The place of artists' cinema: space, site and screen 9781841502465, 9781841503295, 1841502464

Citation preview

CONNOLLY

The Place of Artists’ Cinema Space, Site and Screen

Artists’ film and video has been marked by a concern with context and site for several decades. Since the 1990s, it has been possible to identify both an increased emphasis on the moving image in the spaces and sites of contemporary art and a new focus on the social and architectural history of cinema. Major international survey shows and biennial exhibitions now routinely encompass various forms of artists’ cinema, from multi-screen projections and site-specific film and video projects to sculptural installations exploring the architecture of the movie theatre.

About the author Maeve Connolly is Lecturer in Film and Animation at Dún Laoghaire Institute of Art, Design and Technology, Dublin. Previous publications include, as co-editor, The Glass Eye: Artists and Television.

The Place of Artists’ Cinema examines the social, political, cultural and economic factors shaping the production, exhibition and circulation of artists’ cinema in various contexts, from museums, biennial exhibitions and site-specific public art projects to commercial galleries, and art fairs. The book incorporates in-depth readings of recent works by twenty-four artists, including Doug Aitken, Carlos Amorales, Gerard Byrne, Tacita Dean, Jeremy Deller, Thomas Demand, Stan Douglas, Pierre Huyghe, Jaki Irvine, Isaac Julien, Aernout Mik, Shirin Neshat, Tobias Putrih, Anne Tallentire and Francesco Vezzoli, among others.

9 781841 502465

00

The Place of Artists’ Cinema Space, Site and Screen

Space, Site and Screen

‘Maeve Connolly is the first film scholar in any language to explicate in depth contemporary artists’ insights on the cinema, new media, photography and cinephilia. She engages the specialist as well as the educated reader, by addressing the difference between information and translation, animation and re-enactment in the context of major art exhibitions all over the world.’ – Angela Dalle Vacche, Professor of Film Studies, Georgia Institute of Technology

ISBN 978-1-84150-246-5

The Place of Artists’ Cinema

By Maeve Connolly

Cover image: Tobias Putrih, Venetian, Atmospheric, 2007. Plywood, OSB plates, scaffolding, PVC curtain, 16mm projectors, digital projectors Installation on the Island of San Servolo for the 52nd Venice Biennale, Slovenian Pavilion Courtesy of the artist and Max Protetch Gallery, New York. Photograph by Michele Lamann

By Maeve Connolly

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:40 Page 1

The Place of Artists’ Cinema Space, Site and Screen

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:40 Page 2

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:40 Page 3

The Place of Artists’ Cinema Space, Site and Screen

Maeve Connolly

^ciZaaZXi
7g^hida!J@
8]^XV\d!JH6

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:4

First published in the UK in 2009 by Intellect Books, The Mill, Parnall Road, Fishponds, Bristol, BS16 3JG, UK First published in the USA in 2009 by Intellect Books, The University of Chicago Press, 1427 E. 60th Street, Chicago, IL 60637, USA Copyright © 2009 Intellect Ltd All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, withoutwritten permission. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Cover image: Tobias Putrih Venetian, Atmospheric (2007). Courtesy of the artist and Max Protetch Gallery, New York. Photograph by Michele Lamann Cover designer: Holly Rose Copy-editor: Heather Owen Typesetting: Mac Style, Beverley, E. Yorkshire ISBN 978-1-84150-246-5 EISBN 978-1-84150-329-5 Printed and bound by Gutenberg Press, Malta.

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:40 Page 5

Contents Acknowledgements

7

Introduction: The Place of Artists’ Cinema

9

Chapter 1

Between Space, Site and Screen

15

Chapter 2

The Place of the Market

37

Chapter 3

Multi-screen Projections and Museum Spaces

61

Chapter 4

Event-sites and Documentary Dislocations

109

Chapter 5

Cine-material Screens and Structures

163

Conclusion: Materials, Places and Social Relations

213

Notes References Index

221 249 263

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:40 Page 6

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:40 Page 7

Acknowledgements This book incorporates substantially revised versions of numerous journal articles, reviews and conference papers, listed below, and I am particularly grateful to fellow members of the Society for Cinema and Media Studies (SCMS) for questions and comments that directly informed the development of my research. Sections of Chapter 1 appeared in an article published as ‘Abstraction and Dislocation in Recent Works by Gerard Byrne’, CIRCA 113 (Autumn 2005), 31–42. Chapter 2 draws upon my paper ‘Biennials and Blockbusters: The Peripheral Spaces of Artist’s Film and Video’, delivered at SCMS, Vancouver 2006 and incorporates material from an exhibition review, ‘Venice and the Moving Image’, Afterimage 33.1 (July 2005), 10–11. Chapter 3 includes ideas explored in ‘The Doubled Space of Willie Doherty’s Re-Run’, Filmwaves 23, (Winter 2004), 8–10 as well as material previously presented at Screen Studies 2007 in Glasgow and subsequently published as ‘Of Other Worlds: Nature and the Supernatural in the Moving Image Installations of Jaki Irvine’, Screen 49.2 (Summer 2008), 203–208, while other material was previous published as ‘Nomads, Tourists and Territories: Manifesta and the Basque Country’, Afterimage: Journal of Media and Cultural Criticism, 32.3 (November/December 2004), 8–9. Chapter 4 was informed by the experience of researching ‘The Necessity of Being Lost’, Desperate Optimists et al, Made in Liverpool 2006: Beneath the Skin of the City, (Liverpool: Liverpool Biennial, 2007). Chapter 5 draws upon ideas explored in my paper on ‘Imaginary Cinemas: The Architecture of the Movie Theatre in Artists’ Film and Video’ at SCMS Philadelphia in 2008 and also includes material from several earlier publications; ‘Emporium of the Senses: Spectatorship and Aesthetics at the 26th São Paulo Bienal’, Third Text 19. 4 (July 2005), 399–409; ‘Imaginary Spaces, Activist Practices’ in Jesse Jones, 12 Angry Films, (Dublin: Fire Station Artists’ Studios, 2007), 17–23; ‘Cinema Spaces and Structures at the 52nd Venice Biennale’, CIRCA 121, (Autumn 2007), 106–109. I was fortunate to receive funding from Dún Laoghaire Institute of Art, Design and Technology (IADT), Dublin, for numerous research visits over the past five years. Vital financial assistance was also provided by the Irish Arts Council/An Chomhairle Ealaíon in the form of a Bursary awarded in 2006. Sincere thanks are due to the many artists, curators, gallerists, and others, who provided assistance with documentation and production details during the research

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:40 Page 8

The Place of Artists’ Cinema process, including Carlos Amorales, Gerard Byrne, Benjamin Cook, Mary Cremin, Sarah Glennie, Sr. Carmel Hartnett, Laura Horelli, Jaki Irvine, Jesse Jones, Bea McMahon, Anne Tallentire and Georgie Thompson. I am also indebted to Pip Chodorov, Angela Dalle Vacche, Vivienne Dick, Luke Gibbons, Tessa Giblin, Nicky Gogan, Jenny Haughton, Finola Jones, Julia Knight, Declan Long, Caoimhín Mac Giolla Léith, Francis McKee, Christine Molloy and Joe Lawlor, Sarah Neely, Diane Negra, Volker Pantenburg, Sarah Pierce, Paul Rowley, Orla Ryan, Sarah Smith, Peter Thomas and Mick Wilson. Many other friends and colleagues provided much-needed support and advice during the writing process, including Pat Brereton, Valerie Connor, Michelle Deignan, Liam Donnelly, Georgina Jackson, Stephanie McBride, Martin McCabe, Carol McGuire, Niamh O’Malley and Stephanie Rains and I am especially grateful to Anna Colford, Liam Doona, Paula Gilligan, Sinead Hogan, Linda King, Sean Larkin, Sherra Murphy, Amanda Ralph, Elaine Sisson and Donald Taylor Black, as well as my students on the MA in Visual Arts Practices (MAVIS). I also want to thank Lucy Reynolds for her enthusiasm, rigour and insight while editing the manuscript and, finally, Angela Detanico, Rafael Lain and Dennis McNulty, for encouraging me to persist with this project.

8

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:40 Page 9

Introduction: The Place of Artists’ Cinema Defining Artists’ Cinema The term ‘artists’ cinema’ has begun to recur, amongst the various publications, film programmes and exhibitions that explore and chart the shifting relationship between art practice and film-making. Either alongside or in place of ‘artists’ film and video’, some of the most prominent examples of this usage can be found in curatorial projects developed for the Frieze Art Fair and the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen in recent years. Ian White, coordinator of The Artists Cinema at Frieze in 2005 and 2006, and curator of the Kinomuseum programme at Oberhausen in 2007, has theorized artists’ cinema through reference to the notion of a ‘differentiated’ form, which does not fit easily into either industrialized cinema or the museum.1 My use of the term is somewhat different, however, because I am specifically interested in the sense of ownership implicit in the notion of an ‘artists’ cinema’ and in the claims that are made by artists upon, and for, cinema. Focusing on developments since the mid 1990s, this book examines the various ways in which contemporary art practitioners have claimed the narrative techniques and modes of production associated with cinema, as well as the history, memory and experience of cinema as a cultural form. Whilst these claims are sometimes asserted within territory that has historically belonged to ‘cinema’, most obviously when artists direct films for theatrical exhibition, my focus is primarily on their articulation within the spaces, sites and contexts of contemporary art. My interest also lies in the various needs that might be served by these claims upon and for cinema, particularly within the context of processes of ‘placemaking’. My understanding of artists’ cinema as a series of claims made within the sphere of contemporary art does not resolve the problem of definition. Instead, it opens up a new set of questions about cinema and what is meant by the ‘cinematic’.2 Any attempt to define an artwork as cinematic necessarily invokes pre-existing notions and expectations about cinema, which are likely to be historically as well as culturally specific. Chrissie Iles has suggested that, during the 1990s, artists working with the moving image were often particularly drawn towards the citation or appropriation of classical Hollywood film because of a nostalgic cinephilia linked to fears

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:40 Page 10

The Place of Artists’ Cinema about the decline of cinema as a cultural form.3 By contrast, many of the contributors to Ghosting: The Role of the Archive within Contemporary Artist’s Film and Video highlight the ethnographic and archival currents that run through artists’ cinema, from multi-screen gallery installations to site-specific public art commissions.4 These currents articulate a fascination with the film archive as a repository for various kinds of cinematic memory, beyond that circumscribed by Hollywood. In fact it is possible to identify many different configurations of the ‘cinematic’ in contemporary art practice. Even in the relatively small selection of works discussed in Chapters 3, 4 and 5 it is possible to find references, and sometimes even remakes of, early actualities, political documentary films and postclassical European cinema. Just as ‘cinema’ is no longer predominantly figured within contemporary art practice in terms of classical Hollywood, it is possible to identify a shift away from the radical, often psychoanalytically inflected, critiques of spectatorship that once underpinned artists’ film and video.5 Instead, it is now possible to identify a greater emphasis on the collective and social dimensions of reception, to the extent that cinema may even be understood specifically for its historical associations with an ideal public sphere. In other words, cinema history (rather than film theory) seems to hold an appeal for some practitioners because it may offer models or prototypes for collectivity. This reinvention of the cinematic within contemporary art practice is undoubtedly indebted to film and media scholarship, particularly in relation to the public sphere of early cinema6, but it cannot be fully understood without reference to a range of other developments, which shape not only the nature but also the scale and ambition of artists’ claims upon cinema in recent years. Commentators within the domains of both art criticism and film studies have noted a new emphasis on the moving image within museums, and galleries since the mid- to late 1990s.7 The enhanced visibility of artists’ cinema during this period could be partly explained by increased access to production, post-production and projection equipment amongst artists and art institutions, but a range of other factors must also be considered. The overt commercialization of film and television production over the past decade, especially within the UK context, may have impelled certain practitioners towards the gallery. In addition, my research highlights a range of developments within cultural policy, curatorial discourse, urban redevelopment and art practice, which I argue have structured the relationship between art, cinema and place in recent years. Chapter 1 contests certain claims regarding spectatorship and the reception of the moving image within the gallery, situating contemporary artists’ cinema at the intersection of multiple genealogies of art and film, with a particular emphasis on theorizations of place, landscape and location. Chapter 2 employs the frame of the ‘marketplace’ to investigate points of convergence between the economics and politics of place; noting the evolution of critical curatorial strategies associated with ‘New Institutionalism’ and charting the rise of the art fair and biennial exhibition, while also alluding to broader shifts in the organization of labour, time and space. Even though my research is attuned to the widespread instrumentalization of art practice within processes of place-making, it nonetheless seeks to highlight the complexity (and potential criticality) of artists’ cinema. It is for this reason that Chapters 3, 4 and 5 are structured around in-depth analyses of twenty four different examples of production and exhibition. 10

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:40 Page 11

Introduction: The Place of Artists’ Cinema Place, Location and Relation It is important to note that this book is not specifically concerned with the representation of place in artists’ cinema; rather it explores the more ambiguous intersections between the claims made by artists upon cinema and the temporal and relational processes that shape an experience of place. My discussion is informed by a rethinking of place within both social geography and art practice, which gives rise to an understanding of place ‘as a mutable concept (an intersection of mapped location, urban mythology, power dynamics and social interaction)’.8 As Claire Doherty points out, through reference to the work of both Miwon Kwon and Doreen Massey, ‘feeling out of place is the cultural symptom of late capitalism’s political and social reality’, to the extent that creating a sense of place may actually involve engendering a sense of dislocation. It could be argued that ‘location’ is more central to my analysis than place, given its particular association with cinema through the use of the term in film production. Yet location tends to imply a certain straightforwardness and specificity, lacking the (often usefully problematic) associations of place. A focus upon place in accounts of art and film practice sometimes signals a concern with ‘authentic’ experience, rooted in the particular. In The Lure of the Local (1997), for example, Lucy Lippard bemoans what she identifies as ‘the absence of value attached to specific place in contemporary cultural life, in the “art world”’.9 She suggests that a sense of place can be recovered through the excavation of forms of local knowledge that are physically embodied and ‘written in the landscape or place by the people who live or lived there’, and she sets up an opposition between place, as ‘seen from the inside’ and landscape, which is seen ‘from outside, as a backdrop for the experience of viewing’.10 Some theorizations of place and displacement in avant-garde and experimental film have taken this notion even further in their claim for a position of ‘outsideness’ or marginality. In The Garden in the Machine: A Field Guide to Independent Films About Place, for example, Scott MacDonald appears to draw a parallel between the exploration of landscape and another form of ‘outsideness’, understood in terms of the ‘immense world of alternative media that has developed generally outside the commercial histories of the movies and television and remains outside the awareness of both the mass audience and most teachers, critics, and scholars of media, the humanities, and cultural studies.’11 The works that I discuss in this book definitely do not claim a position of outsideness or marginality, even if they are physically located outside the gallery. Instead, the vast majority exist as art objects that are bought and sold, belonging to the contemporary art economy even if they gesture towards other value systems. My understanding of ‘place’ is distinct from that offered by both Lippard and MacDonald, and perhaps closer to the model explored in Tacita Dean and Jeremy Millar’s survey of place-centred art practice. Noting that the term ‘landscape’ refers not to a natural feature but to the organization of land, Dean and Millar also link place itself with the concept of organization, as suggested by the phrase ‘a place for everything and everything in its place’. Here, ‘place’ is not something fixed, which can be uncovered or recovered, but rather it is something that is continually being made, continually in process. Dean and Millar’s publication also briefly traces a shift in emphasis within rationalist philosophy from place to

11

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:40 Page 12

The Place of Artists’ Cinema space, and subsequently to site, noting that the measured distance between things has come to be regarded as less important that the situation of things in relation to each other.12 This emphasis is borne out in their selection of works, many of which call attention to the interdependency of the relational and the situational in contemporary art practice. While my research focuses primarily on artworks made since 1997, it is informed by the analysis of developments in cultural production since the late 1960s, particularly the critique of labour and management offered by Luc Boltanski and Eve Chiapello in The New Spirit of Capitalism.13 Their concept of the ‘projective city’ is particularly valuable because it offers a distinctively relational model of place in which the ‘city’ is understood as a social formation that is continually constituted and reconstituted. My analysis of cultural policy also engages with debates surrounding urban renewal and the role of the art museum within the discourses and operations of regeneration. Drawing upon Andreas Huyssen’s analysis of cultural amnesia and cultural memory,14 my discussion explores the relationship that exists between the actual physical spaces that house art museums, and which may once have housed factories or train stations, and the museum as landmark building within a regeneration scheme. Finally, I am also interested in the public and collective aspects of the marketplace, where buyers, sellers and intermediaries continue to gather in order to be physically present to each other and, in some instances, to engage in the spectacle of highly public transactions. Being Between: Selection, Organization and Categorization This book has evolved partly through dialogue with colleagues and students within film and media studies. It has been shaped by, and attempts to account for, their perceptions of the increased visibility of ‘artists’ cinema’ since the mid-late 1990s. As such, it has been written partly for readers who have an understanding of film history and theory but who may be less familiar with the modes of production, distribution and exhibition associated with contemporary art. Although I emphasize the scale, scope and particularity of artists’ claims upon cinema over the past decade, I do not want to suggest that the recent wave of activity in this area is entirely unprecedented. My exploration of recent intersections between art and cinema draws specifically upon the work of Dudley Andrew, Angela Dalle Vacche and others who have sought to highlight and theorize earlier exchanges, across various historical contexts.15 I refer to a number of works from the 1960s and 1970s, several of which undoubtedly form part of the art historical ‘canon’, but my discussion focuses primarily on more recent developments. The status of works that date from the late 1990s and early 2000s in relation to an emerging canon of artists’ cinema is yet to be determined. This book could be said to contribute to processes of canon formation simply because it constitutes a selection, which might form the basis for a programme of study. There are obvious parallels here with the scenarios discussed in Chapter 2, whereby the public exhibition of an art work often serves to increase its commercial value. But this trajectory is complicated in the case of artists’ cinema by the fact that it is difficult to ‘teach’ these works in the manner of film or media studies programme. Review copies are not always available and, in many instances, classroom presentations of these copies are explicitly prohibited. 12

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:40 Page 13

Introduction: The Place of Artists’ Cinema This study does not aim to offer a definitive survey of artists’ cinema over the past decade. Instead I have chosen to place specific works in relation to each other in order to highlight certain modalities of artists’ cinema, so Chapters 3, 4 and 5 each focus upon a particular arena of practice. The three modalities that I highlight are the multi-screen projected video installation in the public museum or gallery (Chapter 3), the moving image work that references an earlier event through documentation, re-enactment or remaking (Chapter 4) and the exploration of cinema and screen architecture within a museum, gallery or pavilion (Chapter 5). Although I do not argue for a progression from one modality to another, several works in Chapter 3 date from the late 1990s while all of those discussed in Chapter 5 are more recent, with the oldest dating from 2004. My categorizations are not mutually exclusive, to the extent that it might be possible to move certain works into different frames of analysis. Within each chapter, the eight works explored in depth have been selected and organized according to several factors. First, I have restricted my discussion to works that I have actually viewed in a public exhibition context, with some minor qualifications.16 Second, while I generally discuss only one work by each artist in detail, I have sought to select examples that are broadly representative of the artist’s practice and concerns, or at least not wholly anomalous.17 Certain artists are also referenced across several chapters, most notably Pierre Huyghe, whose exploration of the event and the replay has been particularly important in shaping my analysis. Finally, Chapters 3, 4 and 5 are all structured around an opposition or tension. Thus the first part of Chapter 3 focuses on works where the production location (also the setting of the work) holds a particular resonance, such as the multi-screen video installations Stasi City (Jane and Louise Wilson, 1997), eraser (Doug Aitken, 1998), Re-Run (Willie Doherty, 2002) and Baltimore (Isaac Julien, 2003). The second part deals with works where settings are narratively motivated, but generic, and also characterized by a degree of anonymity – The Silver Bridge (Jaki Irvine, 2002), Consolation Service (Eija-Liisa Ahtila, 1999), Turbulent (Shirin Neshat, 1998) and Drift: diagram vii (Anne Tallentire, 2005). The first part of Chapter 4 focuses on public art projects by Laura Horelli, Tacita Dean, Christine Molloy and Joe Lawlor (also known as desperate optimists) and Jeremy Deller. In some of these works the production location is close to, or coheres with, the site of initial exhibition, while in the works by Pierre Huyghe, Stan Douglas, Melik Ohanian and Gerard Byrne, this convergence between sites of production and exhibition is less apparent. Finally, in Chapter 5, I differentiate between works that engage with the cinema as space for collective experience, such as Kultur und Freizeit (Andreas Fogarasi, 2007), Trick (Thomas Demand, 2004), Trailer for a Remake of Gore Vidal’s Caligula (Francesco Vezzoli, 2005) and Venetian, Atmospheric (Tobias Putrih, 2007) and those that explore dynamics of fragmentation, concealment and reflection through the materiality of the screen, such as Citizens and Subjects (Aernout Mik, 2007), [in,the] visible state (Bea McMahon, 2008), Dark Mirror (Carlos Amorales, 2005), and Théâtre de Poche (Aurélien Froment, 2007). By isolating individual works by artists and placing them in relation to each other according to particular modalities, I could be accused of favouring the art ‘work’ over the art ‘practice’. Where possible, and relevant, I have tried to counter this tendency by referencing contextualizing and mediating materials produced by artists or curators to accompany these works. I have also 13

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:40 Page 14

The Place of Artists’ Cinema deliberately included artists whose practices encompass painting, drawing, sculpture or performance, emphasizing the extent to which explorations of cinema within the sphere of contemporary art actually extend well beyond the media of film and video. My strategies of selection and organization are designed to both complement and complicate existing accounts of these disparate practices, providing new insights into the place of artists’ cinema. These insights are particularly important where they relate to the production and circulation of moving image works as commodities within an art market structured by the intersection of public and private interests. Somewhat ironically, given my stated emphasis on spatial matters, my research also reveals the temporal dynamics at work in contemporary artists’ cinema; in the relationship between the architecture of museum and the ephemeral qualities of the multi-screen video projection; in the folding of events and documents into each other through processes of reenactment; and, finally, in the staging of collectivity through reference to rituals of cinema-going.

