do at least one a week, but the idea is to remove guidelines rather than create them.
Screenings/ExhibitionsPosted by Marc Atkinson Thu, April 29, 2010 09:57:09
Screening of Regents Canal at the
Takoma Park-Silver Spring Experimental Film Festival
on May 6, 2010 at
Pyramid Atlantic Art Center 7:30 – 9:30pm
in the “Contemplating Landscapes” section
ArticlesPosted by Marc Atkinson Tue, April 27, 2010 22:28:55Representing Landscape
Having returned from videoing and photographing a relatively remote Scottish Island named Rona, I stopped off in Edinburgh to visit family. Interestingly I discovered there were two exhibitions investigating ways of representing Scotland’s unique landscapes. One from the ‘giant’ of modern painting Sean Scully and the other from 60 primary school pupils from Tollcross Primary School, Edinburgh and Bun-sgoil Shlète, Skye. Still with the alien and uncompromising landscape in my mind, it was with some surprise that it was the work of the school children that seemed more successful and inspiring.
Iona is an exhibition of a selection of paintings and one giant triptych that are the result of the impression the island left on Scully after a visit some years before. There is also a set of accompanying photographs of buildings from Lewis and Hariss which the artist visited twenty years ago. The paintings were produced in the artist’s studio in New York between 2004-2006 and are shown for the first time in the UK at Ingleby Gallery in Edinburgh.
Ingleby’s location near the back of Waverley station gives it a strangely sombre appearance. It suggests the tiredness or sorrow of returning home rather than the buzz and excitement of leaving. This atmosphere is carried on into the large, minimalist and mainly empty gallery. Scully’s works are separated into a room of smaller paintings, a separate room for a selection of photographs (With a selection of the artists books displaying connected past projects) and a larger space upstairs to display the large triptych of paintings.
The exhibition as a whole feels like the gallery minimalist, careful and controlled. Scully regarded as an heir to the American Abstract expressionists, chooses to focus on the elements of geographic form and colour that he remembers of the landscape. For me and with Rona still in my mind, the exhibition captured little of the elemental, rugged and mysterious nature of a Scottish island. Nor did they suggest the overwhelming activity of life from the noise of the seabirds, wind and Sea around the Island to the array of natural life and vegetation growing from its ancient and layered rock.
The photographs (Taken on the Islands of Hariss and Lewis twenty years ago by the artist) are perhaps the most interesting element to the exhibition as they suggest some of the mystery of past habitation that is present on many of the Scottish Islands. Each photograph selects a fragment of the basic but colourful remaining buildings on Iona. Framed mechanically, close-up and without depth of focus, the images appear flat and painterly. Scully’s focus reveals the interplay of line, colour and texture between the different elements of wood, glass, stone and corrugated Iron in the buildings. Sculley suggests that "the fundamental difference between my working methods and those of the painters of the nineteenth century, who made travel sketches, is that I don't use images of what I've photographed, only the emotions". In this respect it is possible to see that the geometric patterns and supporting rectangular shapes featured in his photographs are continued into the paintings.
The paintings appear to draw upon the minimal palette of colours found within the landscape of Iona. The Triptych is Scully’s monumental response to the effect of visiting the island. The triptych can be seen as a form of narrative in which the images relate or develop on from one another. Reading from left to right, Scully’s triptych begins with a dense flat plain of a sombre colour. The image appears impenetrable, a grey morning or stone wall waiting for the full light of day. The second painting is lighter, filled with warmer colours and a developing a rhythm of adjoining rectangles. The third painting features bars of black, blue and grey organised in ordered pairs. Elements of lighter colour leak through the bars suggesting the beginning of a transformation. Taken together the paintings limited palette suggests the islands landscape tinted as it seems by the blue and grey of rock, light, sea and sky. In retrospect the images suggest a lamentable and impenetrable landscape, but one that has inspired Scully with the ambition to create such a large work. Scully himself suggests that the connecting blocks and the relationship between the paintings attempts to reflect elemental transformations and convergences. ‘I try to paint this, this sense of the elemental coming together of land and sea, sky and land, of blocks coming together, side by side and stacked in horizon lines endlessly beginning and ending – the way the blocks of the world hug each other and brush up against each other, their weight, their air, their colour, and the soft uncertain space between them. I'm putting these into paintings.’ His description is perhaps more interesting than the slightly disappointing experience of standing in front of the paintings themselves that seem too minimal and subjective to reveal the magical and continually resonant real experience of actually standing on an island.
