Contextual Report
A more creative type of document than the standard dissertation model, mine takes the form of an archived collection of documents relating to the final (unmade) film of director John Francis Shade.
Photos scouting locations, fragments of scripts, letters, finances, maps, etc. The creation of a believable, functioning narrative around the work.
The artefacts need to be ordered in a logical way (same sites and media together?) whilst keeping up a pace and tempo of narrative (suggested, implied). Hopefully the aesthetic style, along with the content and framing of images in a deliberately sparse manner will help to maintain a consistency and allow the reader to become immersed in the narrative/premise/book.
Content
Forward (archivist – self)
Introduction (archivist self)
Essay one – ‘on the unfinished artwork, the impossible collection’ (art historian)
Essay two – memory, image, Sebald (writer?)
ARCHIVE
photos – locations
photos – props
scripts
Found/research
letters
maps
other (notes, other images)
stills
116 days.
I looked up this figure today and found it at once exciting, vaguely terrifying, and a comfortingly large number. However I’m very much aware time tends to fly where deadlines are involved
The Project.
Developed as a result of research, interests and the aesthetics of my work (rather than being the starting point). Creating a false archive of photographic images, creative writing/concrete poetry, found/faked artefacts.
John Francis Shade: British filmmaker in the 60s whose final work remained unfinished but created around it a healthy amount of hazy mythology. The project curates and re-presents this archive.
The unmade opus.
Archive of an unmade film.
When does the archive become the art? The myth makes the work.
Clues to a demise, an uncertain narrative.
Absenting the artist self.
The work.
Photography (film, b&w), found object (specifically image and text), text (in gallery and other settings), installation and textile.
Influences
W G Sebald, Tacita Dean, Mike Nelson, Vladamir Nabokov, Tris Vonna Mitchell, Roland Barthes, Susan Stewart, Sue Tompkins, Hanne Darboven.