14

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:40 Page 15

Chapter 1 Between Space, Site and Screen

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:40 Page 16

Pierre Huyghe L’Ellipse, 1998 Beta Digital, 13 minutes Courtesy Galerie Marian Goodman Paris / New York

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:40 Page 17

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:40 Page 18

The Place of Artists’ Cinema Everything, then, passes between us. This ‘between’, as its name implies, has neither a consistency nor continuity of its own. It does not lead from one to the other; it constitutes no connective tissue, no cement, no bridge. Perhaps it is not even fair to speak of a ‘connection’ to its subject; it is neither connected nor unconnected; it falls short of both; even better, it is that which is at the heart of a connection, the interlacing … of strands whose extremities remain separate even at the very center of the knot. Jean-Luc Nancy, Being Singular Plural.1 Introduction Over the past decade, major museums have repeatedly sought to explore and stage a history of dialogue between art and film, whilst in parallel, curators and programmers have begun to reflect upon the various ways in which being ‘between’ might be a mode particular to artists’ cinema.2 Charting some of these forms of ‘between-ness’, Stephanie Schulte Strathaus emphasizes that many artists were first attracted to the moving image in the 1960s in order ‘to create a counterculture to commercial movie theaters’. She suggests that the distinction between art and film, together with ‘the differentiation between commercial and independent film’, served to constitute a ‘space between’ and she goes on to explore this space by highlighting the relationship between film programming and montage, concluding that ‘a program always needs at least two films that together form this “in-between,” this third space that the viewer will remember together with the films themselves.’3 This comment underscores the complex interplay between the site and space of the auditorium, the experience of the ‘film programme’ as a distinct temporal entity and the processes of remembering through which cinema acquires meaning. It is also possible to conceptualize artists’ cinema through reference to broader notions of the interstitial, intermediate or in-between, as encountered in architectural and economic theory. In an analysis of art and architecture that references a number of moving image works, Jane Rendell invokes Edward Soja’s triad of space, time and the social in order to theorize a critical spatial practice that can emerge in ‘a place between’ art and architecture.4 A different approach to ‘between-ness’ can be found in studies of organizational culture and the knowledge economy. For example, Luc Boltanski and Eve Chiapello highlight the importance of mediating activities in the creation of networks and economies that are organized around the ‘project’. They perceive the activity of mediating as increasingly identified and valued in its own right, ‘separated from the other forms of activity it had hitherto been bound up with’.5 Informed by these disparate perspectives, this chapter explores the various intersections and interstices where artists’ cinema comes into being, extending from the ‘space-in-between’ of the multi-screen installation, to the interplay between production and exhibition in site-based works, and the forms of translation and exchange shaping the development of the ‘cine-material’ practices discussed in Chapter 5.

18

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:40 Page 19

Between Space, Site and Screen Between Genealogies As I have already suggested, the term ‘artists’ cinema’ does not signify a unified or coherent historical formation. Instead, it refers to a series of competing claims made for and by artists and art practice in relation to cinema and the wider context of moving image culture. Some of these claims are overtly ‘genealogical’, seeking to frame artists’ cinema as an extension of another form of art practice, such as experimental film, post-minimalist installation, video art or performance.6 In recent years, critical attention seems to have focused on the ‘gallery film’ as a distinct area of moving image practice, one with a particular debt to experimental film. Chris Dercon has offered a typology of artists’ film, in which the first ‘layer’ consists of the film avantgarde (Maya Deren, Michael Snow, Paul Sharits and Kenneth Anger, among others) while the second is an ‘artistic avant-garde’ working with video installation (Bruce Nauman, Gary Hill and Bill Viola).7 Drawing upon Dercon’s analysis, Catherine Fowler proposes that the gallery films (by artists such as Steve McQueen, Stan Douglas, Shirin Neshat, Douglas Gordon and Eija-Liisa Ahtila) constitute a third ‘layer’. Noting that references to classical or popular cinema are often made explicit, she argues that the gallery film’s debt to experimental filmmaking is less likely to be acknowledged. Others have also called attention to a degree of amnesia in the production and exhibition of artists’ cinema. Writing in 2000, Chris Darke charts the migration of cinema into the gallery during the 1990s and notes an attendant erasure of critical memory with respect to video art. In fact, he suggests that the rise of the gallery film in the UK has produced a ‘curious effect … where a new generation of artists has elected to work with video and, in so doing, has frequently aped the work of innovators in the form such as Vito Acconci, Bruce Nauman and Marina Abramovic almost as though they had never existed.’8 Interestingly, Darke also suggests that the gallery has been cast as an ‘alternative site’, in opposition to an increasingly pervasive ‘Hollywood monoculture’. This monoculture, encompassing video games and mobile media as well as film and television, addresses the viewer as consumer rather than citizen. In contrast, Darke posits that the experience of the moving image in the gallery appears to offer a respite from the commercialization and privatization of domestic space. An alternative lineage is suggested in a short typology of film and video space developed by curator Chrissie Iles which notes a possible connection between the evolution of artists’ film and video in the 1960s and the modes of large-scale display that were associated with contemporary commercial events such as the World’s Fair of 1964 in New York.9 She places particular emphasis on the exploration of public space within artists’ film and video during the 1960s, noting a recurrent desire to break down the boundaries between public and private space, and offering a complex typology that extends from the ‘mirrored space’ of Dan Graham to the ‘adversarial space’ of Bruce Nauman, the ‘durational space’ of Peter Campus and the ‘theatrical space’ of Vito Acconci. These differences were explored in the exhibition ‘Into the Light: The Projected Image in American Art 1964–1977’, curated by Iles at the Whitney Museum (2001–2002). In her contribution to the exhibition catalogue, she cites various philosophical precedents for the creation of a hybrid or intermediate space, a space of enquiry where the light is ‘dimmed’ but

19

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:40 Page 20

The Place of Artists’ Cinema not extinguished. She also notes that post-minimalist art brought about a transformation of ‘actual space’ (whether in the form of the gallery, museum or ‘alternative space’) into a perceptual field that often took the form of ‘a hybrid of white cube and black box’.10 This notion of a hybrid is intriguing, pointing towards a possible connection between the practices of the later 1960s and early 1970s and the more recent explorations of the ‘cine-material’, theorized in Chapter 5. For some commentators, the self-consciously ‘cinematic’ practices of the 1990s can be seen to extend (or at least reiterate) the perceptual and phenomenological investigations of the 1960s and 70s. Writing in 2000, Iles suggests that contemporary ‘film and video space has become the location of a radical questioning of the future of both aesthetic and social space’.11 Her relatively upbeat view of contemporary artists’ cinema is, however, contested by others. Catherine Elwes, an artist with a longstanding involvement in video practice in the UK, has emphasized an opposing trajectory. She charts the movement of artists’ video from the margins to the mainstream, extending from Nam June Paik’s experiments within and beyond the gallery during the 1960s to the commercial acceptance, if not dominance, of video installation in the 1990s. Elwes is not convinced by claims that the gallery has been transformed into a ‘newly radicalised “cinematic” space’ by virtue of the presence of the projected image: In fact, dispensing with the television set, and replacing it with pure cinemascope illusionism elevates video and film to a kind of electronic mural painting in the grand manner, enveloped in the silence of the rarefied quasi-cathedrals of art that both commercial and public galleries have turned into. The ritualised, communal, proletarian experience – the eating, drinking, smoking and necking that accompanied the theatrical display of cinema – is also lost.12 Evidently, there are many occlusions and absences within this critique. Elwes seems to mourn the loss of the ‘marginal’, without fully questioning this notion and by emphasizing the silence of the gallery she does not fully account for the significance of sound in film and video installation since the 1990s. But even though she is nostalgic for an idealized communality of the cinema, she does acknowledge the possibility of a form of public engagement and discourse that is particular to the gallery. As an example of this, she describes an experience of public scrutiny (and self-scrutiny) in the gallery. She notes that while viewing Ann-Sofi Siden’s exhibition Warte Mal! Prostitution after the Velvet Revolution (2002), focusing on the experiences of women involved in cross-border prostitution, she was very aware of being ‘watched watching’ by her fellow gallery-goers.13 This experience is specifically associated with the activity of witnessing, in which the gallery offers a platform for experiential accounts or testimonies of marginalization or exclusion. This seems to suggest a convergence between two overtly pedagogical conceptions of public space. One is linked to the ‘exhibitionary complex’ and the history of the museum as an institution in which appropriate behaviour is modelled.14 The other is aligned to the instructional or informative aspects of public service media (significantly undermined by the process of commercialization described by Darke, among others). Indeed, like Darke, Elwes pays particular attention to the changing relationship between art practice 20

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:40 Page 21

Between Space, Site and Screen and public service television within the UK context, and her analysis hints at the various ways in which certain forms of film and video production, traditionally associated with television, may have migrated towards the gallery. An alternative genealogical point of reference for contemporary artists’ cinema can be located in Jonathan Walley’s account of ‘paracinema’, a term that refers to the exploration of ‘cinematic properties outside the standard film apparatus’ in the work of Anthony McCall and others during the 1970s.15 The term ‘expanded cinema’ has also been widely used (particularly within UK contexts) to describe works that extend or contest the limits of cinema: sometimes operating outside the domain of theatrical exhibition or involving the adaptation or multiplication of the projection apparatus. Walley’s concept of paracinema is associated with a somewhat narrower strand of practice, with Anthony McCall’s Long Film for Ambient Light (1975) functioning as a key example. This was an overtly ‘locational’ work, in that it ‘consisted of an empty Manhattan loft, its windows covered by diffusion paper, lit in the evening by a single bare light bulb hanging from the ceiling’.16 In the absence of a film, or even a projector, attention is directed in this work towards the phenomenological properties of the loft as both site and space. Speaking about Long Film within the context of the exhibition ‘Into the Light’ in December 2001, McCall emphasizes that it ‘was inspired by a particular context, that of the Idea Warehouse … a large loft space on Reade Street that was connected to The Clocktower’.17 It is worth noting that this context was temporal as well as spatial, because McCall was invited to participate in a group show in which each artist was offered the space for two days. His installation began at noon on June 18, 1975 and finished exactly twenty-four hours later. According to Walley, this exploration of cinema beyond the apparatus was informed both by the general tendency towards dematerialization in contemporary art during the late 1960s and early 1970s18 and by an overtly historicized concept of the medium of film, indebted to Bazin and Eisenstein. Animated by Bazin’s ‘Myth of Total Cinema’ and Eisenstein’s analysis of montage, Walley sees the work of McCall and others as premised on the notion that ‘the film medium … is not a timeless absolute but a cluster of historically contingent materials that happens to be, for the time being at least, the best means for creating cinema.’19 Walley is also specifically interested in paracinema as a transitional response to the shifts towards a ‘post-medium age’ ushered in by Minimalism and Conceptual art. In particular, he suggests that by embracing cinema as their ‘medium’, filmmakers such as McCall could explore the conceptual dimensions of cinema without being limited to the medium of film, so that they did not need to ‘reiterate the materials of film again and again.’20 Furthermore, this re-conceptualization of medium specificity can be understood in economic terms, through reference to the relationship between avant-garde film and the art market. Walley emphasizes that Structural film occupied an oppositional position with respect to the art market during the 1970s, and he cites David E. James in support of this position: Though Structural film was an avant-garde art practice taking place within the parameters of the art world, it was unable to achieve the centrally important function of art in capitalist society: the capacity for capital investment. Massive public indifference to it, its inaccessibility to all but those of the keenest sensibility, and finally its actual rather than 21

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:41 Page 22

The Place of Artists’ Cinema merely ostensible inability to be incorporated excluded it from the blue-chip functions, the mix of real estate and glamour, that floated the art world … Film’s inability to produce a readily marketable object, together with the mechanical reproducibility of its texts, set very narrow limits to the possibility of Structural film’s being turned into a commodity.21 The situation with respect to contemporary artists’ cinema is, however, rather different. As Walley has pointed out elsewhere, contemporary artists working with the moving image routinely produce marketable objects, and there are profound differences between the modes of practice associated with the gallery and avant-garde cinema.22 Despite these significant differences, paracinema remains pertinent to my own analysis precisely because it may shed some light on what may also be a ‘transitional’ current within contemporary artists’ cinema. This is the emergence, particularly in biennial exhibitions, of moving image installations that feature architectural settings and structures. The issue of site, with respect to the reception and exhibition of paracinema, is equally pertinent to my discussion. Some of McCall’s film works from the 1970s are still available for hire via the co-operative model and in recent years, Line Describing a Cone (1973) has been widely exhibited, presented both ‘theatrically’ (at scheduled times) and as a continuous loop.23 The situation is not quite as straightforward with respect to the circulation of the ‘paracinematic’ works, however. In fact, Long Film for Ambient Light appears to have retrospectively acquired the status of a one-off performative ‘event’ associated with a particular site. This is implied in Walley’s own description, which notes that this work ‘consisted of an empty Manhattan loft’, despite the fact that during the 1970s it was actually exhibited several times outside the US.24 This suggests that while McCall’s paracinematic works highlighted (and contested) the limits of medium-specificity, they have since been inscribed, at least to some degree, within a potentially essentializing discourse of site-specificity. Reception Theories: Between the Exhibition Visitor and the Cinema Spectator In this section, I focus on a number of claims that relate specifically to the domain of reception and the figure of the exhibition visitor or cinema spectator. In a text published in the late 1990s, Margaret Morse theorizes video installation art in terms of a ‘space-in-between’ that is both resistant to commodification and potentially a source of (and setting for) ‘kinesthetic insight’ by virtue of its emphasis on the ‘here and now’ of embodied experience. Drawing primarily on cinema and television theory, Morse speculates on the status of video installation as a ‘noncommodity art’ and suggests that it survives through various forms of commissioning and subvention associated with public institutions and museums.25 Morse acknowledges the ‘bureaucratisation’ of this mode of art practice during the 1990s but she suggests that its ‘noncommodity’ status is largely retained because elements of risk and uncertainty persist at the level of material execution. She even sees video installation art as capable of reinvigorating all of the ‘spaces-in-between’ of the museum, so that the museum visitor becomes aware of the museum as a ‘megainstallation, even to the point of self-critique’.26 22

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:41 Page 23

Between Space, Site and Screen These claims are difficult to sustain with respect to contemporary artists’ cinema, however, not least because of the fact that institutional conventions for the material production, documentation and sale of moving image installations are now well-established. In fact it could even be argued that the exchange value of certain forms of artists’ cinema, including video installation, is partly linked to a privileged association with the ‘here-and-now’, an argument that is developed further in Chapters 2 and 3. To make sense of these claims, it is necessary to situate Morse’s reading of video art in relation to her broader analysis of social and cultural change in the US during the post-war era. Noting the emergence of ‘a landscape of suburbs, malls, and television in which everything, including the natural environment, is either enveloped by the low-intensity fictions of consumer culture or abandoned to decay’, Morse emphasizes that video installation is one of the ‘privileged art forms for setting this mediated, built environment in play for purposes of reflection’.27 She reads video installation in the 1960s and 70s as an extension of Minimalism’s exploration of the here-and-now, and she focuses upon the critical potential of this exploration in the more literal engagement with mirroring and reflection apparent in the work of artists such as Bruce Nauman, Joan Jonas, Peter Campus and Dan Graham. This type of practice often fused spatial and temporal disjunction with an investigation of the social and psychic dynamics of identification and fragmentation through the incorporation of live video feedback, as in the case of Graham’s closed-circuit installation Opposing Mirrors and Video Monitors on Time Delay (1974). Morse describes the configuration of monitors and mirrors in this work as ‘chiasmic’; two monitors face towards each other on opposing mirror walls and each monitor is fed by a camera on the opposing one. In addition, one camera is on time delay, so that it is possible to stand in front of the camera, cross the room and glimpse one’s own image in the monitor on the opposite side, amongst an array of reflections. The mid-1990s, however, seem to have been marked by a more self-consciously ‘cinematic’ turn, as Catherine Fowler’s analysis of the gallery film suggests. Citing the work of Eija-Liisa Ahtila, Shirin Neshat, Pierre Huyghe, Steve McQueen and Stan Douglas, among others, Fowler proposes that gallery films typically assume some knowledge of cinema and then ‘play with, reflect upon and challenge that knowledge’28 in ways that are specific to the context of the gallery. Yet, she argues, critical analysis of the gallery film has tended to be split between attention to the ‘inside’ of the frame (the film) and the ‘outside’ of the frame (the gallery or the space around the screen) at the expense of any investigation of the ‘continuum between in-frame and out-of-frame’.29 Fowler goes on to itemize a range of ‘in-frame’ strategies employed by both experimental filmmakers and artists to contest ‘illusionism, passivity and the linear’.30 These could include the manipulation of time through freeze-frames and slow motion or the use of repetition and looping to disrupt narrative structure. In the gallery film, however, strategies such as these are often combined with an attention to the ‘out-of-frame’, in which the screen refers to the space around it. Citing Brian O’Doherty’s canonical study, Inside the White Cube, Fowler perceives this referencing of the space outside the frame as an extension of the ‘self-conscious’ exploration of the gallery as context; a development that informed the moving image practices of the late 1960s and early 1970s.31 According to Fowler, this self-consciousness has encouraged an ‘interactive relationship’ between the inside space of the artwork and the outside space of the gallery, which actually contributes to a foregrounding of the frame in the gallery film. Drawing upon Bazin’s 23