The Fruitmarket Gallery in opposition to the Ingleby, is buzzing with life, which similarly seems suited to its current exhibition Air Iomlaid (On Exchange). The exhibition is an education project involving 60 primary school pupils from Tollcross Primary School, Edinburgh and Bun-sgoil Shlète, Skye. This inspiring project was conceived by artist Julie Brook and The Fruitmarket Gallery’s Children and Young People’s Programme Manager Johnny Gailey. In the words of the Gallery ‘…following a process devised by Julie Brook, the project has involved the children in an intensive process of art tuition over 18 months. The children have learned to draw and paint outside in their own and each other’s environments, and to work up their immediate responses in individual and collaborative drawings and paintings, poetry, film and animation. This exhibition is a celebration of the project and an opportunity to present the children’s work’.
On the ground floor is a vast selection of the pupils work over the year as each school visited and responded through painting and drawing to the unique and diverse landscapes. Despite the variety of images, there is a unity to the work which testifies clearly to the high level of teaching involved. Accompanying this is an interesting and beautiful film of the process of the project and animations made by the pupils. It is rare to see an accessible show and of course work by children on such a scale, which perhaps makes the exhibition more impressive. Upstairs however is where the work really hits you in a way that the Iona triptych could only dream of doing. Huge scale landscapes drawn collectively by the pupils in charcoal dominate the space. Filled with confidence and vibrancy, the detail and effort fill the viewer with awe allowing you or perhaps reminding you of what it is like to see the world as a child. Also included here, thankfully are the blue sketch pads of the pupils laid haphazardly around. There is none of the pretentiousness often present in the commercial galleries; the work in all its forms spreads out across the walls and pages with enthusiastic abandon.
Both exhibitions suggest how different our ways of seeing and responding to a landscape can be and the difficulty in communicating our findings to others. It also suggests something about the modern value of art. Although their appears to have been little press outside of the TES for the Air Iomlaid exhibition, Iona has been featured in most major magazines, and has been described as “one of the great paintings of the early 21st century”. It is perhaps more inspiring to see the accessible work of Air Iomlaid, art as education and art for arts sake rather than for the marketplace.
Air Iomlaid runs until the 9th May at the Fruitmarket Gallery
Iona runs until June 26 at Inglebury Gallery
ArticlesPosted by Marc Atkinson Sun, April 25, 2010 13:18:04Navigating Chaos
At First glance The Hurt Locker appears to be a relatively straightforward modern action film, with some great direction and performances. Set in Iraq, in 2004 the story follows a group of bomb disposal experts. Staff Sergeant William James joins the team after the death of his predecessor. An adrenalin junkie, he frequently puts his colleagues Sanborn and Eldridge in danger causing tension within the team. James befriends an Iraqi boy nicknamed Beckham. Later the team is sent to make safe a bomb-making factory where they find Beckham has been killed and his body rigged with explosives. Appalled by Beckham's death and the aftermath of an oil-tanker bombing, James persuades Sandborn and Eldridge to seek out the insurgents responsible. In a skirmish Eldridge is injured by friendly fire and is later evacuated blaming James for his injuries. Their rotation over, James returns home to his wife and infant son but finds it hard to adjust and signs up to return to Iraq.
What is interesting about the film is the degree to which it refuses to comment on the politics of the situation and tries to present in documentary style the work of a group of US soldiers and the response of some of the Iraqi people. This approach reveals the extent of our acceptance to situations such as Iraq and the notion that there is now no alternative to ongoing conflicts. Bigelow and writer Mark Boal focus on the way in which individuals deal with this realisation. Particularly this is acknowledged through the characters of Sanborn and James and the way in which they express not only different elements of masculinity, but also opposing methods of navigating the chaos of a reality now embedded with war. Sanborn is methodical and cautious, conscious of the welfare of those around him; meanwhile James is reckless and independent. James often removes his protective suit and refuses to communicate or obey the orders or advice of others. Sanborn, despite his arguments with James, ultimately admires James’ example of masculinity and desires to be just like him. James is the archetypical modern warrior, completely at ease within his environment. James even favours the theatrical, like a modern day Houdini. In his first disposal mission he deploys a smoke bomb that he disappears into. Later we see him tackling another bomb after wriggling out of his protective protective suit. James is also the quintessential American image of rebellious masculinity, smoking cigarettes, drinking, disobeying his superiors etc. However, James only feels comfortable in the war zone. Back home he is unable to communicate with his wife and seems despondent in his brief interactions with his child. A key scene features James standing bemused, unable to make a decision in front of a whole aisle of different cereal in a Supermarket. James unlike Eldridge and to some degree Sanborn is not destabilised by horror, but by reality.
