SERDE, Latvia Residency 2018

Two events that I attended in July 2018 have provided fruitful in terms of providing inspiration for film making.

These were:

Tacita Dean, Woman with a red hat, The Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh (6thJuly 2018)

The first event was a kind of artists talk and Q&A between The Fruitmarket’s director Fiona Bradley and Tacita Dean. I was impressed by Tacita’s technical knowledge and ability to explain the differences between analogue and digital in a simple way. My notes that I wrote:

• In this new film she works with performance and some of the themes are actor, object and narrative or how to disrupt narrative.
• Notion of using actor as a medium
• She didn’t know so much about theatre and looked at how important the text was to an actor
• The artist is in control of the text
• The work is about enchantment and disenchantment and the film lasts for 50 mins
• There is an emotional trajectory to the piece
• The work doesn’t seek to disrupt the magic of theatre, but at the same time it is pulling the rug out from it
• When are you not self-conscious? When is an actor not self-conscious (when they are in stage)?
• Talked about an aperture gate marking system (film frame), reprinting aperture hole with 3d technology
• Talked about filming Humming birds – Film is the alchemy of the moment and can give something other mediums can’t
• It is an investment in the moment (film vs digital)
• Talked a bit about blackboard drawings
• Gathered that she uses a film crew
• There is a work in the show about the Foley artist (which is the reproduction of everyday sounds). How we would perceive these sounds differently if don’t have a film
• She realised that sound could be edited as brutally as editing a picture
• Talked about work in the show ‘The Russian Ending’ and how early cinema made two separate endings (a happy ending and a sombre sad ending)
• Talked about the mono prints of postcard collections

To come so far and die in somebody else’s war, presented as part of Anahita Razmi’s LUX residency, Goethe Institute Glasgow (19thJuly 2018)

https://luxscotland.org.uk/event/come-far-die-somebody-elses-war/

As mentioned in this journal, I had attended a film screening of ‘DDR/DDR’ at the Goethe institute and enjoyed it greatly. So I was pleased when I learned of this event. Anahita Razmi is a Berlin based artist who works in film and her current project THE FUTURE STATE, is an ongoing series of speculations around the future state of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

She selected films from the LUX archive and presented these with a selection of her own works. The films were:

• Naeem Mohaiemen, Abu Ammar is Coming, 2016. HD video, 6 min.
• Miranda Pennell, You Made Me Love You, 2005. SD video, 4 min.
• Anahita Razmi, How your Veil can help you in the Case of an Earthquake (Lesson 1-8), 2004. Video, 4 min 55 sec.
• Uriel Orlow, Remnants of the Future, 2010-2012. HD video, 18 min 15 sec.
• Ben Rivers, The Coming Race, 2007. 16mm transferred to HD. 5 min.
• Anahita Razmi, White Wall Tehran, 2007. Video, 45 sec.
• Anahita Razmi, PARTIES, 2018. Video, 2 min 50 sec.
• Hildegarde Duane, Meltdown, 1982. HD Video, 1 min 15 sec.

All of the films were interesting and my particular favourite was Uriel Orlow’s ‘Remnants of the Future’. The film connected with me because it featured a deserted communist era housing blocks that was being taken apart for salvage. Researching the film revealed that it was in the north of Armenia, near the town of Gyumri. In 2013 I did a short residency in Armenia and while travelling around the country I did see buildings such as this. It is these particular types of Utopian constructions that I am interested in exploring during the residency in Latvia 2018.

The screening was then followed by a conversation between the artist and Dr Azadeh Emadi, Lecturer in Screen Production (Theatre, Film and Television Studies) at The University of Glasgow.

BRUT Europe

As part of my interest in the subject of The Cold War legacy and research for a 2 week residency in September, I attended two events during the Glasgow International Festival in April this year (2018). The first event was BRUT Europe and was held at the Glasgow School of Art.

Organised by Artist Marija Nemčenko, the Lithuanian Cultural Institute and the European Commission in the UK BRUT Europe, a day of talks, screenings and workshops exploring the phenomenon of European Modernist architecture in contemporary cities.

The speakers examined the complexities of Modernist architecture across Europe, with examples ranging from St Peter’s Seminary in Cardross and the disappearing high-rises of Glasgow, to block multi-story houses in Kaunas, Lithuania. Speakers included: Edward Hollis, Chris Leslie, Hussein Mitha, Evelina Simkute and Owen Hatherley

The event concluded with a screening of Chris Leslie’s award winning film Disappearing Glasgow. The event offered a fascinating glimpse into the legacy of Modernist architecture throughout Europe.

DDR-DDR

Amie Siegel’s ‘DDR/DDR’ (2008) feature length film was screened by Transit Arts at the Goethe Institute, Glasgow. The film excavates the surveillance technologies, architectures, and psychological aftermaths of the Deutsche Demokratische Republik (1949–1990). The film interweaves contemporary interview footage and cinematic tableaus that glide through the stark interior and exterior landscapes of Modernist East Germany with archival visual samples gleaned from disguised micro-cameras, indexing the espionage culture of their production. Siegel’s deeply associative technique traces the physical and psychic residues of a regime marked by its extensive state-sanctioned surveillance industry whilst undertaking another, self-reflexive inspection of the documentary form, its implicit surveillance, and performances of authority and objectivity.

The screening was preceded by an introduction from Professor Laura Bradley, Chair of German and Theatre at the University of Edinburgh and a specialist in the cultural legacy of the GDR.