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:41 Page 24

The Place of Artists’ Cinema distinction between the ‘centrifugal’ screen image and the ‘centripetal’ framing often found in painting32, she outlines two somewhat contradictory impulses. Either the frame appears to contain the image so that it is read ‘centripetally’, like a painting, or it serves to connect the image to the gallery space ‘suggesting the spilling over of the image into the viewer’s space’. This ‘spilling over’ of the image is partly a function of the centrifugal force of the cinema image, which embraces its status as a ‘partial’ representation of the world through the continual evocation of, and extension into, off-screen space. But Fowler argues that in the gallery film, the extension off-screen is somehow contained within the space of the gallery, potentially creating additional possibilities for reflection or critique. This analysis is valuable, because it does not assume an alignment between critical reflection and mobile spectatorship; instead Fowler emphasizes the potential meanings that may arise through our engagement with both gallery and cinema as continually inter-changing contexts of exhibition. In some theorizations of reception, however, criticality is specifically aligned with mobility. Jeffrey Skoller has theorized avant-garde film as an important context for the exploration of history, largely as a consequence of its durational qualities. Perhaps for this reason, he is deeply sceptical of the claims made by curators such as Chrissie Iles and John Ravenal in relation to mobile spectatorship in the gallery during the 1990s. He states: Iles and Ravenal argue that video installation … embodies the aspirations of earlier political modernism, in which the viewer’s critical awareness is heightened by choosing his or her own degree of attentiveness. Moreover, active spectatorship is externalized through physical engagement: walking in, out, and through the work at will. This notion of active participation … is seen to mitigate against the tyranny of aesthetic pacification, as embodied by the physically immobilizing context of the bolted-down seat in the movie theater.33 According to Skoller, mobility and transience actually undermine the spectator’s reflective engagement with the ideas generated by narrative development, precluding the creation of a ‘subversive space outside the overflow of modern experience in which images can open into the flow of time as an engaged reflective experience of thought’.34 While Skoller’s critique does expose some of the more hyperbolic aspects of curatorial discourse, he does not fully engage with the context of contemporary art exhibition. Instead, his analysis of the gallery forms part of a fairly brief ‘coda’ exploring the ‘postcinema condition’ and encompassing discussion of domestic viewing (on home video and DVD) as well as interactive CD-ROM and web-based art work. As such, there is relatively little scope for any in-depth analysis of specific installation works.35 The ubiquitous presence, during the late 1990s and 2000s, of the moving image installation housed in its own ‘black box’ could be regarded as a corrective to the rhetoric of mobility espoused by Iles and Ravenal, inviting a more sedentary mode of reception. Yet it has been argued that the black box installation actually constitutes a somewhat artificial dislocation of the moving image art work, particularly within the context of major exhibitions and biennials. Written for a publication that accompanied the exhibition Time Zones at Tate Modern (October 2004-January 2005), Peter Osborne’s polemical account of mobile spectatorship seems attuned to the conditions of contemporary spectatorship within the context of the large-scale exhibition. 24

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:41 Page 25

Between Space, Site and Screen His analysis is specifically concerned with the figure of the casual, distracted viewer who samples the work, and he subscribes to the view, proposed by Nicolas Bourriaud, that the ‘basic unit’ of experience within the sphere of the gallery is the exhibition rather than the individual art work. Using this model, the individual art work is not read within the frame of the exhibition; rather the exhibition itself stages an exploration of broader temporal and spatial dynamics, highlighting ‘the constructed – rather than received – character of temporal continuity’.36 Like Margaret Morse, Osborne alludes to the mediated, built environment that is set in play by video installation, but he emphasizes that the ‘training ground of distracted reception’ has shifted from cinema to television and, more recently, to ‘the multiplying sites and social functions of the interactive computer-display screen.’37 So, rather than attempting (like cinema) to ‘blank out’ distractions, he suggests that exhibitions of film and video works can intervene in this temporal dialectic through the exploration of new rhythms and forms.38 Similar territory is explored by Claire Bishop in a discussion of the ‘cinema-situation’ of contemporary multi-screen video projection. She emphasizes that while contemporary multiscreen works often feature ‘highly seductive images that appeal strongly to imaginary identification’, the process of ‘psychological absorption in the work is often undercut by a heightened physical awareness of our body and its relation to other people in the room.’39 Developing this analysis further, she invokes Barthes’ ‘Leaving the Movie Theatre’, a text that calls attention to aspects of the cinemat experience often excluded in critiques of the cinematic apparatus. Barthes describes a mode of spectatorship in which criticality is not opposed to pleasure because one allows oneself to be fascinated ‘twice over’. In this occupation of ‘two bodies at the same time’, one is lost in the on-screen world of psychic relations and the other is absorbed by that which ‘exceeds’ the screen, experienced in the cinematic situation.40 According to Bishop, this split focus is echoed in the multi-screen works of artists such as Douglas Gordon, Eija-Liisa Ahtila and Stan Douglas, who tend to favour dimmed lighting over the immersion of the viewer in total darkness. Here, criticality is located in the tension between two different forms of cinematic pleasure: one aligned with identification and seduction, the other associated with the rituals of the cinematic situation. Ultimately, Bishop rejects the claim that installation art necessarily reasserts self-presence through its insistence on the literal presence of the viewer. Instead she proposes a more complex model, in which installation art structures, and perhaps stages, an irresolvable antagonism between the centred and decentred subject, insisting on physical presence ‘precisely in order to subject it to an experience of decentring’.41 This notion of antagonism (derived primarily from the work of Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe) also forms the basis for a critique of certain models of ‘relationality’ in contemporary art practice, which Bishop develops more fully elsewhere.42 Between Art Object and Arthouse Film Although Bishop’s analysis is primarily concerned with the experience of installation art, it is possible to identify a related thematic concern with notions of centred and decentred subjectivity in other areas of contemporary art practice. The experience of self, and specifically self in relation 25

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:41 Page 26

The Place of Artists’ Cinema to the ‘collective’, is integral to Douglas Gordon and Philippe Parreno’s film Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait (2006). This work seems to fall largely outside the domain of my analysis, as it was devised for theatrical exhibition, yet it actually has a double identity – existing both as art object and as arthouse feature film. Zidane received its premiere screening at the Cannes Film Festival in May 2006 and was then presented to art audiences in a football stadium (designed by Herzog & De Mueron) within the context of the Art Basel art fair in June 2006. It was then distributed theatrically before being released on DVD (by Artificial Eye) for domestic sale and rental. It also circulates within the art market as a double-channel limited edition.43 Zidane is not the first feature film to focus on a celebrity footballer and track his experience of a specific game,44 or the first artwork to investigate the relationship between television and football. Gordon and Parreno do not attempt to offer any insight into the televisual production process, such as that provided by Harun Farocki’s Deep Play (2007), which employs a six-channel structure to investigate the use of multi-camera coverage and various forms of specialist software in both broadcasting and professional football management. One of the most interesting elements of Farocki’s installation, exhibited at Documenta 12, is an audio recording of the director’s instructions and requests to the camera operators as he selects from an (unseen) array of viewpoints, calls for specific shots and rejects others. In contrast, Gordon and Parreno appropriate rather than investigate the multi-camera process, instructing all seventeen of their dedicated camera operators to focus their attention exclusively on one player. There is no attempt here to adopt a position ‘outside’ mediation and this is apparent from the logo displayed at the outset, because even the familiar Universal globe appears to have been subjected to the distortions of video playback and re-recording. The logo is followed by a hyperbolic pre-credit sequence, which intercuts from heavily processed details of televised broadcasts to the extreme clarity of high definition video, amplifying and celebrating the aesthetic differences between diverse audio-visual sources. One of the central premises of the project is that the viewer’s experience of the game is closely aligned with Zidane’s, to the extent that the film ends before the final whistle when he receives a red card and is sent off the pitch. This insistence on the ‘real-time’ of the match even gives rise to a sort of ‘intermission’ in which the filmmakers reference other events taking place elsewhere in the world on April 23, 2005. But, as Michael Fried points out, the on-screen image is not actually in ‘real time’; we see certain actions several times, from different points of view.45 Zidane is often framed in close-up, immersed in a world and a workplace that Tim Griffin describes as ‘the densest microcosm of contemporary post-Fordist society – a spectacularized workplace designed almost exclusively for sight, a landscape premised on immanent reproducibility.’46 For much of the film he is positioned against a backdrop of advertising messages, running along on the long horizontal screens that surround the pitch, and the various brand names even offer a point of orientation within an otherwise fragmented narrative space. At times, Zidane seems to merge with this backdrop because the extreme zoom tends to deprive the image of any depth. At other points, he demonstrates an awareness of his situation when he appears to glance at the giant screens above the pitch. Within this depthless environment, however, various discursive strategies are used to create a sense of ‘depth’ in metaphorical terms. One of the most striking features of the film is the somewhat contradictory use of sound. Sometimes, the layering 26

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:41 Page 27

Between Space, Site and Screen of audio signals from different sources foregrounds the forms of mediation associated with broadcasting, asserting the formal reflexivity of the artists. At other points, however, crowd noise is used to articulate Zidane’s experience of the stadium, signalling the ‘real’ time and space of the pitch. The instrumental soundtrack by Scottish band Mogwai also appears to offer clues as to the meaning of Zidane’s facial expressions, which are otherwise opaque. Text, implicitly attributed to Zidane and presumably sourced from an interview, also appears on-screen at a particularly charged moment. It begins with the words: ‘As a child, I had a running commentary in my own head as I was playing’. At this point, the music becomes overtly emotive, later giving way to the sounds of children playing and calling to each other, interspersed with the occasional barking of a distant dog. Reinforcing this temporal and spatial shift, the commentary continues: ‘I remember playing in another place, at another time, when something amazing happened. Someone passed the ball to me, and before even touching it I knew exactly what was going to happen. I knew I was going to score. It was the first and last time it ever happened.’ These statements inevitably lend substance to Zidane as a ‘character’, counteracting the film’s apparent emphasis on the ‘here and now’ of the stadium through reference to another time and place. So even though Gordon and Parreno have trained their seventeen cameras upon a supremely ‘fragmented’ individual, whose identity is refracted through and across the countless screens that populate the stadium and the world outside, they nonetheless offer a reassuring moment of origin in the narrative of childhood. Zidane could perhaps be read as an attempt to extend the exploration of the ‘centred’ and ‘decentred’ subject beyond the gallery and into the realm of theatrical film exhibition. Yet these thematic connections actually underscore a key difference between the gallery and cinema contexts. While both art dealers and art critics readily acknowledge the fact that Zidane is both an art work and a feature film, this dual status is not quite as obvious in theatrical exhibition or domestic viewing contexts. Even though the DVD cover emphasizes that the film was conceived and directed by artists (one of them ‘Turner Prize-winning’) it is promoted primarily as an innovative addition to the genre of the documentary portrait. In an analysis of the relationship between art and cinema, Mark Nash has argued that the temporal and spatial conditions of moving image installation often ‘create an anxiety in the viewer for which there is no adequate and satisfactory solution’, generating the feeling that some information may be absent. He contrasts this situation with the cinema where, ‘the audience is traditionally immobile, secure in the knowledge that, provided they didn’t miss the beginning of the film, they will have seen everything they need to see to understand the work’.47 This latter condition seems to work against a project such as Zidane, which derives much of its impact from its status as a selfconsciously spectacular work of art, possibly signalling an institutional limit to the transposition of certain strategies from the gallery to the cinema. Third Cinemas and Thresholds As the various genealogies already cited suggest, contemporary artists’ cinema is deeply indebted to the art and film practices of the 1960s and early 1970s, many of which were in turn informed 27

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:41 Page 28

The Place of Artists’ Cinema by critiques of commercial film and television, as well as earlier proto-cinematic forms, such as the panorama. At this point, it seems important to acknowledge some of the significant developments in film practice and cinema studies during the late 1970s and early 1980s, particularly in relation to the concept of place and the redefinition of avant-garde film. Paul Willemen has theorized the activation of scenery and landscape as a ‘text’ within a range of films from the late 1970s and early 1980s, including Chantal Akerman’s News From Home (1977) and Tout Une Nuit (1982), Maeve (Pat Murphy and John Davies, 1982) and So That You Can Live (Cinema Action, 1982).48 In these films, he argues, landscape is not subordinated to character or plot development; nor is it presented for visual consumption in accordance with the customary point of view associated with ethnographic and touristic modes of representation, often privileged in dramatic narratives. Willemen goes on to explore various processes of ‘splitting’ at work within these films, describing a process of oscillation whereby setting may be narratively motivated at certain points but then activated as an autonomous discourse at other points. This opens up ‘a reading of a discourse on history within the very use of the landscape – or the cityscape – itself, allowing narrative events to reverberate and to interact with or against an accompanying reading of history’.49 This mode of address may require a form of ‘complex seeing’, a concept that Willemen borrows from Raymond Williams. However, it does not mean that these films become necessarily inaccessible as texts, rather they engage with knowledges that are historically informed and culturally specific. Willemen also highlights a secondary ‘splitting’ at the level of narrative, between story and genre. Just as location is mobilized as a text, so the film narrative is split between the story and the generic setting, which is defined as ‘the inscription into the narrative of a history of discursive practices’.50 This exploration of generic setting is specifically concerned with traditions of representation, associated with oral culture, literature or cinema and informed by Bakhtin’s account of collective memory, which Willemen has cited elsewhere: Cultural and literary traditions … are preserved and continue to live, not in the subjective memory of the individual nor in some collective ‘psyche’, but in the effective forms of culture itself. … In this sense, they are intersubjective and interindividual, and therefore social.51 Although Willemen refers solely to single-screen works, it could be argued that the oscillation he describes between narrative and discursively-motivated settings might also acquire a spatial form, and this is an issue to which I will return in my discussion of multi-screen installation in Chapter 3. Emerging first in the early 1980s, Willemen’s analysis contributed to a reconceptualization of both avant-garde film and Third Cinema, directing attention towards multiple forms of deterritorialization and boundary-crossing. More recently, Hamid Naficy’s account of exilic, diasporic and ethnic (or ‘accented’) cinemas signalled a renewed engagement with these issues in cinema studies, aligned to a shift from ‘national’ to ‘transnational’ cinema. Naficy theorizes an ‘interstitial’ production model that operates ‘within and astride the cracks of the [industrial] system’ at the intersection of the local and the global.52 Yet, unlike Willemen, Naficy seems to 28

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:41 Page 29

Between Space, Site and Screen assert the primacy of the author as the source of meaning. This emphasis is particularly evident in his analysis of ‘exilic cinema’, where the physical trajectories followed by filmmakers acquire a particular significance. In fact, Naficy argues that ‘the authority of the exiles as filmmaking authors is derived from their position as subjects inhabiting interstitial spaces and sites of struggle’.53 It is important to note that Naficy’s ‘intercultural artist’ may operate not only in cinema or broadcast contexts, but also within the gallery, which he suggests may offer specific opportunities for the articulation of exilic identities. In an essay accompanying an exhibition of Shirin Neshat’s trilogy Turbulent, Rapture and Fervor (1998–2000) Naficy proposes that the use of opposing screens in an installation is particularly suited to ‘the representation of parallel times and simultaneous spaces’. He states: Regardless of what is on them, their physical arrangement ensures that they resonate with and against each other. Consequently, they deftly embody critical juxtaposition and produce a ‘montage effect’ in the audience. The mere exposure to the screens reproduces in the viewer, in some measure, the duality, fragmentation and simultaneity of deterritorialized existence.54 This rather substantial claim is somewhat undermined, however, by Ruth Noack’s contribution to the very same exhibition catalogue. She refuses to claim a position of ‘between-ness’ for ‘diasporic’ or ‘liminal’ subjects that is somehow free of contradiction and specifically rejects the use of ‘metaphors which … suggest free artistic transit – as if movement back and forth were possible, beyond social power structures and the economic interests of the art market’.55 Noack favours a more open-ended engagement with the relational character of national and cultural identity, which perhaps extends beyond the territory described by Naficy. Some commentators have offered a more materialist approach to deterritorialization of culture. Thomas Elsaesser has noted the recurrent articulation of a doubled or hyphenated identity in European cinema during the 1990s and he theorizes this phenomenon in terms of a ‘double occupancy’ of space and place, which operates as a countermetaphor to the notion of ‘Fortress Europe’. He emphasizes that there is ‘no European … who is not already diasporic in relation to some other marker of difference – be it ethnic, regional, religious, linguistic – and whose identity is not always already hyphenated or doubly occupied’.56 Evidently, there are distinctions to be drawn between the notion of ‘double occupancy’ and many of the experiences highlighted by Naficy, yet it is important to acknowledge the ambiguous and contradictory character of Europe as a cultural and political formation. While Elsaesser’s analysis is limited to European feature films, such as those supported by various policy initiatives for European co-production and collaboration, his exploration of doubled identity offers an interesting perspective from which to consider the relationship between contemporary artists’ cinema and the wider context of transnational and international film production. The figure of the double features prominently in various works by Pierre Huyghe, for example, perhaps most notably in L’Ellipse (1998), where it serves specifically as a means of negotiating the ‘sense of place’ produced in a key work of European cinema from the 1970s. L’Ellipse is a three-channel installation that explores the ‘gap’ (or narrative ellipsis) 29

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:41 Page 30

The Place of Artists’ Cinema between two scenes that are joined, or separated, by a jump cut in Wim Wender’s The American Friend (1977). The scenes from the original film are presented on either side of a new sequence, filmed without cuts and following the character played by Bruno Ganz as he walks from the location of the first scene, in an office block, to the location of the second, on the other side of the river. Through this gesture, Huyghe alludes to the possibility of a continually unfolding cinematic representation, while the presence of Ganz (now twenty years older and no longer wearing a moustache) highlights the material changes wrought in the ‘gap’ between 1977 and 1998. Maria Walsh has argued that the ‘purpose of Huyghe’s intervention is supposedly to draw attention to Hollywood’s foreclosing of real time by means of the illusions of montage’57 but this seems to overlook the complex exploration of temporal and spatial relations already at work within The American Friend. Wenders’ film is set against an implausible backdrop of art forgeries and frauds, and although it is nominally a thriller, the twists and turns of the plot are rarely convincing. The film focuses on a central character (a struggling picture-framer, played by Ganz) who believes he is dying from an incurable blood disease and so is tricked into becoming an assassin by an American art dealer (played by Dennis Hopper). Hopper’s character, costumed to resemble a cowboy, is first depicted on the New York City streets but might easily have walked off the set of a Western; he seems wholly out of place in the succession of West German interiors and exteriors featured in The American Friend. The cinematography, which often relies upon a mix of natural and artificial lighting, only amplifies the displaced quality of this character. Also, like many of Wenders’ films, The American Friend features numerous shots of ‘interstitial’ spaces, such as bridges, and it is marked by a formal emphasis on thresholds between inside and outside, so that Ganz’s character is continually framed by windows and doorways. As Elsaesser notes, Wenders’ film functions metaphorically as an ‘explicit disquisition about the relationship between Europe and Hollywood’ and its theme and structure are shaped by the exploration of ‘two kinds of Americas’. The first America is associated with exploitation and imperialism, referring to the ‘hold, economic as well as in terms of brute force, that the US has over Europe and over the film industry in particular’.58 The second America, associated with friendship and egalitarianism, also has a dark side and the film focuses on the negative connotations of friendship through the figures of the double and the vampire: ‘the former as the image of one’s own death, the latter as the appropriate figuration of colonization, one in which the victim seeks out the vampire, to find in him the image of his own desire’.59 Significantly, the bridge scene that features in L’Ellipse occurs at a pivotal point in The American Friend, when Ganz’ character first makes the decision to become an assassin, and so enters a shadowy world of criminality. L’Ellipse constitutes an act of appropriation (perhaps even vampirism) and takes up the theme of the double identified by Elsaesser by literally inserting another Ganz into the narrative. But Huyghe’s exploration of doubling also extends into the sphere of setting and location. Although it is conventional in feature film production to shoot interior scenes in a studio and use different locations for exterior shots, The American Friend was shot almost entirely on location, making use of actual apartments, shops and offices. In addition, many of the shots are composed so they emphasize thresholds between exterior and interior space, often incorporating windows or 30