Wars have become endless conflicts and are embedded within suburban streets. Bombs and terrorist attacks feature daily in News reports and the notion of constant threat is fused into the individual. In The Hurt Locker every Iraqi appears as a threat and every house and street is dangerous. A line from the script states
‘The question is not - do you see a white garbage bag? It’s which of these bags is the BOMB’?
Reality is no longer as it appears and only the watchful are able to see clearly. This notion reaches its peak when the team are called to a ‘Bomb Factory’ in the suburbs in which they find the Iraqi boy James had befriended, dead with a bomb sewn into his stomach. The brutality of the act is unfathomable as much to us as at is to James. War is embedded into day to day life as it has become embedded into those who live and work within it. We either embrace and become fused with the chaos like James, protect ourselves like Sanborn, or are emotionally and psychologically effected like Eldridge. The Hurt Locker does not suggest one method is better than the other, merely relaying the ways in which those who live and work within zones of conflict attempt to navigate and live in an increasingly chaotic reality.
ArticlesPosted by Marc Atkinson Sat, April 24, 2010 13:08:17The Return of the Weird?
Perhaps it is nostalgia, but there is a sense that the weird used to be more readily available in the family home until recently. Much of contemporary and commercial Film and Television was resiliently odd from the 1950’s until the early 1990’s. From Mr Ben, The Eagle, Hammer Horror, the films of John Carpenter, David Cronenburg, and David Lynch, The Twilight Zone to Dr Who etc. Elements of these have of course been re-worked recently only to return as sanitised and overly polished products. (Just look at the new version of The Prisoner or Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland in comparison to earlier versions). It isn’t until recently that a crop of mainstream odd films have emerged that re-expose the viewer to the strange often unexplainable world around us. Many such films are often derided for incomprehensible plots or inexplicable dialogue, as if the best works of art should be entirely closed and complete. Professional and polished artworks often seal us in protectively to the dominant ideologies or narrative structures that we feel comfortable with. As a child, peering at the world through the Television, reading fantastic stories or playing outside close to Nature we are exposed more frequently to the complex, violent and chaotic world that surrounds us. In adult life the exposure to the odd, occurs less frequently through film or chance often traumatic events.
Before discussing some recent Weird films and the connections they have, it is worth considering what the Weird actually is. To experience weirdness is to feel disorientated. To find it difficult to place oneself correctly in the world by time or location. We can also feel weird disconnected from our body or identity perhaps through an inability to recognise ourselves, recall previous events or learn new material. The word “weird” derives from the Germanic word wyrd, meaning fate. A key reference is Shakespeare’s Macbeth in which the “weird sisters” (Darkness, chaos & Conflict) foretell Macbeth’s ascension to the throne and his ultimate fate. Setting the tone for the dark play, the sisters sitting somewhere between the natural and the supernatural, suggest the chaotic and uncontrollable nature of reality. "Fair is foul, and foul is fair: Hover through the fog and filthy air". Dictionary definitions of Weird state “1. Suggesting the operation of supernatural influences (synonyms: eerie, haunting, mysterious, uncanny, unearthly)” and “2. Strikingly odd or unusual (synonyms: bizarre, eccentric, grotesque, odd, preternatural, and surreal).” There is not an acknowledged commercial genre of weird cinema; however the notion of a ‘weird’ literature can be found and pre-dates the acknowledgement and development of the stylistic conventions of the horror and sci-fi genre. Weird fiction is a subgenre of speculative literature written in the late 19th and early 20th century. Weird tales often blend the supernatural, mythical, and even scientific. British "weird" authors, for example, published their work in mainstream literary magazines even after American pulp magazines became popular. Popular weird fiction writers included H. P. Lovecraft, Lord Dunsany, Arthur Machen, and M. R. James. H. P. Lovecraft adopted the term from Sheridan Le Fanu and popularized it in his essays. In "Supernatural Horror in Literature," Lovecraft defines the genre:
The true weird tale has something more than secret murder, bloody bones, or a sheeted form clanking chains according to rule. A certain atmosphere of breathless and unexplainable dread of outer, unknown forces must be present; and there must be a hint, expressed with a seriousness and portentousness becoming its subject, of that most terrible conception of the human brain--a malign and particular suspension or defeat of those fixed laws of Nature which are our only safeguard against the assaults of chaos and the daemons of unplumbed space. (From Wikipedia)
Weird Cinema again appears cross-genre, but can be connected in its appreciation of the non-linear, chaotic, supernatural and unexplainable. (See 366 Weird Movies for a list) The collapsing of rationality, or more likely of what is currently known, is acknowledged in many recent films including Richard Kelley’s The Box & Lars Von Trier’s Antichrist. In The Box Norma and Arthur Lewis, a suburban couple with a young child, receive a simple wooden box as a gift, which bears fatal and irrevocable consequences. A mysterious stranger, delivers the message that the box promises to bestow upon its owner $1 million with the press of a button. But, pressing this button will simultaneously cause the death of another human being somewhere in the world; someone they don't know. With just 24 hours to have the box in their possession, Norma and Arthur find themselves in the cross-hairs of a startling moral dilemma and must face the true nature of their humanity.