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:41 Page 31

Between Space, Site and Screen other openings through which the world outside (or inside) is visible. It is this very specific use of locations that L’Ellipse highlights through the insertion of the new scene, which maps the actual physical relationship between one location and another through the movement of Ganz across the bridge. Event, Replay and the ‘In-Between’ So far, I have focused primarily on works that are devised for gallery or cinema contexts, at the expense of any exploration of recognizably ‘site-specific’ practices. As my discussion of L’Ellipse suggests, however, a production location may also serve as a ‘site’, just as the setting for a film may be discursively rather than narratively motivated, to use the terms offered by Willemen. It is possible to identify a parallel here with the distinction drawn by James Meyer between the literal site (an actual location and a singular place) and the functional site – defined as one which may incorporate a physical place but does not privilege this place. Significantly, Meyer emphasizes the temporal as well as spatial dimensions of the functional site, describing it as ‘a process, an operation occurring between sites, a mapping of institutional and textual filiations and the bodies that move between them (the artist’s above all)’.60 He finds a precedent for this exploration of the functional character of the gallery or museum in the institutional critique of artists such as Hans Haacke and Marcel Broodthaers. Meyer’s analysis is useful because it highlights the extent to which questions of site are intertwined with broader debates concerning the event, the ‘replay’ and the art object within contemporary art practice. He notes that the evolution of the functional site is marked by a rejection of the explicitly materialist position adopted by Haacke in favour of a more Foucauldian approach, in which place is conceived of as a social and discursive entity. Within this model, the art world is re-imagined as a ‘site within a network of sites, an institution among institutions’61 and artistic inquiry extends into contingent spheres of interest, such as explorations of urban history and space. Although Meyer does not directly address the relationship between site-specificity and artists’ cinema, he does make an oblique reference to the moving image. His theorization of the functional site is directly informed by Craig Owens’ earlier account of Robert Smithson’s Spiral Jetty (1970), which is experienced not as a discrete work but rather as a chain of signifiers that extends across film, narrative, photographs, maps and drawings.62 This allows for the possibility of reading film or video works as functional sites, particularly when they exist in relation to a particular place or event. Spiral Jetty also emerges as a key point of reference in an interview with Pierre Huyghe, conducted by George Baker following the exhibition of Streamside Day Follies at the Dia Center (in 2003). Huyghe both invokes Smithson and carefully distances himself from an earlier ‘Dia Generation’, noting that temporal issues now seem more pressing than spatial or sculptural concerns: Think of Smithson’s Spiral Jetty (1970). My interest [in Streamside Day Follies] was not in creating an object that escapes the exhibition frame only to merge with the landscape in its scale, but to do this more in a temporal sense. It would no longer be something in the 31

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:41 Page 32

The Place of Artists’ Cinema middle of nowhere, no longer subject to this fascination of the Earth artists with the empty desert. My work would be precisely in-between the city and nature, in-between this place of meetings, signs, and corporations, which is the city, and nature.63 It is worth noting that the concept of the ‘in-between’ recurs in Huyghe’s practice, serving as the title of a book about Anna Sanders Films, the production company he established with Charles de Meaux, Philippe Parreno and Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, among others.64 Although Huyghe’s focus is ostensibly on the production of an event rather than a material object, this event may not be wholly ephemeral because, like a theatrical work, it can be replayed. In fact the form of the replay is integral to the event itself, differentiating Huyghe’s work from that of Allan Kaprow, for example, for whom ‘the representation of the event was not incorporated into the conception of the project’.65 Huyghe emphasizes that, while he is not interested in ‘the vaunted “disappearance” of the art object’, he believes that art objects should be seen as ‘transitory, they are in-between, they are not ends in themselves’.66 Obviously, there are parallels here with the broader discourse around ‘relational art’ that is associated with the writings and curatorial practice of Nicolas Bourriaud. While Huyghe rejects the term ‘relational’ as a description of his own work, he does acknowledge the significance of the service economy as a point of reference for contemporary art practice: In the 1960s, it was important for artists to deal with the product and the object. Perhaps then, you can speak of modes of production and along with the product you analyze the factory as well, the production line, the process. But today this former economy of industrial products has shifted to an economy of service. Human relations are directly involved in such an economy. The downfall of industrial economies and objects, the rise of a service economy, the new importance of entertainment – within this nexus, the idea of relations, of inter-human relations, co-habitation, and social context become crucial.67 This statement captures a key aspect of ‘context’ within contemporary art practice, underscoring the fact that the term is now understood to refer primarily to social relations rather than any conception of a physical place.68 This shift from production to service economy also provides the context for one of the most influential accounts of place in art practice, Miwon Kwon’s (2004) One Place After Another: Site-specific Art and Locational Identity. Noting that artists are increasingly required to function as service providers, Kwon traces a shift from the ‘aesthetics of administration’ in the conceptual art practices of the 1960s and 1970s, towards a new emphasis on ‘the administration of aesthetics’, in which the artist functions, or serves, as ‘facilitator, educator, coordinator, and bureaucrat.’69 She proposes that these procedural changes have actually contributed to a renewed insistence on the artist as the progenitor of meaning, even where authorship is deferred to others through processes of collaboration or the institutional framework is ‘self-consciously integrated into the work’. Kwon emphasizes that it is the ‘thematization of discursive sites, which engenders a misrecognition of [these sites] as a natural extension of the artist’s identity so that the legitimacy 32

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:41 Page 33

Between Space, Site and Screen of the work’s critique [of site, institution or context] is measured by the proximity of the artist’s personal association (converted to expertise) with a particular place, history, discourse or identity, etc (converted to content)’.70 The key point in her analysis is that ‘the signifying chain of siteoriented art’ is integrally linked to the movement of the artist from one place to another, continually generating other ‘sites’ in the form of their exhibition history. It is possible to see how film and video might be implicated in this process, particularly with regard to those forms of artists’ cinema that assert a strong ‘claim to the real’ as documents of a performative event. But while Kwon’s analysis is compelling, it could be that she attributes too much coherency to ‘locational’ or site-specific art practice, since the role of the artist as service provider or coordinator actually extends across an array of art practices. Jeremy Valentine offers a different perspective, noting that artistic and administrative processes intersect across a whole range of ‘contextualizing’ practices that necessitate some form of organizational mediation, including installation and performance art.71 He also points to the limits of any analysis that attempts to reveal the hidden dynamics of administration or negotiation, rejecting Adornian notions of autonomy, which he perceives as a form of nostalgia for an earlier moment, when the boundaries between art and organization appeared to be more clearly defined. Valentine invokes the ‘Capital of Culture’ project in Liverpool as a possible focus for analysis. Writing in 2004, he suggests that the ‘culture’ of Liverpool during its term as Capital in 2008 will inevitably encompass the organization of cultural events associated with this project as well as the actual events themselves. It is impossible to fully represent this interweaving of culture and organization to the extent that the meaning and experience of the project can be understood separately from ‘the local and global elements that it articulates’.72 From this perspective, it seems feasible that this difficulty surrounding the representation of contemporary social, economic and cultural relations might give rise to a recovery of authenticity, through the physical presence of the artist or the imagined properties of place. Conclusion: Between Realism and Abstraction The notion that contemporary experience may somehow be ‘unrepresentable’ has also surfaced in a text by George Baker on the photographs and moving image work of Gerard Byrne, examples of which are discussed in Chapter 4. Baker emphasizes the prevalence of the projected or suspended image (encompassing video, film, slide, the light-box) within contemporary art practice, noting that images are ‘now everywhere and in motion, floating like restless ghosts in the spaces once reserved for static paintings in frames and heavy sculptures on pedestals’.73 Art criticism, he suggests, cannot propose a ‘social explanation’ for the rise of the ‘projected image’ precisely because ‘the social forces subtending this shift have become increasingly unrepresentable’. He suggests that criticism has failed to go beyond the mere cataloguing of an array of social and economic developments associated with the shift from productive to postproductive capitalism. These developments include the increased importance of the stock market and land speculation, the rise of monetarism and the World Bank, the radical alteration of urban formations, systematic unemployment, capital flight and disinvestment, and the necessity of 33

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:41 Page 34

The Place of Artists’ Cinema the market ‘crash’. Yet there is a certain contradiction here because Baker seeks to demonstrate exactly how this very ‘unrepresentability’ is articulated within contemporary photography and artists’ cinema. He focuses on ongoing series of captioned photographic stills by Byrne, the style of which deliberately evokes the industrial images of Bernd and Hilla Becher and the legacy of objectivist photography. One of these images is a photograph of a lake on land that is owned by the Guinness family. The caption reads as follows: Lough Tay, Wicklow, Ireland. ‘… less than ever does the mere reflection of reality reveal anything about reality. A photograph of the Krupp Works or the AEG tells us next to nothing about these institutions’. Bertolt Brecht, quoted in Walter Benjamin, ‘Little History of Photography,’ 1931.74 According to Baker, this observation by Brecht functions as a key early acknowledgement that appearance itself had become ‘abstract’, and as a consequence that reality lay elsewhere, beyond the ‘realist’ image. In the cited text, Brecht went on to state that the ‘reification of human relations – the factory, say – means that [these relations] are no longer explicit. So something must in fact be built up, something artificial, posed’.75 By adding this caption to his ‘realist’ photograph, Byrne is placing one citation against another and engaging in what Baker describes as a kind of ‘constructivism of the artificial’.76 In the remainder of his analysis, Baker identifies a connection between the layers of artifice and abstraction at work in Byrne’s practice and the supposed unrepresentability of contemporary social forces. He challenges the widely accepted notion that, in the culture of postmodernism, capital has become so abstract that it tends to be embodied in images rather than in products. Instead, drawing upon the work of Hal Foster and Fredric Jameson, Baker proposes that the reverse may also be true and images have been pushed to the point where they too have become abstractions. The significance of these abstracting processes only becomes apparent in the ‘post-productive’ moment of finance capital, which is characterized by the freeing of money from the products and industries to which it was once attached. This means that any ‘return to figuration’ in art practice may in fact be the cultural expression of an epoch of total abstraction, an ‘expression of the new freedom to recode and … deterritorialize all residual content’.77 The processes of deterritorialization through which capital becomes ‘free-floating’ give rise to various phenomena in which artists’ cinema may be implicated; this might include the reinhabiting of obsolete media with claims to indexicality or a pronounced economic, political and cultural investment in the specificity of place, as theorized by Kwon and others. Investment in place, however, is not necessarily limited to ‘sites’ that lie outside the gallery or museum. Instead, the past decade seems to have witnessed a renewed emphasis on the museum as an explicitly public context for the moving image, whether offering a welcome respite from the commercialization and privatization of the media (as suggested by Chris Darke), or constituting a kind of sacred space or a space for public scrutiny as well as self-scrutiny (as argued by Catherine Elwes). Contrasting views such as these suggest the need to expand existing accounts of ‘locational’ practice to encompass the gallery and museum. 34

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:41 Page 35

Between Space, Site and Screen Elsewhere, in an October roundtable on the projected image, Baker notes that a number of prominent artists working with the moving image originate from, or work in, places that are located on the geographical periphery of the film industry. He cites Stan Douglas, Eija-Liisa Ahtila and William Kentridge as examples78 and Gerard Byrne (based in Dublin) can also be included in this list. The intriguing aspect of Baker’s observation is that some of these ostensibly peripheral places (perhaps most obviously Douglas’ home town of Vancouver) have a particular connection to the film industry because they regularly serve as locations for film and television productions. Vancouver, in particular, often substitutes for North American cities.79 Although he does not develop this argument, Baker seems to suggest that artists working within these ‘peripheral’ places might somehow be more sensitive to the dynamics of cinematic spectacle, and to cycles of technological innovation and obsolescence that are associated with the postindustrial production of the film industry. The point here is that the periphery functions as a substitute for, and exists in relation to, other locations rather than having a fixed meaning or identity in its own right. Logics of substitution are also apparent in Byrne’s work, which as Baker notes is characterized by forms of recombination ‘where parts can substitute for parts as if their actual content no longer mattered’.80 Many of the works discussed in the following chapters are equally marked by substitution and recombination; most obviously in those forms of artists’ cinema which involve re-enactment, re-making or some form of ‘replay’ in the sense already suggested by Pierre Huyghe. It is also possible to identify a range of pragmatic strategies that may be associated with an economy organized around services rather than products. These strategies might include the reconfiguration of multi-screen video installations, as they are re-staged within a succession of exhibition spaces or revised for presentation in single screen form. In addition, various forms of substitution (and mediation) seem to be at work in the research and development of site-specific public art projects, to the extent that they are sometimes managed and resourced in ways that resemble location shoots in the film and television industry. Finally, the staging of the cinematic or the ‘cine-material’ within the museum, gallery or exhibition pavilion may involve processes of translation, where two or three dimensional forms such as architectural drawings or models acquire a newly temporal quality as they are transposed into cinematic structures. Taken together, these practices seem to contest the notion that contemporary experience is unrepresentable, instead proposing multiple strategies through which to interrogate the contemporary relationship between place and artists’ cinema.

35

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:41 Page 36

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:41 Page 37

Chapter 2 The Place of the Market

Next page: Matthew Barney Drawing Restraint 9, 2005 Production Still © 2005 Matthew Barney Photo: Chris Winget Courtesy Gladstone Gallery, New York

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:41 Page 38

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:41 Page 39

The Place of the Market Although more artists than ever are making works for spaces outside the gallery, the key difference between contemporary art and other luxury goods is that virtually all the elements operating within the market – the producers, suppliers and consumers – regard the public gallery or museum as the ultimate resting-place for the work they make, sell or buy. Louisa Buck, Market Matters.1 Introduction In June 2007, seven works by Eija-Liisa Ahtila were included in ‘Art Film’, a screening programme that now forms a regular part of the Art Basel art fair. All of the screenings took place at the local arthouse cinema, the Stadtkino Basel, and Ahtila’s films were shown on 35mm in single-screen format. While the vast majority of works in the Art Film programme were sourced from commercial galleries, Ahtila’s films were supplied by Light Cone, a not-for-profit distribution organization for experimental film, established in Paris in 1982. The decision to exhibit Consolation Service (1999) and Love is a Treasure (2002) in this way is intriguing, suggesting an assertion of Ahtila’s identity as a filmmaker whose work circulates outside art world contexts.2 Although Light Cone specializes in the distribution of experimental film, it should be noted that it is a ‘not-for-profit’ organization rather than a ‘for-profit’ film co-operative, like the Nouveau Collectif Jeune Cinema (based in Saint Ouen, France) or the New York FilmMakers’ Cooperative.3 While Art Basel might use the services of an organization such as Light Cone and exhibit artists’ cinema on film, this should not mask the conflicts that exist between the commercial art world, which is based around sales, and the co-operative distribution circuit, which relies primarily on rentals. The current prominence of artists’ film within the marketplace may in fact have undermined the co-operative model, not least because several artists’ films from the 1970s are now actually being retrospectively ‘editioned’ by galleries.4 Some filmmakers have begun to explore ways of operating within the contemporary art market without undermining the co-operative economy. In 2005 Pip Chodorov, a filmmaker who previously worked for Light Cone, established The Film Gallery to represent filmmakers such as Peter Kubelka, Robert Breer and Jonas Mekas at art fairs such as FIAC in Paris. The Film Gallery is a commercial, for-profit initiative just like Re: Voir, the experimental video and DVD distribution label that Chodorov also runs. Although The Film Gallery is driven by some of the same imperatives as not-for-profit organizations such as Light Cone in Paris or LUX in London, in that its activities raise the profile and assert the history of experimental filmmaking within the contemporary art context, Chodorov specifically seeks to sell film works as art. In this way, he aims to provide a new stream of income for practitioners who continue to distribute much of their work via the co-operative system. Yet, paradoxically, the very fact that The Film Gallery operates according to a ‘for-profit’ model, rather than as a publicly-funded organization, may circumscribe its position within the commercial art world.

39

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:41 Page 40

The Place of Artists’ Cinema The Projective City This chapter focuses primarily on developments in the marketplace since the mid-1990s and it is partly informed by Luc Boltanski and Eve Chiapello’s analysis of The New Spirit of Capitalism, which charts the reorganization of capitalism in the wake of 1968, tracing a shift away from hierarchical Fordist structures towards more flexible models of organization and employment, similar to those found in the art world. Focusing primarily on the French context, Boltanski and Chiapello argue that since the late 1960s management discourse has incorporated and coopted the ‘artistic critique’, articulated as ‘a desire for liberation, autonomy and authenticity’.5 The latter can be distinguished, they argue, from a broader ‘social critique’, which tends to be based upon morality and often rejects ‘sometimes violently, the immorality or moral neutrality, the individualism, and even the egoism or egotism of artists’.6 They argue that the gains in ‘liberation’ secured following May 1968 appear to have ‘given many people the opportunity to attain to the kind of authentic life that characterized the artistic condition, precisely in so far as it was defined by the rejection of all forms of disciplinary regulation’.7 They go on to outline various innovations in management and organizational structure during the 1980s and 1990s, intended to encourage employee autonomy and versatility, such as freedom from reporting to supervisors, or rotation of work posts. But, as they point out, these strategies often bring with them new forms of control, such as team-based and individual performance targets, which ‘tend to increase the mental burdens’.8 One of the most useful aspects of Boltanski and Chiapello’s analysis is their close reading of management literature in the 1990s, which focuses on the rhetoric of the ‘project’. They are particularly interested in the amorphousness of this term and its usage across a range of social contexts. In order to develop this concept further, they use the term ‘projective city’ to describe a set of social arrangements, constraints and conventions claiming validity, organized around the project. The ‘project’ is a deliberately open-ended term, defined both by ambiguity and transience: Utterly different things can be assimilated to the term ‘project’: opening a new factory, closing one, carrying out a re-engineering project, putting on a play … This is one of the ways in which the projective city can win over forces hostile to capitalism: by proposing a grammar that transcends it … It is precisely because the project is a transient form that it is adjusted to a network world, by multiplying connections and proliferating links, the succession of projects has the effect of extending networks.9 Although the model of the projective city obviously offers parallels with other network theories, it specifically foregrounds the role of the project as a ‘temporary pocket of accumulation’10 that creates value and also provides the base from which to extend the network. The project provides the means of (temporarily) stabilizing certain connections within the network as it allows for the construction of more enduring links out of the multiple ephemeral encounters of social and professional life. Boltanski and Chiapello rarely provide specific examples to illustrate their argument, however, and this clearly limits the usefulness of their analysis. Yet there are striking

40

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:41 Page 41

The Place of the Market parallels between their account of the ‘projective city’, the ‘self as project’ and Miwon Kwon’s analysis of locational art practice. According to Kwon, the ‘signifying chain of site-oriented art’11 is dependent upon the movement of the artist from one site to another, so that the meaning of place and the temporary presence of the artist become intertwined. Boltanski and Chiapello are also interested in the trajectory of the individual, and the relationship between novelty (in the form of the new project) and continuity. They emphasize that while novelty is prioritized within the projective city, it goes hand-in-hand with the ongoing development of the self and one’s employability, ‘which is the long-term personal project underlying all the others’.12 It is worth noting that an emphasis on concept of the ‘project’ is also evident in the writings of Nicolas Bourriaud. For example, in a text published in 2004, Bourriaud notes that art ‘is not merely a trade dedicated to producing forms; it is an activity whereby these forms come to articulate a project’.13 Boltanski and Chiapello’s analysis (particularly their core idea of the ‘artistic critique’) has been contested, particularly by Brian Holmes, who emphasizes the ‘real autonomy’ gained by many workers as a direct consequence of the struggles of May ‘68. However, Holmes acknowledges that autonomy is not guaranteed, and must be fought for and defended, through initiatives such as the ‘French Intermittents’ campaign. This campaign aims to retain and extend the special unemployment status achieved by some cultural workers, so that a broader constituency of people can ‘live an artist’s life in an efficacy-oriented capitalist society’.14 Nonetheless, The New Spirit of Capitalism has been influential within the domain of European cultural policy analysis, where it has informed a critique of ‘self-reflexive practices following from the traditions of institutional critique [and] transversal cooperations conjoining the art field with political movements’.15 It also forms part of a broader reconceptualization of 1968, which foregrounds appropriation rather than rupture. According to Gerald Raunig, the 1968 generation contributed to a process of deterritorialization, opposing the nation-state and paving the way ‘for the shattering of the welfare state in the years thereafter’ as the ‘emancipatory cultural policy concepts of the 1970s lost their explosive force and turned into a new paradigm of the spectacle, of creativity, and of productivity’.16 Despite the importance of this critique, however, there is a need to move beyond established oppositions between ‘autonomy’ and ‘appropriation’, perhaps by attending more carefully to the question of complicity. Informed by debates within the domain of political philosophy that extend somewhat beyond the scope of this study, Irit Rogoff has highlighted the critical potential of complicity and embeddedness. In a text published alongside the exhibition ‘I Promise it’s Political’ (2002), she alludes to ‘a reflective shift from the analytical to the performative function of observation and of participation’ within contemporary art practice, proposing that ‘within the space of a relatively short period we have been able to move from criticism to critique to what I am calling at present criticality’. She continues, explaining that we have moved from criticism which is a form of finding fault and of exercising judgement according to a consensus of values, to critique which is examining the underlying assumptions that might allow something to appear as convincing logic, to criticality which is operating from an uncertain ground of actual embeddedness.17 41

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:41 Page 42

The Place of Artists’ Cinema The precise timeframe for this movement is not specified, but Rogoff’s emphasis on embeddedness seems to invoke an array of curatorial initiatives and discursive strategies employed during the late 1990s and early 2000s, collectively described under the banner of ‘New Institutionalism’. This term broadly refers to the assertion, or perhaps reassertion, of the physical space of the museum or gallery as the locus for overtly participatory and discursive activities, often taking the form of publications and symposia rather than exhibitions. Sometimes these initiatives place particular emphasis on the visible display of participants but, as Sarah Pierce has noted, others are ‘minimally articulated, less visible and less-visually oriented radical examples of political debates as they occur in other discussions, elsewhere’.18 While various definitions of ‘New Institutionalism’ have been offered, Claire Doherty provides a particularly useful account of the participatory and discursive turn in museum programmes since the late 1990s. She finds an emphasis on the ‘rhetoric of temporary/transient encounters, states of flux and open-endedness’ in curatorial initiatives, often associated with dialogue and participation and the production of ‘event or process-based works rather than objects for passive consumption’.19 As an example of such work, she cites Carsten Höller’s Frisbee House (2000), in the ‘Common Wealth’ exhibition at Tate Modern in 2003, which consisted of a tent-like structure from which visitors could throw Frisbees. Doherty notes that while Nicolas Bourriaud’s concept of ‘relational aesthetics’ has informed the reception of overtly discursive curatorial strategies, particularly within the UK context, it has also has been ‘misread as the doctrine of New Institutionalism’. In fact, it could be argued that, rather than privileging ‘low visibility’, Bourriaud proposes a model of reception that emphasizes the making visible of audiences. It is significant, for example, that he explicitly frames the exhibition as a stage or film set. Commenting in 2004 on the work of artists such as Liam Gillick, Philippe Parreno and Rirkrit Tiravanija, he states: The exhibition becomes one big film set (a ‘film without a camera’, Philippe Parreno puts it), a set in which we can mount our own sequences of meanings. Rirkrit Tiravanija always includes the words ‘lots of people’, indicating that they are an integral part of it all. The forms that he presents to the public do not constitute an artwork until they are actually used and occupied by the people who thus become both the walk-ons and passengers of the exhibition.20 In recent years, some of the most prominent curators associated with ‘New Institutionalism’ have moved from the museum to the academy and there are signs that this era has now come to an end, possibly as a consequence of changes in cultural policy.21 Nonetheless, it seems likely that curatorial approaches to artists’ cinema during the 1990s and 2000s, particularly within institutional contexts, were shaped by this broader engagement with event-based and relational art. Spatialization Processes and Cultural Policies Before addressing in more detail the developments that have taken place within the commissioning and production of artists’ cinema, it is important to briefly consider one further 42

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:41 Page 43

The Place of the Market aspect of the broader political and economic context. Since the early 1990s, Saskia Sassen has continually countered the notion that ‘place no longer matters’ and instead she has foregrounded the significance of cites as ‘strategic places that concentrate command functions, global markets, and [as] production sites for the advanced corporate service industries’.22 Her analysis suggests that the most devalued forms of labour, often imagined to be outside the knowledge economy, are in fact wholly integral to its operations. She has theorized the rise of global centres that require large numbers of low-paid, manual workers as well as the highly-paid employees of the finance or knowledge sectors. The image of the global city that is conjured by Sassen’s analysis is one of temporal and spatial stratification, in which disparate groups may occupy the same physical space while operating within different temporal zones, as in the case of ‘night shift’ workers who are involved in cleaning and maintaining the offices occupied by finance workers during the day. It could be argued that instrumentalized museum art programmes specifically seek to address these two polarized groups (the low-paid and the better-paid or at least higher-status, ‘knowledge workers’)23 with the aim of creating a cohesive ‘public’. In addition, Sassen emphasizes that these new forms of labour inequality are also paralleled by pronounced inequalities between cities. She notes that many former manufacturing centres have suffered a pronounced decline, so that the spectre of the declining post-industrial city assists the corporate economy in securing huge concessions from city governments, premised on the notion that these corporations can easily relocate. As Sassen’s more recent research demonstrates, nation states operate within a context that is shaped by complex ‘assemblages’24 of territory, authority and rights that may cut across but do not necessarily wholly supersede national boundaries. City governments and national agencies must also compete to attract cultural investment, often as a means of supporting regeneration projections. In her analysis of European cultural policy, Frédérique Jacquemin emphasizes that national objectives in the area of cultural policy are often balanced against civic, regional and supranational imperatives. She notes a huge investment in the development of European contemporary art spaces over the past decade, often tied to initiatives such as the European Capital of Culture.25 These spaces are intended to structure the leisure time of new white-collar workers, forming part of a global development programme in which regional revival plays a part. Jacquemin differentiates between the current instrumentalization and the initiatives of the late 1980s, which were directly concerned with job creation. She proposes that current and future policies should be understood as part of a ‘new spatialization process’ across Europe, which is ‘pushed by capitalistic movements that distribute its production centres, logistic knots and creative hubs according to new delimitations’.26 European policy initiatives, such as Culture 2000, and its successor Culture 2007, attempt to intervene in and shape these spatialization processes. The aim of the Culture 2000 programme is ‘to develop a common cultural area by promoting cultural dialogue, knowledge of the history, creation and dissemination of culture, the mobility of artists and their works, European cultural heritage, new forms of cultural expression and the socio-economic role of culture’, while Culture 2007 is even more explicit in its stated objective ‘to enhance the cultural area common to Europeans with a view to encouraging the emergence of European citizenship’.27 The spatial 43

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:41 Page 44

The Place of Artists’ Cinema delimitations analysed by Jacquemin, Sassen and others provide the backdrop to (and sometimes the target of) the curatorial strategies and cultural policies associated with New Institutionalism. It is worth noting that spatial and territorial imperatives also underpin policies and practices outside the immediate context of contemporary art, particularly in the area of European film and television financing. Audio-visual policies to enhance European cohesion (such as ‘Television Without Frontiers’)28 have been in force since the mid-1980s. Recent years have also witnessed the emergence of civic initiatives in film financing, as urban regeneration agencies have become directly involved in the commissioning and co-funding of film projects, sometimes working alongside national and international partners.29 This development seems to be in tune with the policies described by Jacquemin, reiterating the significance of cities within new spatialization processes. Artist as (Film) Producer Within the sphere of artistic production, the past decade seems to have been marked by a growing emphasis on what Claire Doherty terms the ‘rhetoric of “place”‘ in curating and commissioning. Doherty outlines a number of interconnected currents, extending from ‘scattered-site international exhibition which preceded the recent swell of biennials, governed by the organizing principle of place’ and involving a dispersal of works across multiple sites, to research-based programmes and residencies that emphasize ‘engagement, process and encounter’.30 Artists’ cinema, interestingly, figures very prominently across this entire spectrum of practice and Doherty repeatedly highlights projects that are characterized by a mobilization of the moving image as the focus or the document of an event. In Chapter 4 I discuss specific examples in more detail, but here I want to consider the economic and organizational connections that might exist between artists’ cinema and site-specific art practice, particularly within the UK context. The UK is home to a number of organizations that support and promote artists’ film and video, including LUX, Film London and Picture This, a Bristol-based commissioning agency that is specifically concerned with the development of contextual approaches to the production and exhibition of the moving image. It could be argued that the public art agency Artangel has also played a significant role in this area, even though its remit is not specific to the moving image. Off Limits, a survey of forty Artangel projects completed between 1991 and 2002 lists a total of ten initiatives that incorporate film or video, including Coronet Cinema (Melanie Counsell, 1991), Cremaster 4 (Matthew Barney, 1995), Fishtank (Richard Billingham, 1998), Feature Film (Douglas Gordon, 1999), The Influence Machine (Tony Oursler, 2000), The Battle of Orgreave (Jeremy Deller, 2001), Steenbeckett by Atom Egoyan and Carib’s Leap/Western Deep by Steve McQueen (both 2002). Out of a total of approximately fifteen works commissioned between 2003 and 2008, at least six incorporated some element of film or video, including Seven Walks by Francis Alÿs and Kuba by Kutlug˘ Ataman (both 2005), Exodus by Penny Woolcock and Waste Man, a related documentary directed by Caroline Deeds (both 2006), The Saints (Paul Pfeiffer, 2007) and High Wire (Catherine Yass, 2008).31 It is also worth noting that Artangel projects often prioritize the overtly ‘physical’ presentation of ‘cinematic’ work.32 So McQueen’s Carib’s Leap/Western Deep was presented at the 44

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:41 Page 45

The Place of the Market subterranean site of the former Lumière cinema in London and, in 2003, Artangel commissioned a presentation of the full Cremaster Cycle in a customized cinema in London, in which visitors passed though a sculptural installation before entering the cinema. Several Artangel projects have also been devised for broadcast contexts and these include Billingham’s Fishtank on BBC2 and several drama and documentary projects shown on Channel Four, the most recent of which (Exodus) was screened at the Venice Film Festival in 2007. If Artangel has supported artists who wish to engage with the space of the cinema, it has also (on occasion) provided opportunities for filmmakers who wish to make a shift in the opposite direction. In addition to his Steenbeckett project for Artangel, Atom Egoyan has since exhibited moving image works in various gallery and biennial contexts. This exploration by filmmakers of production models that are particular to the visual arts has been welcomed by some commentators,33 but critiqued by others. As noted already, Chris Darke argues that the emergence of the gallery film during the 1990s coincided with a decline in film funding in the UK34 while others have suggested that the visibility of artists’ cinema in museum and gallery contexts can actually obscure the dwindling of production opportunities elsewhere.35 Just as filmmakers are sometimes compelled to take up the position of artist in the gallery (or ‘off-site’) to secure funding, artists are sometimes required to demonstrate the skills of film producers to effectively manage and resource their own projects. Commenting on her experience of the Venice Biennale in 2003, Martha Rosler suggests that artists at these events who ‘exhibit anything other than medium-sized paintings are akin to independent movie-producers, who must gain funds, generally through the sponsorship of small governments or highly capitalized dealerships, to produce large-scale works and to support a group of assistants and installers’.36 While Rosler’s comments relate specifically to the biennial exhibition context, artists who are working within explicitly commercial (or ‘private’) contexts may also be under pressure to adapt to a more project-based model of production. Sam Keller, former director of Art Basel (from 2000 to 2007) has admitted that artists are often only able to meet the demand generated by art fairs if they ‘have a lot of ideas and are organized into studios with many assistants and can produce a lot of work without the quality suffering’.37 There are superficial parallels here with the classical model of Hollywood studio production, evoking an image of a mogul overseeing a range of activities on the studio floor. But contemporary artists are much more likely to be engaged in an array of geographically-dispersed projects so it perhaps more useful to draw comparisons with the modes of film production that preceded and followed the classical era, including the post war rise of European co-production and the subsequent expansion of independent production beyond the studio.38 Much like film producers, artists (and indeed their gallerists) may visit sites of construction but their presence is likely to be more crucial at points of distribution, negotiation or even ‘localization’, where works are adapted to specific contexts. Models of Production and Circulation Although it is tempting to identify certain developments as particular to the 1990s (such as the emergence of the gallerist as film producer) it is necessary to note a number of precedents for 45

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:41 Page 46

The Place of Artists’ Cinema current practices in the production and circulation of artists’ cinema. In her history of MoMA and art cinema, Haidee Wasson describes an important early attempt to develop a market for 16mm films as art objects. She refers to Julian Levy, who established a New York gallery in the late 1920s and conceived of producing films by artists as well as film portraits of artists, which would be printed on 16mm and available for purchase.39 Although Levy was successful in acquiring various prints of films by Leger, Duchamp, Dali and Bunuel, amongst others, he only managed to complete one artists’ portrait (of Max Ernst) and his experiment was relatively shortlived. By the 1960s, however, a new wave of artist-led models for the production and distribution of artists’ cinema, including co-operatives, had emerged in the US. While the precise origins of the co-operative model within film culture remain somewhat obscure, Peter Thomas offers some useful points of comparison between the nineteenth-century co-operative movement originating in Rochdale, England and organizations such as the New York Film-Makers’ Cooperative (NYFC).40 Thomas notes that film co-operatives are bound to their suppliers (filmmakers) rather than their customers and function as democratic organizations in which members actively participate in policy formation and decision-making. During the 1960s and 1970s, organizations such as the NYFC, Canyon Cinema (San Francisco) and the London Film Makers’ Co-op (LFMC) supplied films to a huge range of film clubs, universities, artist-run spaces, repertory cinemas and film-friendly music venues but, unlike galleries, they did not seek to manage the circulation of films beyond ensuring basic maintenance and care. Also, although these organizations certainly raised the public profile of experimental film culture, they explicitly avoided the promotion, selection or even mediation of individual films. This is despite the fact that their overall rental income was often heavily dependent upon works by a small number of prominent filmmakers, such as Stan Brakhage. All available works were listed alphabetically by filmmaker in co-op catalogues and rental fees for all works were determined by the length of the film, with rental income initially split (usually 25 per cent to 75 per cent) strongly in favour of the filmmaker.41 Although organizations like the NYFC relied heavily on philanthropy in the early years, Thomas notes that the US co-operatives generally avoided seeking public subsidy, preferring to keep overheads low as a means of managing costs. But over the years, the split of rental incomes often shifted towards the co-operatives, to cover increasing costs, and some organizations began to limit the number of films deposited by members.42 European co-operatives were able to source various forms of cultural subsidy more readily than their US counterparts but this created various conflicts. As Julia Knight and Peter Thomas have demonstrated, the LFMC was forced to develop a more ‘curatorial’ approach to compete for revenue with other state-funded organizations, while also dealing with an expanding catalogue of film works that required maintenance and preservation.43 Funding pressures forced the LFMC to give up its co-operative status in the mid-1990s and in 1998 it merged with London Electronic Arts (LEA) to form LUX, as a consequence of threats to the funding of their shared building in Hoxton Square. But this initiative proved to be unsustainable in the face of increased overheads and the organization was liquidated in 2001. The distribution wing was then reconstituted in 2002 and LUX now operates as a resource for British artists’ film and video, maintaining a focus on education and promotion while also distributing films from its catalogue and publishing 46

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:41 Page 47

The Place of the Market DVDs, videos, catalogues and monographs. Significantly, LUX no longer has a public cinema space and instead organizes touring exhibition initiatives and screenings as well as discrete events that promote historical and contemporary work. The situation with regard to the distribution of artists’ video in the US during this same period is slightly different. While various organizations emerged during the 1970s and 1980s, Electronic Arts Intermix (EAI) is arguably the most significant. It was founded by Howard Wise in 1971 as a ‘not-for-profit’ organization, rather than a co-operative, following a decade of experimentation with video and other forms of media technology at the Howard Wise gallery. Initially intended to support research and production, EAI gradually shifted its focus towards distribution and preservation, maintaining some involvement in sales, education and promotion activities.44 There is nothing new in suggesting that innovations by artists or filmmakers are absorbed by industry but the key issue highlighted by the research of Knight and Thomas is the role of the state in undermining the co-operative system in the UK. Artists and filmmakers were no longer simply involved in a self-help initiative for the production and distribution of their own work, instead they were required to become deeply embroiled in a whole range of activities including education, curating and audience development. There are obvious parallels here with the analysis of labour and organizational culture offered by Luc Boltanski and Eve Chiapello. It is also possible to identify similar developments within the UK broadcasting context, through reference to the history of the Workshop Agreement. This agreement, which was co-signed by the television union, allowed the members of various workshop groups to work on low-budget film and television productions.45 Several production workshops were supported by Channel Four, prior to its deregulation in 1988, creating a platform for artists who were working collaboratively and were specifically engaged with questions of place, identity and history. Prominent examples include groups such as Black Audio Film Collective, best known for the film Handsworth Songs (1986),46 and Sankofa, which included Isaac Julien amongst its members and was responsible for Territories (1984). The establishment of the workshop initiative was driven by demands for access and representation, but it may also have indirectly served Channel Four’s organizational needs for flexibility and competition. Marketplace as Public Place Returning to the late 1960s, the origins of the contemporary art fair in Europe also merit attention in terms of the shifting relationship between public and private market economies. During this period, art dealers and gallerists began to benefit from new forms of public subvention, possibly prefiguring the rise of place-centred and site-based models of commissioning and curating in the 1990s. Christine Mehring has suggested that initiatives such as KUNSTMARKT ‘67, a Cologne art fair established by the dealers Rudolf Zwirner and Hein Stunke, paved the way for the establishment of events such as the Basel Art Fair, in 1970. Initially restricted to German dealers showing a mix of European and American art, KUNSTMARKT ‘67 pre-empted many of the more recent ‘innovations’ within art fairs by incorporating monographic presentations that were ‘designed to ensure the aesthetic “quality” of the overall 47