Like Kelley’s previous works, The Box reflects on speculative ideas regarding morality, time, religion and consciousness. The film repeatedly references Arthur C Clarke’s third law developed in a 1973 revision of his compendium of essays, Profiles of the Future,
‘Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic’.
Throughout the film it is also our notions of reality such as identity and time that are questioned and that become inexplicable. The films three part structure and devlopment also wander often aimlessly from narrative continuity and into pure spectacle as the couple become more paranoid.
Essentially, The Box like many of the most recent modern films is a B-movie masquerading as an A Movie. This is not to deride the film, merely to suggest that like Kelley’s other films, The Box is an interesting auteur project that has slipped into the mainstream. Infantilised by the over emotional and over polished science fiction/fantasy/horror of much modern cinema (Dr Who, Harry Potter, Alice in Wonderland etc) the unresolved (or confusing) nature of Weird films like The Box allows some exposure back to the chaotic, fateful and strange Natural world around us.
What is interesting about many of the recent Supernatural films that have emerged is that they revolve around the family unit or couple and specifically subconscious fears regarding the extent to which we are able to fully know one another. In Paranormal Activity, Antichrist and The Box – ordinary-loving couples are exposed to extraordinary, chance events and undergo transformations which result in exposure to the Natural or Supernatural which appears violent and vengeful in its unfamiliarity. In all three of the mentioned films the origin of the supernatural stems from or is associated with the female. (Norma pushes the Button in The Box. She lets the child fall and attacks the husband in Antichrist, Katie is the source of the haunting in Paranormal Activity) Far from Misogynistic, these films follow a tradition in associating the female with Nature.
“ So on her fares, and to the border come
Of Eden, where delicious Paradise,
Now nearer, crowns with her enclosure green”
“Of goodliest trees loaden with fairest fruit,
Blossoms and fruits at once of golden hue”
(Milton, Paradise Lost, Book 4, lines 131-3, 147-8)
As in much literature and in horror the Natural is often considered to be violent and chaotic. Lars Von Trier discussing the origins of Antichrist in an interview with Rotten Tomatoes suggests
I saw a documentary about the original forests of Europe, and all that could be compared, of course, to the 'original forests' of anywhere; and the conclusion in that was that the original forest was the place with the maximum of pain, the maximum of death; life and death. There were so many different species trying to kill each other and that's why in this original forest, well... [pauses] maybe there are not as many acorns as there are in the film. [laughs] And that, put together that the idea that these places, these romantic forests, are places that a lot of people would like to go to -- including me, I think of this place as the less anxiety-provoking place in the world -- that's kind of interesting. At the same time that we hang it on our walls over the fireplace or whatever, it represents pure Hell.
The duality of our relationship to Nature is often imbalanced. Its dark reality, which infrequently troubles or exposes itself to us, still lies affecting our experiences of the world subconsciously. When its force is unearthed often through a traumatic event whether in a film or reality – the effects and acknowledgement of the possibility of its return can be deeply troubling. With films like The Box, Paranormal Activity and Antichrist it is interesting to find films cantered around the instability of the modern family unit and identity itself. These films perhaps suggest (or suggest a desire for) the diminishing divide between modern society and the Natural/Supernatural. They also allow a little of the Uncanny or the Weird into the mainstream and the otherwise ‘safe’ family home. It has been a long time since mainstream films allowed you to question what you have seen or even troubled a night’s sleep.