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:41 Page 48

The Place of Artists’ Cinema experience, just as today’s [art] fairs boast of “curated” projects, single-artist booths, and the inclusion of large-scale work’.47 Mehring argues that the Cologne fair was not an attempt to capitalize on an existing market boom or an influx of foreign capital. Instead it aimed to resuscitate a failing national art economy through a kind of ‘civic boosterism’. The catalogue and advertising were partly funded by the city of Cologne, which also offered cheap rent in exchange for the income from entrance fees. So while the organizers sought to present an ‘exclusive’ event, by restricting participation to a select grouping of galleries and artists, they also needed to attract a substantial paying audience by promoting the fair as a public event. An emphasis on the ‘public’ dimension of the marketplace, through an address to a general public and economic dependency on civic funding and publicity, is equally apparent in contemporary art fairs, such as Frieze, Art Basel or The Armory Show. In addition to the various forms of sponsorship provided by civic authorities, art fairs may also benefit indirectly from national subvention. This is because commercial galleries are sometimes able to secure funding to promote their artists from agencies involved in national cultural promotion or inter-national cultural diplomacy, underscoring the fact that art fairs are widely recognized as public events, comparable, at least in some respects, to curated exhibitions such as biennials. There are various ways of understanding the ‘publicness’ of the art fair. It is possible, for example, to focus upon the dynamics of spectatorship that are particular to contemporary art. Simon Sheikh describes the conventional process of ‘making a public’ at the contemporary art opening, focusing on the experience of watching and being watched: And thus the importance of the art opening, the vernissage, as a bourgeois ritual of initiation and cultivation: one is not merely the first to watch (and in some cases, buy) but also to be watched: to be visible as the cultivated bourgeois subject of reason, in the right place and in your place.48 Here, the contemporary art museum is understood both as an important place, ‘the right place’, and also as a system for placement. Evidently, the art fair is characterized by a slightly different dynamic, not least because it is constituted as a temporary rather than permanent space, without a collection. Like the museum, however, the art fair is marked by a display of power and status that is distinctively spatial and relational, inscribed in the ad-hoc architecture of the booth, which crudely echoes the distribution of both real estate in urban gallery districts and advertising space in the pages of glossy art magazines. While art fairs are perhaps the most prominent sites of display and consumption within the contemporary art market, the marketplace also encompasses the auction house and even extends to publicly-funded museums. In the April 2008 issue of Artforum, devoted to ‘Art and its Markets’, Robert Pincus-Witten describes the auction house as an increasingly public ‘theater of acquisition’ in which ‘the sheer public nature of the winning bid … adds mediatic glamour to the already heady experience of simply participating in an auction’.49 Another contributor, Thomas Crow, emphasizes that the public sector also plays a significant role within this experience, supplementing these private pleasures by confirming the symbolic value of what the 48

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:41 Page 49

The Place of the Market collector holds.50 The contribution of auctioneer Amy Capellazzo to the same debate suggests that the art market has been marked by increased transparency since the mid 1990s, due to the arrival of online pricing databases that enable trading in real time and a greater capacity to research comparable sales. One consequence of this is that financial institutions are now apparently more willing to lend money against works of art on competitive terms.51 However, this does not mean that everything is transparent and visible within the marketplace. In fact some of the works sold at the fair are not actually on physical display. Instead they are represented in digital archives and held in the galleries, in artists’ studios or off-site storage. The expansion of the art market has also given rise to the waiting list, which enables gallerists and dealers to ‘place’ works with particular collectors, including those that may be affiliated to a public museum, rather than simply selling to the highest bidder. This sales strategy is intended to counter any visible volatility within the market, ensuring that prices will not rise and fall in line with demand. Some commentators hold to the belief that it is possible to disentangle commerce from the other activities that make-up the marketplace. Isabelle Graw argues that knowledge and commerce constitute distinct, albeit related, spheres of activity. While the commercial market is situated amongst dealers, collectors and auction houses, the ‘market of knowledge and information’ is represented by ‘biennials and grand shows, Kunstvereins, and so on’.52 This view is not wholly convincing, however, because the art fair now functions as the primary site of knowledge for many participants. In a contribution to a publication by Rachmaninoff’s and the Zoo Art Fair, Caoimhín Mac Giolla Leith describes Art Basel as a highly discursive event where it is possible to view old and new works side by side, in the company of a particularly knowledgeable audience. He also points out that the ‘Art Unlimited’ section purports to offer exhibition opportunities that are not available elsewhere, claiming that it ‘overcomes not only the constraints of space, lighting, weight, noise, smell emissions, and safety considerations, but curatorial, contextual, temporal and financial restrictions as well’.53 Mac Giolla Leith notes that fairs like Art Basel are particularly useful for critics who are removed from metropolitan art centres, although he suggests that the benefits for artists and gallerists may be less clear-cut, given that the rise of the fair may have contributed to a decline in ‘steady year-round support’ from collectors.54 Jerry Saltz is less sanguine about the value of art fairs for critics but he still seems to embrace the distinctively discursive character of these events, noting that ‘everyone sees one another’ at the fair, creating an ‘a genuine sense of community in an art world so sprawling that this experience is otherwise rare’.55 Clearly, in this context, ‘everyone’ is understood to designate a relatively select group because only the blue chip galleries are likely to accommodated within the most prestigious fairs. As Saltz acknowledges, the sheer number of events that now makeup the art fair calendar requires dealers, buyers (and artists) to choose carefully between competing platforms, each of which may assert continuity, novelty or some form of specialization. Interestingly, Saltz sees fairs as ‘more egalitarian’ and perhaps more honest than curator-driven exhibitions as a consequence of their particular public character. He describes them as ‘tent-city casinos where art is shipped in and parked for five days while spectators gawk and comped VIPs and shoppers roll the dice for all to see. And in this game everybody plays: 49

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:41 Page 50

The Place of Artists’ Cinema artists, dealers and buyers.’ Within this game, however, certain important distinctions continue to apply, particularly between collectors and buyers; Saltz notes that the former cultivate relationships with dealers and artists and usually acquire art works in private, while the latter often buy only one example of an artist’s work, conducting transactions impulsively and in public. Some art fairs openly aspire to status of public institutions in which commercial considerations are ostensibly secondary. Sam Keller, former director of Art Basel, has emphasized that the fair selects participating galleries solely on the basis of quality and requires all galleries to re-apply each year for selection.56 The economic model described by Keller clearly illustrates the convergence between the commercial market and the market of knowledge, as well as emphasizing the role played by art fairs in various forms of ‘place-making’. Art Basel has invested heavily in various forms of ‘cultural’ programming, such as talks and tours. It has also established partnerships with local collectors as part of its Art Basel/Miami Beach off-shoot, in the absence of a ready supply of art museums in the Miami area. The Art Basel brand has also begun to generate income beyond the rental of stands to galleries because the organizers have moved into consultancy roles, directing the development of a range of art fairs in emerging contemporary art markets, outside established European and North American art world centres.57 There are various ways of securing both publicity and the publicness, and most major contemporary fairs include some kind of project space to showcase sponsored or commissioned artworks or events. Although often dismissed as sideshows, these events may be integral to the effectiveness of the fair as a marketplace because they create useful ‘breathing spaces’ amongst the sales booths. According to Pryle Behrman, project spaces actually counter the sense of alienation that is produced by the fair,58 an acknowledgement that these supposed alternatives to the market economy actually sustain it. Elsewhere, Behrman has noted a similar strategy at work in biennial exhibitions, which showcase and simultaneously ‘ingest’ forms of radicalism.59 Many art fairs also assert their ‘public’ status through partnerships with publicly-funded institutions. These initiatives potentially offer a platform for critique that may encompass the fair itself, as in the case of European Cultural Policies 2015, a report edited by Maria Lind and distributed at the Frieze Art Fair in 2005 (already cited at length in my discussion of cultural policy). In her introduction to the report, Lind examines the relationship between the Frieze Foundation, which receives public funding from organizations such as Arts Council England, and Frieze Art Fair, a commercial company initiated by the publishers of Frieze magazine. She notes that in 2005 the Frieze Foundation partnered with several public art institutions to secure funding from the EU initiative Culture 200060 but she questions the benefits of the commissioning structure for public institutions, outlining the relatively modest level of funding available for production of projects.61 So while the Fair benefited from the ‘expertise and credibility’ of the public institutions and asserted its commitment to innovation, the collaboration did not necessarily yield additional concrete funding for the commissioned projects.62 Frieze 2005 was also the site of a prominent project on the theme of ‘Artist’s Cinema’, curated by Polly Staple and coordinated by Ian White as a response to the ‘legacies and the ongoing problems of cinema in the field of art … in the face of a ruthless equation between space and money’.63 The project involved the construction of a ‘bespoke black-box auditorium’ with a 50

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:41 Page 51

The Place of the Market separate projection box and it aimed to provide a recognizably cinematic context for the presentation of moving image works; audiences were expected to adhere to the cinematic conventions of fixed start times. One strand of the commissioning programme clearly sought to address an audience that was not particularly familiar with artists’ film and video as it focused entirely on artists who had never before made video work. Another series of commissions (entitled ‘LUX/SPACEX A Movie’) favoured artists who are relatively well established in the field, such as Mark Leckey and Daria Martin. This latter strand specifically aimed to develop links with the theatrical exhibition circuit, as the commissioned works were also screened in selected cinemas around the UK, further asserting the public dimension of the project. But although the films were premiered at the Fair they were not actually funded by the Frieze Foundation; instead funding came from Arts Council England, with touring support from South West Screen and Film London.64 Museums and Collections: Houses and ‘Resting-Places’ In a reflection upon the place of installation art within the art market, cited in Claire Bishop’s Installation Art, Ilya Kabakov emphasizes that installation is aligned with earlier artistic forms (including the fresco, the icon and the painting), once categorized as ‘immaterial’ but long since subject to commercialization and commodification. For Kabakov, however, installation art continues to derive significance from its association with a particular location and for this reason he continues to describe it as a ‘non-commodifiable’ art form: The installation encounters the firm hostility of collectors who don’t have the place to house it and conditions do not exist for keeping it in reserve. It is impossible to repeat or reconstruct the installation in another place, as a rule it is ‘tied’, intended only for a specific dwelling. It is impossible to reproduce, recreate, a photo gives virtually no impression at all.65 As Bishop points out, this analysis is somewhat undermined by the fact that Kabakov’s own works are now widely collected and ‘repeated’ in other places. Nonetheless, this statement is intriguing, not least because of its emphasis on terms such as ‘house’ and ‘dwelling’, which evokes a traditional image of the domestic collector, as opposed to the public museum or the private speculator who may store or even exhibit art works in a warehouse. In a report on the contemporary art market from 2004, Louisa Buck acknowledges that while ‘more artists than ever are making works for spaces outside the gallery’, the dynamics of production and exchange within the marketplace remain profoundly structured by the pull of the public gallery or museum as the ‘ultimate resting-place for works of art’.66 Even in the case of commissioned, site-specific work, the issue of collecting arises. Commenting on the ephemerality of Artangel projects, James Lingwood points out that ‘there’s always something left – either the work, or a residue of it’. He does not discount the possibility that the works might be reconstructed or remade elsewhere, noting that ‘if the form can be more nomadic and 51

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:41 Page 52

The Place of Artists’ Cinema can be remade or seen again in another time and place that’s fine, so long as the logic of the remaking comes from the work itself and not the economics of its making’.67 The notion that it is possible (and indeed) desirable to dissociate the ‘work itself’ from the ‘economics of its making’ is both questionable and commonplace within the sphere of contemporary art. Just as installation and site-specific art is readily bought and sold, it is no longer unusual for public or private collectors to acquire and exhibit moving images such as multi-screen projections. Sometimes sold as editions, these works may even be available in various configurations, including a single-screen version. Given their relative mobility, particularly in the form of the tape, disc or digital file, moving image works may also be particularly attractive as acquisitions if public institutions are forced to co-purchase and share works in order to maintain the currency of their collections in an era of inflated market prices.68 This does not mean that all moving image works by artists necessarily circulate in the commercial art market. Works that are publicly-funded and commissioned are sometimes made available to participants or distributed as DVDs, finding their way into multiple physical and virtual collections.69 As new channels of distribution have emerged online, it is difficult to contain the widespread circulation of low grade copies of artists’ cinema. Many galleries do not have the resources (or even the desire) to police YouTube or the various sites on which video content is shared, despite the fact that they need to derive income from authorized editions. In this situation, however, sales of the work may still be possible because the buyer is effectively investing in the right to publicly display the work, further asserting the ‘public’ dimension of acquisition. To what extent does the museum continue to function, in the terms offered by Buck, as the ‘ultimate resting-place’ for contemporary artists’ cinema? This question is addressed by various contributors to Kinomuseum, a publication that documents and contextualizes a programme of the same name curated by Ian White for the Oberhausen Short Film Festival in 2007. In his introduction, White emphasizes that the art museum has long been characterized by the assertion of distance from the market, even though its processes of placement, removal and re-placement are integral to the establishment of economic value.70 Like the art market, the museum continually asserts the principle of uniqueness not least because it ‘collects and preserves unique objects, at great expense … and anyone wanting to see an exhibit must travel to the one location in which it is on display’.71 This myth of the unique, static art work persists despite the fact that many contemporary moving image works are editioned and so might actually be on display in more than one location at any one time, while others may belong to more than one collection. White’s article suggests that there is a conflict between the imagined uniqueness and stasis of art works (with the museum as the last in a succession of ‘resting places’) and the actual circulation of art works within both the marketplace and the museum. By contrast, as White points out, circulation is emphasized within the ‘undifferentiated’ realm of industrial cinema. If a film is in distribution it is assumed to be continually circulating in various formats, so that the same work is shown to the maximum number of people as often as possible. Sometimes, artists’ cinema may occupy a position as the intersection of these opposing models. Chrissie Iles has emphasized the Whitney Museum’s ongoing support for the rentals model but she also highlights the need to acquire film works for the permanent collection so 52

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:41 Page 53

The Place of the Market that they will be exhibited alongside painting and sculpture. She claims, however, that the museum’s board has often resisted the purchase of works that can only be acquired for the life of the film print, as in the case of the films of Stan Brakhage or Ken Jacobs. The ‘rules of the art museum … do not accept anything into the collection that is only for the life of the object’, to the extent where some filmmakers have donated their films rather than pursuing sales.72 As Iles points out, the Whitney Museum owns several works on film made by artists, such as Ed Ruscha, Robert Morris, Warhol, Bruce Nauman, Mary Kelly, so the difficulty clearly lies not with the material nature of film per se but, rather, with those artists whose films are associated with distribution practices which assert the principle of reproducibility, such as the co-operative model or the commercial film industry. Artists who exhibit their films within museum or gallery contexts often develop an approach to sales that constrains reproducibility. Artists’ films are often sold as editions of three or four, with the artist retaining a ‘proof’ copy. In the case of a 16mm film, the sales contract may even enable the artist to retain a master negative in a specified lab that collectors are required to use if they need to make exhibition prints. This is a significant issue as 16mm prints have a fairly limited life span, particularly when shown in a ‘looper’, a device (usually mounted on the projector) that enables the continuous circulation of a loop of film. In these instances it is generally necessary to replace the print every three or four weeks. So while artists and their representatives may adhere to certain conventions associated with the rentals system (such as the production of several prints), they carefully restrict the circulation of these prints, exerting a form of ‘quality control’ that is at odds with the emphasis on accessibility in the co-operative system. For some artists, such as Tacita Dean, the use of film is integrally linked to its obsolescence as an industrial medium. This position is most explicit in Kodak (2006), a 16mm film that documents the last days of production at a film manufacturing plant in Chalon-sur-Saône in France. The elegiac tone of this work belies the fact that film persists as a component in many digital production processes and continues to be widely-used as a preservation medium. Dean’s exclusive focus on the manufacturing process also does not permit analysis of external factors that might have contributed to the closure of this particular factory. Kodak does, however, offer a starting point from which to explore the role of this particular manufacturer within the history of film distribution and exhibition. In a history of film at the Museum of Modern Art, Haidee Wasson notes that ‘16mm technology constituted a formative infrastructure for the proliferation of images and screens’73 during the 1920s and 1930s, in educational, cultural, industrial and domestic contexts. Her research demonstrates the specific role played by the Eastman Kodak company in promoting 16mm exhibition and production during this period, largely as a means of increasing sales of its own (reversal) film stock and projection equipment. In addition to selling and processing reversal stock, the company approached Hollywood studios, seeking the rights to reduce and distribute old non-circulating 35mm films, and in 1925 it established the first international 16mm library service, Kodascope Libraries, making use of the pre-existing distribution and retail network associated with Kodak photographic products. Although these initiatives were motivated entirely by commercial objectives, Wasson emphasizes that the introduction of 16mm meant that ‘smaller and more specialized groups’ could at least attempt 53

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:41 Page 54

The Place of Artists’ Cinema to ‘redress the increasing corporate control of film form and practice’ by making and exhibiting films.74 But although this history of distribution and exhibition forms part of the rise and fall of Kodak, Dean’s interest lies only in the factory as a site of production, where the specificity of film as material becomes most pronounced. Film Props and Art Objects: The Work of Matthew Barney If the museum (as film archive) is invoked obliquely in Dean’s work, it occupies a far more prominent role within the mythology and iconography associated with Matthew Barney. The Guggenheim Museum even serves as the principal setting for a section of Barney’s Cremaster 3, which has been extracted from the cycle for general distribution as a DVD entitled The Order (2002). While some early instalments in the Cremaster cycle were funded partly from public sources, such as Artangel, Barney now relies primarily on private sources of financing and his recent films have been produced by his gallerist Barbara Gladstone. While earlier works have been exhibited in many different contexts, Drawing Restraint 9 (2005) was shown in arthouse cinemas, usually in parallel with a museum or gallery exhibition. Linda Yablonsky notes that the film ran ‘three months beyond its initial two-week booking at IFC’s New York theatre’ and she describes this is ‘a rather astonishing achievement for an esoteric film with almost no dialogue’.75 Barney’s ‘star’ status is well-established; his work regularly draws large crowds to his exhibitions at museums and commercial galleries and his forays into theatrical film exhibition are carefully managed to ensure maximum publicity. An artist-approved feature-length documentary about his practice (entitled No Restraint) is available on DVD and was promoted in cinemas and gallery bookshops alongside screenings of Drawing Restraint 9. Although his films and installations are financed and sold as art objects, there are many parallels between the ‘fan culture’ that surrounds Barney and the modes of consumption that are associated with popular film and animation. Indeed, the fantastical creatures that populate the Cremaster films are vaguely reminiscent of the stop-motion figures created by visual effects ‘auteurs’ such as Ray Harryhausen and the more recent examples of creature design found in commercial attractions such as the Lord of the Rings exhibition.76 The physical models and miniature sets presented in this touring exhibition seem to carry a particularly strong indexical charge because they suggest an unbroken link between the hand of the animator or modelmaker and the cinematic image. Similarly, the objects that are displayed in Barney’s exhibitions are invested with auratic significance through their material connection to the scene of the film as well as their association with the artist’s body. In fact, this aspect of Barney’s work and persona is satirized by Martín Sastre in a series of works that combine animation and live action, including Bolivia 3: Confederation Next (2004), which features a comic standoff between Sastre, a well-known purple dinosaur, and animated versions of several characters that would not be out of place in Cremaster 3.77 Much of Drawing Restraint 9 is concerned with the creation and subsequent disruption of a series of oppositions, (male and female; human and animal; animate and inanimate; liquid and solid), through processes of transformation. Barney and his co-star Björk play two ‘occidental 54

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:41 Page 55

The Place of the Market guests’, embarking on separate journeys that lead them to a Japanese whaling ship, the Nisshin Maru, where they participate in a series of rituals, culminating in their physical transformation. The film also offers a pseudo-anthropological commentary on the power relations associated with the economy of the ‘gift’, and the opening sequence depicts a process of selecting, dividing and then carefully wrapping two parts of a fossil in accordance with an opaque, yet implicitly gendered, code. The wrappings and the ornamentation used to decorate the gifts are composed of various natural and manmade materials, and the process is filmed in close-up as though to emphasize the textural qualities of these objects, which seem fated to reappear in some public or private art collection. The words of the song that accompanies this sequence, entitled ‘Gratitude’, are apparently derived from the letters of thanks that were sent to General McArthur when he reversed the ban against whaling in Japan. Its inclusion emphasizes the power dynamics that are embedded in the bestowing of a gift and the burden that this places upon the recipient. The gift-wrapping ritual is then echoed in the subsequent ceremonial bathing and costuming of the central characters, the ‘Occidental Guests’. The appropriation of a whaling ship as the set for an artists’ film seems to be in keeping with other transformations associated with the shift from industrial to post-industrial production. These transformations might include the repurposing of power stations or flour mills as museums (a phenomenon discussed in Chapter 3) or the reinvention of even older ‘ruins’ as tourist attractions, as in the case of the Swedish battleship (the ‘Vasa’) that unexpectedly sank in 1628, to be salvaged and turned into a museum on Djurgården in Stockholm 333 years later.78 But the Nisshin Maru is not actually a post-industrial relic in the usual sense. Rather it is a working ‘factory-ship’ that occupies a central place within the Japanese whaling fleet, much of which is now ostensibly engaged in research.79 So the Nisshin Maru has not made the transition from working industrial vessel to ruin, but is instead marked by controversy and a highly ambiguous relationship to scientific research. Through the use of this charged location, and a direct focus on various forms of material and immaterial labour, Drawing Restraint 9 seems to at least reflect (if not actually interrogate) the ambiguous relationship between artistic practice and other forms of labour and production.80 Repetition, Continuity and the Biennial Circuit Just as the marketplace for art seems to depend on certain assertions of publicness, biennial exhibitions are characterized by a blurring of boundaries between public and private economies. The proliferation of the biennial exhibition, often characterized by the prevalence of projected and moving image work, seems to provide incontrovertible evidence of the globalization of the art world. In fact the biennial now rivals the international museum or the ubiquitous Libeskinddesigned landmark as a component in urban regeneration and ‘place-making’ processes, even when it seems to encompass a critique of these processes (as in the case of Manifesta 5).81 These events can also serve as important sources of production funding for artists, as curators often commission or part-fund film and video works, particularly if they display some kind of relationship or response to the exhibition site or context. Francesco Bonami has also suggested 55

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:41 Page 56

The Place of Artists’ Cinema that biennials play an increasingly important role in establishing artists within the marketplace. He notes that while in the past, ‘most of the artists made it to Venice or Documenta after a solid gallery career. Today many artists land in good galleries only after a solid career in the biennial system’.82 Interestingly, the artists that he cites as examples (Shirin Neshat, William Kentridge, and Anri Sala) all work primarily with the moving image. While Bonami’s comments promote the myth of the curatorial ‘discovery’, the unmediated encounter between curator and artist is relatively rare. As Martha Rosler points out, artists ‘without a sales (and therefore publicity) base in the developed world’83 are often excluded from these events. There are signs that biennials are beginning to acknowledge their relationship to the marketplace and the organizers of the Venice Biennale have recently considered allowing sales.84 The Venice Biennale did permit sales in its early years and during the period from 1942 to 1968 and the fact that this practice ceased shortly after the establishment of fairs such as KUNSTMARKT supports the case for their conscious attempt at differentiation. It could be argued that the existing model of the biennial exhibition fulfils the same function within the art market as the commissioning project in the art fair, creating a ‘breathing space’ for reflection, which is already integral (rather than oppositional) to the operations of the marketplace. Some commentators have suggested that the biennial exhibition is characterized by a potentially critical engagement with a doubled form of publicness, as a consequence of its mode of production. Simon Sheikh emphasizes that in the biennial the ‘local, physically present’ audience potentially co-exists with the ‘art world public’: It would not be difficult to be critical, even dismissive, of the biennial circuit and its relationship to market and capital … but this would be overlooking the potential these biennials actually offer for a reflection of this double notion of publicness, for creating new public formations that are not bound to the nation-state or the art world. By being perennial events, both locally placed and part of a circuit, they have the potential for creating a more transnational public sphere, with both difference and repetition in the applied mode of address and implied notion of spectatorship and public participation.85 In Sheikh’s analysis, repetition is ‘transformed into continuity’, by resisting ‘demands for newness, for constantly new (re)territorializations’.86 This call for continuity seems to be an attempt to contest the dominance of the ‘project’ as the organizing model for cultural policy and production. Boltanski and Chiapello adopt a somewhat similar position, noting that it is important to challenge mobility as ‘prerequisite and incontestable value’. Instead of ceaseless mobility, associated with the development of new projects and the constant expansion of the network, they note that critical potential (and even some form of ‘liberation’) may be found in ‘slowing down the pace of connections’. In particular, they emphasize the importance of ‘lingering over an ongoing project, whose full potential one had not realized at the outset’.87 Given the history of the ‘artistic critique’ proposed by Boltanski and Chiapello, it is difficult to embrace any strategy of liberation without some degree of scepticism. Nonetheless, it is possible to discern a renewed interest in the economics of contemporary art practice within critical and curatorial discourse. At a conference on ‘Art in the Lifeworld’ in Dublin (2008), 56

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:41 Page 57

The Place of the Market Maria Lind proposed a self-consciously separatist approach that seeks to counter the instrumentalization of the public sector by implementing self-organized, self-sustaining strategies, in which ‘opacity’ is favoured over the forms of mediation that are sometimes favoured in the public sector.88 When pressed to offer specific examples, Lind cited several projects, the most contentious of which is probably e-flux, the New York-based web and email communications network established by Anton Vidokle and Julieta Aranda in 1999.89 Although it undoubtedly provides a useful service to its clients and subscribers, e-flux depends upon the economy of the project, deriving its core revenue from its ‘announcements’ of exhibitions, publications, conferences etc. By describing its ‘art-agenda’ and ‘art & education’ subscription mailing lists as ‘newsletters’, e-flux alludes to a history of community-based publishing. But unlike lists that can be used by all members to share information, communications within the e-flux network are generally limited to paying clients. Although the existence of e-flux is both a symptom and sign of the globalization of the art world, its announcements sometimes constitute a form of miscommunication, hinting at the existence of multiple art worlds. In an essay published on the e-flux website, Daniel Birnbaum describes his experience of encountering e-flux communications that he cannot understand; ‘events that do not fit into the world of art commerce and exhibition making as we know them’.90 He suggests that these encounters should be read as temporal spasms, which are ‘precious’ because they are likely to be increasingly rare. In recent years, Aranda and Vidokle have expanded their activities to include e-flux Video Rental, amongst various other initiatives. This travelling project, which encompasses a public screening room and a growing collection of film and video works, seems to evoke aspects of the co-operative model in experimental film culture. But although the project supplies moving image works to a range of users, these exchanges tend to be mediated by the involvement of a third party, typically a publicly-funded museum or artist-run space that houses the video collection for a specific period of time. This means that it is only possible to access the videos from the physical site where the project takes place and the movement of the collection from one physical site to another generates a new ‘announcement’ each time, tending to foreground novelty rather than continuity.91 The project is also marked by a reassertion of materiality, and Aranda has emphasized that it was specifically devised as a means of introducing ‘a level of physicality’ and ‘a more tangible dimension’ to her collaboration with Vidokle.92 So even though the e-flux ‘brand’ is directly associated with (and derives income from) online communications networks, the Video Rental project reasserts a far more traditional model of physical distribution and exhibition. Conclusion: The Economic Turn An alternative economic model, which contributes indirectly to the public circulation of artworks, can be found in V22, an ‘artist-driven’ venture that takes the form of a contemporary art collection owned by artists and ‘patron-investors’. V22 is a publicly limited company, launched on the PLUS (Ofex+) stock market in London in August 2006, that aims to compete with other fine art funds by developing and maintaining strong professional networks within 57

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:41 Page 58

The Place of Artists’ Cinema the sector, which will yield acquisition opportunities. Works in the V22 collection are bought directly from artists or their representatives (rather than acquired in the secondary market) and payment to artists consists of 50 per cent cash and 50 per cent share options. This means that the artists whose works form part of the collection are also shareholders, with the potential to earn dividends if the collection increases in value. V22 has no particular engagement with artists’ cinema but the collection is intended to encompass all forms of contemporary art. Art works are selected by advisory panels convened at various intervals and composed of collectors, critics, artists, dealers, curators, and regional agents and, to be considered for the collection, artists must demonstrate a five-year ‘proven track record’ (of sales, presumably), be represented by a ‘contemporary dealer’ or have already sold work to a ‘major collection’. Although the authors of the V22 share offer do not specify their sources in great detail, they make frequent oblique references to an Arts Council report on the contemporary art market from 2004, emphasizing that the growth of the contemporary art market has been partly driven by ‘big gallery exhibitions open to the wider public – Tate Modern, Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), Saatchi Gallery’.93 Noting that the museum is the ‘final destination’ for art works, the directors of V22 also emphasize the importance of acquiring at least some ‘museum quality’ works and the need to publicly exhibit the collection in order to maintain its profile and value. It is apparent that the ‘publicness’ of art has created the potential for profit, and must be maintained to ensure the value of the shares. Perhaps more importantly, the V22 business model is strongly focused on the ‘network’, in keeping with the analysis offered by Boltanski and Chiapello. The directors demonstrate a clear awareness of what Isabelle Graw terms the ‘Doppelcharakter’ of the artwork: the fact that ‘it can have a price only because it is assumed to be priceless’.94 This means that both buyer and seller must share a common interest in the perceived incomparability of the artwork, or the market product will become interchangeable or commoditized. The directors of V22 also specifically claim insider knowledge of the market, noting that other fine art funds have experienced ‘acquisition difficulties … due to concerns [amongst artists and gallerists] that they will offload works onto the secondary market without regard to how this will affect artists’ careers’.95 Evidently, there are radical differences between V22 (for all its claims to be ‘artist-driven’) and the co-operative models of film production and distribution that emerged in the 1960s. In the co-operative model, the filmmaker or artist retains ownership of the work, while in the publicly limited company the collection is owned by the shareholders, who include the artists. The latter model might be read as a response by artists to the precarious status of their employment; certainly by casting the artist as shareholder, V22 suggests a shift away from the figure of the artist as exemplar of freedom. Thomas Crow notes that an alignment between art practice and individual freedom first began to emerge following the medieval period, as artists gradually ‘fought their way free from guild restrictions in order to market that very freedom as a quality exceeding even the most precious materials’.96 He emphasizes that, in the twentiethcentury, conceptualism effected the further displacement of the unique object into ‘discursive substitutes’ that reinforced a principle of equivalence, shifting ‘artistic practice closer to the fluid exchangeability that characterizes the true commodity’.97 A somewhat similar analysis is offered in Hal Foster’s ‘The Crux of Minimalism’. Informed by Baudrillard and marked by an emphasis 58

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:41 Page 59

The Place of the Market on relationality, Foster notes that seriality initially emerges in art practice alongside industrial production, replacing an older order of meaning associated with transcendence (‘God, pristine nature, Platonic forms, artistic genius’).98 Once this order of meaning was lost, the artist was configured as the centre of meaning so that each painting became ‘legible first not in its relation to the world but in its relation to other paintings by the same artist’.99 While this dynamic is present from Monet to Pollock, Foster emphasizes that it does not become integral to the technical production of art until minimalism and pop in the 1960s. There are some parallels between Foster’s account and Miwon Kwon’s analysis of site-specific art and locational identity in that Kwon highlights the ‘undifferentiated serialization’ of sites that are legible only through reference to the trajectory of the artist.100 Yet she does not fully address the ways in which this dynamic becomes integrated into the ‘technical production’ of locational art. It might be possible to read initiatives such as e-flux Video Rental or V22 or as a further extension of the drive towards ‘fluid exchangeability’ theorized by Crow. Yet, equally it could be argued that these disparate ventures constitute attempts to integrate this exchangeability into the practice and the production of art in ways that are legible not only within art practice but also within the marketplace. In the remaining chapters of this book, I highlight various critical approaches to the context of post-industrial production, identifying a number of works that contest uncritical notions of place as a fixed source of meaning. I am also particularly interested in those practices that engage with possibilities for reconfiguration and recombination that are particular to specific exhibition contexts, whether these are public museums and galleries, ‘off-site’ projects or national pavilions at the Venice Biennale. These strategies might include the development of a loosely modular approach to multi-screen video installation, as in the case of Anne Tallentire’s video ‘diagrams’, assembled from an array of possible components for each exhibition context. Other strategies might involve the remodelling of modes of collaboration associated with classical animation production. Here I am referring to Broken Animals, the studio established by artist Carlos Amorales, which operates as a source archive to be used by many artists and also generates collectively-authored works. The proliferation of these strategies would seem to confirm the flexible quality that aligns contemporary art with the forces of globalized capitalism. But, as my discussion of the marketplace aims to demonstrate, this flexibility does not operate entirely in isolation from the economic and cultural policies of cities, nations or other territorial entities.

59

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:41 Page 60

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:41 Page 61

Chapter 3 Multi-screen Projections and Museum Spaces

Next page: Shirin Neshat Video Still Turbulent, 1998 Video/sound installation: black and white, 16 mm film transferred to laserdisk, Duration: 10 minutes Projected image: 9 x 12 feet minimum each image Copyright Shirin Neshat Courtesy Gladstone Gallery

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:41 Page 62

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:41 Page 63

Multi-screen Projections and Museum Spaces What does it mean for space to be ‘public’ – the space of a city, building, exhibition, institution, or work of art? … How we define public space is intimately connected with ideas about what it means to be human, the nature of society, and the kind of political community we want. While there are sharp divisions over these ideas, on one point nearly everyone agrees: supporting things that are public promotes the survival and extension of democratic culture. Rosalyn Deutsche, ‘Agoraphobia’.1 Introduction The multi-screen video projection has attracted considerable critical attention from film and media scholars as well as art historians.2 In fact this mode of presentation has become so conventional that curators such as Chrissie Iles have actually begun to bemoan the decline of the single screen video work.3 To date, however, relatively little critical attention has been paid to the significance of the publicly-funded museum or gallery as the privileged place (as well as space) of exhibition for this type of practice. This chapter aims to explore some of the factors that may have shaped the pervasiveness of this form of artists’ cinema within the public museum or gallery, with a particular emphasis on place. There is little doubt that the increased accessibility of tools for video production and post-production and widespread availability of relatively cheap, lightweight, projection equipment has contributed to the prevalence of this art form over the past decade. But the main argument I advance here is that the multi-screen video projection is implicated within broader institutional and political imperatives involving the staging of ‘publicness’ in contemporary art museums. My discussion therefore focuses on a range of otherwise disparate works that share a concern with public memory, the formation of public space and the social body. It is not unusual for multi-screen video installations to refer directly to a specific place that exists, or once existed, elsewhere. The place in question could be a city, a geographical feature, a landmark within a landscape, or perhaps a building. These specific places serve both as the location for the production of the resulting work as well as a recognized setting, the identity of which is often signalled through titles, press releases or other forms of text. Of the eight works discussed in this chapter, all are multi-screen video projections, and four engage with specific places. Stasi City (1997) by Jane and Louise Wilson explores the ‘meaning-drenched architectural environments’4 of the former Stasi Headquarters and Hohenschönhausen Prison in Berlin, while eraser (1998) by Doug Aitken, charts a journey across the island of Montserrat in the aftermath of powerful volcanic eruption. Re-Run (2002) by Willie Doherty focuses on a young man who is caught in an endless race across the Craigavon Bridge in Derry, a location that features in many of the artists’ earlier videos and photographs. Meanwhile, Baltimore (2003) by Isaac Julien is concerned with the architecture and culture of the city, explored through the interiors of three specific buildings. Significantly, these places can all be described as ‘public’ in the sense that they are either recognized and maintained as civic institutions or amenities (memorials, museums, libraries) or form part of the publicly-accessible landscape or infrastructure (beaches, streets, bridges). 63

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:41 Page 64

The Place of Artists’ Cinema The multi-screen works explored in the second part of this chapter are marked by more diverse approaches to place, setting and location. The Silver Bridge (2002) by Jaki Irvine was filmed in the Phoenix Park and the Natural History Museum, two locations that would certainly be recognizable to a Dublin audience. But although the work might be read partly as the artist’s response to these places, they also function as the settings for a nineteenth-century narrative and so oscillate somewhere between the specific and the generic. Consolation Service (1999) by Eija-Liisa Ahtila involves a more conventional use of multiple production locations where the action moves from a therapist’s office to a frozen lake and various apartment interiors. Turbulent (1998) by Shirin Neshat is perhaps the most straightforward of the works discussed in terms of location as it was filmed entirely in a large, anonymous auditorium. Finally, Drift: diagram vii (2005) by Anne Tallentire documents the labour of workers who are visible on (or from) the streets of London. This chapter is not primarily concerned with places of production, however, but rather aims to explore the relationship between the ‘publicness’ signified by the setting and location of a work and the public characteristics of the exhibition context. All of the works discussed here have been exhibited, in some cases extensively, within publicly-funded museums or galleries and all are multi-screen video installations that involve the use of projections rather than traditional or flat screen monitors. In addition, I am specifically interested in works that require a discrete installation space, whether purpose-built with temporary walls or screens, or a pre-existing room(s) dedicated exclusively to the display of a single work. Multi-screen projections are sometimes thought to offer the museum or gallery visitor an overtly immersive experience but the works discussed here cannot necessarily be described in this way, not least because they employ very different strategies with respect to installation design. While many adopt the frontal mode of presentation associated with cinema auditoria, others make use of opposing screens, or employ a more architectonic approach by staging the work across a succession of interconnected spaces. The treatment of light and sound also varies considerably – from dimmed lighting to total darkness, and from simple stereo amplification to far more complex audio installations. The ‘Publicness’ of the Museum and the Multi-screen Projection Before moving on to the discussion of individual works it is useful to briefly consider the historical relationship between cinema and the formation of the art museum as ‘public’ space. Haidee Wasson’s research on the history of the moving image at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, provides an insight into the notions of ‘publicness’ that defined both the museum and the cinema in the 1930s and 1940s. Wasson demonstrates that the activities of the MoMA Film Library contributed to the creation of ‘common sense about cinema’ during this period, involving an understanding of film as ‘an art with a history that matters to a public aware of its place in a differentiated field of cultural practice’.5 The staff of the Film Library modelled a specific mode of reception that differentiated the museum from other spaces for the consumption of the moving image, carefully monitoring the behaviour of audiences at 64

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:41 Page 65

Multi-screen Projections and Museum Spaces screenings. As such, they both appropriated and revised the established ‘common sense about cinema’, by asserting a form of collectivity in which detachment and even disinterestedness on the part of the audience was favoured over more embodied responses. These strategies were preempted and paralleled by a range of film education initiatives developed by a range of social groups and institutions6 during the 1920s and 1930s. These activities, which included the production of recommended viewing lists, rating systems, discussion programmes and reviews, were often animated by an impulse to transform film culture and reform the industry. Wasson notes that the industry was generally ‘friendly’ to these projects, often facilitating screenings for groups such as the National Council of Women, the American Civic Association and the Boy Scouts of America, which enabled them to produce their reviews. The objectives of the MoMA Film Library were somewhat different, however, in that the museum asserted support for a range of film forms, extending from experimental and highly political work from the Soviet Union and Germany, to Hollywood gangster films, at a time when ‘regulatory fury’ was at its peak.7 In the process, the museum asserted its own publicness while also circumscribing the place of film within the cultural canon. A different perspective on the publicness of the moving image within the museum is offered by Giuliana Bruno in an exploration of architecture and the visual arts that highlights the link between collecting and recollecting. Bruno identifies a number of filmmakers who have explored the relationship between the architecture of the moving image and the architecture the museum or gallery in recent years, including Chantal Akerman, Atom Egoyan, Peter Greenaway, Hal Hartley, Isaac Julien, Abbas Kiarostami, Chris Marker, Yvonne Rainer, Raul Ruiz, Trinh T. Minh-ha, and Agnès Varda.8 For these filmmakers the museum sometimes functions as a space of ‘decomposition’ in which the single screen gives way to the multiple projection or monitor display. Chantal Akerman’s D’est (From the East) (1993), is ‘literally dislocated’, for example, and presented in the form of eight triptychs of video monitors spread across the gallery space. While other historians and theorists bemoan this drift towards the gallery, Bruno welcomes the fact that the ‘genealogical life of film is being extended – perhaps even distended – in the space of the contemporary gallery’.9 She also identifies a possible connection between the ‘loops’ used in contemporary video projection and ‘the “wheeling” motion that is the material base of filmic motion and the motion-force of its emotion’.10 Here, she is referring not only to the mechanics of the film camera and projector but also to the evolution of the museum as cultural form. According to Bruno, the contemporary multi-screen projection can be situated in relation to a tradition of embodied, ambulatory recollection. This tradition extends from the ‘memory theatre’11 of the Renaissance era to the picturesque landscape, museum and the movie theatre, via more intimate sites of public viewing that include wax museums, panoramic and dioramic stages, window displays and painting. She suggests that ‘cinema exists for today’s artists outside of cinema as a historic space – that is, as a mnemonic history fundamentally linked to a technology. Walking in the gallery and the museum we encounter fragments of this history.’12 As a consequence, film and video installation can provide an insight into the evolution of film spectatorship as a form of ‘public intimacy’. The key point in Bruno’s account is that the birth of the modern public space within the realm of art (initially in the form of the salon) coincided 65

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:41 Page 66

The Place of Artists’ Cinema with and shaped the emergence of cinema as an ‘intimate geography’ that remains ‘architecturally attached’ to the museum. Here, ‘architecture’ refers not only to the physical spaces of the cinema and the museum but also to the institutional activities of archiving, collection and display. Bruno further emphasizes that because cinema evolves partly from the culture of travel and the desire to assemble and share a collection of (photographic) ‘views’, it can be conceived as a ‘place for the love of place’ and a ‘museum of emotion pictures’.13 Arguing that the rotation of the film reel serves as a reminder, or even a ‘remaking’, of the imaginary rotating wheels that formed part of thirteenth-century mnemonic techniques or ars memoriae,14 Bruno suggests that the contemporary film or video loop within the museum may fulfil a genealogical or mnemonic function, through which cinema can be both ‘recollected’ and investigated as a cultural form. Her analysis is developed through reference to Shirin Neshat’s trilogy Turbulent, Rapture and Fervor (1998–2000), the first component of which is discussed in detail later in this chapter. These works are certainly marked by various forms of ‘wheeling’, encoded in the panning of the camera (particular in Turbulent) and echoed in the rotating movement of the eye (and the body) between the two screens and the gendered social spaces depicted within them. But Neshat’s double-screen video projections are not actually ‘loops’ in the conventional sense: there is no ambiguity about the start and finish of each work, title credits are provided and the screens fade to black at the close. So Bruno seems to conflate the convention of the continuous screening (in which the work is repeated but with an obvious beginning and end point), commonly employed in museum and gallery installations, with the endless duration of the looped film or video sequence (in which it is difficult to determine the start or finish). Nonetheless, her analysis remains valuable for its attention to the cultural and historical evolution of mobile spectatorship in the museum. Museums and Mnemonic Culture: The Imagined Past, Present and Future At this point, it seems important to acknowledge that technologies of video projection are no longer solely associated with institutional or commercial contexts, not least because they are now widely available for domestic use. According to Sean Cubitt, developments in broadcast and video technology, particularly the use of satellite transmission, also ensure that the ‘unique locus of projection is no longer the cinema, a special, quasi-social space, governed by ritual, where the crowd is addressed as individual’.15 He is profoundly dismissive of the claims made by many artists and curators for projected moving image works in biennials and galleries, perceiving their proposal for a relationship with cinema as demonstrating a limited awareness of the history of video art and expanded cinema. Cubitt also emphasizes that video projection in these contexts is frequently dominated by the ‘banal repetition of the foursquare screen’, which he argues is ‘wide open to a largely forgotten or discredited apparatus theoretical analysis’.16 However, this analysis seems to overlook the fact that it is precisely the ‘special, quasisocial space’ of the cinema that certain uses of projection within the museum, gallery or biennial exhibition may seek to evoke. In Chapter 5 I explore some of the ways in which collectivity has been staged, and explored, through the self-conscious appropriation of rituals associated with 66

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:41 Page 67

Multi-screen Projections and Museum Spaces the cinema. Before that, I want to focus on a number of factors that might have shaped the formation of the museum as a specific context for multi-screen projection. First, it is necessary to focus on a slightly earlier moment, theorized by Andreas Huyssen. Writing in the early 1990s, in the wake of debates around postmodernism, Huyssen emphasizes the ‘resurgence of the monument and the memorial as major modes of aesthetic, historical, and spatial expression’.17 He suggests that this ‘memory boom’ is articulated by a shift away from national identity and towards the exploration of cultural or collective memory within academic and political discourse, and in struggles for minority rights. The emergence of this ‘mnemonic culture’ is partly linked to a crisis in the political ideology of progress and modernization, but can also be read as a reaction against the dissolution of familiar spatial and temporal coordinates and the acceleration of technical processes, transforming the lifeworld associated with globalization. The ‘mnemonic culture’ identified by Huyssen is also profoundly marked by contradiction because it involves a rejection of the historical archive, while at the same time relying upon the contents of the archive for ‘sustenance’.18 Many of these tensions are played out within the domain of the museum, which no longer serves as a ‘bastion of tradition’ but has instead been transformed into ‘a site of spectacular miseen-scène and operatic exuberance’.19 Huyssen identifies a number of changes within institutional practice, which have contributed to this transformation. These include a blurring of boundaries between permanent and temporary exhibitions, because the former is increasingly subject to rearrangement, while the ephemeral events of the latter have acquired greater permanence as a result of more thorough documentation on the part of the museum. Further signs of this institutional transformation can be found in the rise of ‘auteurist’ exhibitions, which inaugurate a new emphasis on the verb ‘to curate’ and involve the ‘mobilisation’ of collections for circulation both within and beyond the museum. Although Huyssen’s analysis is not specifically concerned with artists’ cinema, he emphatically situates the contemporary art museum within a cultural context that is shaped by the mass media, particularly television. In fact, he argues that the museum fulfils a ‘scopic desire for the screen’ that has mutated into the desire for something else: an alternative experience that is ‘grounded in the materiality of the exhibited objects and in their temporal aura’.20 This temporal aura does not imply an exclusive emphasis on the representation of the past; instead Huyssen seems to suggest that the ‘museal gaze’ contributes to the creation or expansion of spaces for the contemplation of the present. It is important to note that Huyssen is concerned not with the modern or contemporary art museum but with a much broader range of (postmodern) museological practices. He envisages the postmodern museum as a site in which hidden or repressed pasts may be reclaimed for the purposes of ‘current political struggles, which are always also struggles for multilayered cultural identity and self-understanding.’21 Material objects play a role in this exploration of the self, and Huyssen suggests that the ‘gaze at the museal object’ may provide a space in which ‘the transitoriness and differentiality of human cultures can be grasped’, expanding the ‘ever shrinking space of the (real) present’ in a culture of amnesia, ‘planned obsolescence’ and simulation.22 Extending this emphasis on transitoriness further, it is possible to argue that the multi-screen video projection is also strongly aligned with the imaging of the future. Huyssen alludes to an 67

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:41 Page 68

The Place of Artists’ Cinema increased permeability between the boundaries of the museum and urban context in which it is situated, noting the ‘historicizing restoration of old urban centers, whole museum villages and landscapes’.23 Yet he does not directly address the relationship between art museum and urban regeneration. This is perhaps because his analysis predates the establishment of several prominent contemporary art museums in formerly industrial areas or structures, including Tate Modern, Baltic and Guggenheim Bilbao. Writing in 2002, Hal Foster theorizes these developments through reference to a succession of shifting archival relations, culminating in the moment of ‘electronic information’. He argues that ‘today what the museum exhibits above all is its own spectacle value’ in the form of both ‘attraction’ and (auratic) ‘object of reverence’.24 The mnemonic function is, he argues, given over to the electronic archive while the visual function is subsumed by the ‘exhibition-form of art’ and the museum building itself, as an image to be circulated ‘in the service of brand equity and cultural capital’. While the link is not made explicit, this comment might be read as a reference to the Guggenheim Bilbao, which Foster has described elsewhere as a privileging of ‘shape and skin, the overall exterior configuration, above all else’, exemplifying a form of architecture that is defined by highly recognizable and commodifiable ‘signature gestures’.25 Although few contemporary art museums could claim the architectural celebrity status of Gehry’s Guggenheim, many seek to assert their position as urban landmarks, sometimes through the transformation of a prominent industrial structure. Typically funded though a mix of public and private sources, and often relying upon income generated through temporary exhibitions, as well as concessions selling food, books or branded souvenirs, these institutions seek to attract repeat visitors as well as tourists. Within this context, moving-image installations are perhaps uniquely well equipped to deliver upon the promise of ‘transformation’ offered by the architecture of regeneration; staging, if not actually modelling, the re-imagining of public space. This is because a multi-screen projection actually invites an altered perception of a familiar space, through the construction of temporary walls, passages and doorways as well as the adjustment of ambient light and sound levels. Viewed from this perspective, the movement of the visitor through the installation acquires a new meaning, paralleling the mobility (of bodies and capital) promised by the rhetoric of regeneration. Specific Places, Fragmented Histories: Stasi City (Jane and Louise Wilson, 1997) Jane and Louise Wilson have worked extensively with multi-screen projection, often focusing their attention on the investigation of industrial, institutional or public spaces, such as Victor Pasmore’s modernist Apollo Pavilion, a ‘utopian bastion of urban renewal and regeneration’26, which was conceived for unspecified public use and built near Newcastle in 1958. Their exploration of this structure is informed by local knowledge of the area and the work was first exhibited at the BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art in Newcastle-Gateshead, a publiclyfunded art space. The Wilsons have often employed a vaguely museological approach to exhibition, sometimes providing supplementary materials that both contextualize and complicate their multi-screen projections. Writing in 1999, Lisa Corrin states: 68

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:41 Page 69

Jane & Louise Wilson Stasi City, 1997 2 Laserdiscs Installation dimensions variable Courtesy of the artist and Lisson Gallery

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:41 Page 70

The Place of Artists’ Cinema Typically each body of … work has three separate components displayed in contiguous spaces: a projected multi-screen video installation, a series of related stills shot at the site, which may or may not be images that appear in the film, and, sometimes, sculptural works, object that are usually recreations of something seen in the film. The sculptures, which look like props from a stage set, purposefully confuse our perception that what we see in the film or the photographs is ‘real’.27 Stasi City, one of the Wilsons’ best known works, is a four channel video projection with screens positioned in pairs and at right angles to each other on opposing sides of a darkened space. The scale and positioning of these projections, combined with the rhythmic movements of the camera, initially creates a sense of profound disorientation. At certain points, mirror images of the same shot are presented beside each other so that as the camera pans the on-screen space seems to disappear into itself. The action, unfolding across four screens, describes a journey through the interiors of the former Stasi headquarters and Hohenschönhausen Prison, progressing along various anonymous corridors, past a series of small rooms that might be offices. Some of these rooms are windowless and equipped with headphones, tape machines or other reminders of their prior function, while others are more ambiguous, suggesting reception or staff recreation areas. At certain points, the camera remains static while the building itself seems to move. In some sequences, the corridors appear to rise and fall in space, because they are viewed from lifts or from ‘dumb waiters’ used to transport files. Elsewhere, the camera lingers on the empty drawers of a filing cabinet, which rotate upwards to meet its wide angle gaze, the same motion unfolding on two screens for added emphasis. While many of the rooms are clean and ordered, some are strewn with debris, suggesting a hasty exit. It is almost possible to read this debris as the careful dressing of a stage set or museum display, not least because of the fact that the history of the Stasi tends to complicate the status of any photographic or video image as reliable ‘evidence’. Stasi City is directly concerned with the problem of how to memorialize this particular past without recourse to the kind of strategies typically found in documentary and this dilemma is partly resolved through the figuration of ghostly presences. Some of the ‘ghosts’ that wander through Stasi City are no more than fleeting shadows, like the woman in black who stands motionless in the lift while travelling slowly between floors, but others are more vivid. The most prominent is an androgynous woman who floats inside a room where the rules of gravity seems to be suspended. She is barefoot and her clothing, a yellow and brown tracksuit, seems to match the décor of the room she occupies. Her presence within this space, together with the smooth and relentless motion of the camera itself, inevitably recalls The Shining, an iconic cinematic representation of ‘haunting’ to which I will return at a later stage. The Wilsons have consistently explored the staging of the self through their sustained focus on institutional architectures, asserting the multi-screen projection as the privileged setting for embodied reflection upon this theme. Noting that it is impossible to watch all four screens at once, Claire Bishop observes that Stasi City and similar installations ‘ground the viewer’s experience in a complex social situation: as you move around to “capture” all four projections, you obstruct the sightlines of other viewers, who in turn obstruct your own view. Each viewer 70

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:41 Page 71

Multi-screen Projections and Museum Spaces becomes implicated in the work, as – by extension – we are in society and culture at large’.28 Stasi City is certainly a key work within the Wilsons’ ongoing exploration of institutional and social space but in some respects it disavows certain aspects of the situation that it purports to investigate, specifically the fact that the former Stasi Headquarters and Hohenschönhausen Prison now function as public museums and memorials.29 Some commentators have read Stasi City as a representation of a single building, although it actually features images of a complex of structures. In his analysis of the work, Uriel Orlow focuses on the archival activities of the Stasi and notes that ‘the building’s function was to collect and keep records of any anti-state activity’. He concludes that ‘the building no longer houses anything and the keepers of law and order, as well as the documents of their oppression, are gone’.30 Yet this ‘house’ is not really empty because the buildings have acquired a new function, as memorials. Speaking about Stasi City within the context of a conference on art and documentary, Jane Wilson has emphasized the need for a ‘respectful distance’ in relation to the representation of a place that is ‘still a memorial site’31 but her comments also suggest that the site was entirely unmediated: [We] did not want to manipulate the physical objects that were left there. The Stasi had smashed everything and left quickly. Also we were opening doors that they were finding keys for that had not been opened for ten years. Going into this space and pointing a camera was really about capturing that moment of the object.32 This statement seems to emphasize the activity of discovery, despite the fact that access to these previously unopened doors would most likely have required considerable research, preparation and negotiation. It is interesting to compare Stasi City with Beryl Korot’s Dachau 1974 (1974), a much earlier multi-screen exploration of a place this is similarly loaded with historical significance. Chrissie Iles provides a detailed description of the latter work, which was included in the 2001 exhibition ‘Into the Light: The Projected Image in American Art 1964–1977’ at the Whitney Museum. Dachau 1974 consists of a series of four video monitors set into a white wall to create a ‘horizontal strip of moving images that, at first glance, suggests the serial photographic sequences of [Edweard] Muybridge’.33 Iles notes, however, that the images are not read as a linear series but rather as two sets of interwoven patterns charting movement through the former concentration camp and she points out that this structure is partly informed by Korot’s exploration of women’s craft practices. The ‘intense emotional significance’ of the journey through Dachau is, she argues, ‘contained’ by the conceptual approach and by the structure of the sequence, ‘which guides us forward in pairs of symmetrical shots’. There are clear parallels here with the work of the Wilsons but a key difference between Korot’s work and Stasi City is the presence of tourists walking through Dachau, who become ‘topographical markers of time and place’. In an analysis of avant-garde film that focuses on critical approaches to the representation of history and the past, Jeffrey Skoller notes that multi-screen installations such as Stasi City have the potential to critically engage aspects of political history through the ‘evocation of place’. He 71

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:41 Page 72

The Place of Artists’ Cinema concludes, however, that the Wilsons fail to fully address ‘crucial questions about how images of spaces that were historically used for such tyrannical purposes have been transformed into highly aestheticized works, unproblematically situated within the commodifying contexts of high culture’.34 Yet the Wilson’s work has often been framed precisely as a self-conscious exploration of this exhibition context, an issue which Peter Schjeldahl addresses in an essay accompanying the exhibition of Stasi City at the Serpentine Gallery in 1999. Schjeldahl begins by pointing out that Wilsons’ earlier video installation Normapaths (1995) was influenced by television rather than cinema, combining references to contemporary music video with nostalgia for 1960s action series such as The Avengers. Normapaths was shot in an abandoned space (a former brewery), which was treated as a neutral backdrop to the action, rather than a ‘meaningdrenched’ architectural environment.35 In the Wilsons’ later and more ambitious works, Schjeldahl discerns a complex interplay between these production environments and the institutional contexts where video installations are typically exhibited: The largest structural dilemma for the future of V.I. [Video installation] involves venue. The form seems bound by simple economics to remain a sometime feature in the programs of art institutions and of private galleries that do business with art institutions … V.I.’s dependent status belies its capacity, vivified by the Wilsons, to rival free-standing, specialised entertainment categories (so-called independent film, say …). With the bold mordancy of major artists, the Wilsons turn this very problem to stirring effect in their recent work. Their great architectural expeditions – Stasi City, Gamma, and now Parliament – escape institutional containment in effect though not in fact. The fact is altered thereby. The display room becomes a magical vehicle of transport to other spaces, themselves institutional.36 Dwelling upon this notion of the installation as ‘transport vehicle’, Schjeldahl describes the experience of crossing the threshold between the space of the museum and the ‘other’ institutional spaces in terms of a transition from the sublime to the beautiful. He concludes that, in the case of Stasi City, the ‘sleekly lighted and labelled’ artefacts of the ‘gallery, Kunsthalle, or museum’, typically designed to offer material and spiritual stimulation, cannot compete with ‘the Stasi’s trashed, daydreaming terror sites’.37 If, as Schjeldahl suggests, the multi-screen installation can be read as a ‘transport vehicle’, perhaps the contemporary art gallery or museum itself should be understood as a transitional space rather than a destination, a reading that gains a certain force from the fact that contemporary art museums have emerged as a privileged sign of the transition from industrial to post-industrial production. In fact, several contemporary art spaces, such as the Hamburger Bahnhof in Berlin and Tramway in Glasgow, actually originated as train stations, while many more are housed in buildings that are located in close proximity to docks, canals or other transport networks associated with the industrial era. In these contexts, the multi-screen projection seems to have served as a privileged setting, if not conduit, for the experience of transportation to another place and time. 72

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:41 Page 73

Multi-screen Projections and Museum Spaces Movement and Monument: eraser (Doug Aitken, 1998) Made just one year after Stasi City, Doug Aitken’s eraser also employs large-scale projections and an architectonic installation structure to communicate the experience of a place that has been marked by some form of trauma. Aitken’s work was shot on the island of Montserrat, one year after it was devastated by a volcanic eruption. The island initially appears deserted, with little evidence of movement, beyond wind, water and wandering cattle. Rather than creating a sense of stasis, however, Aitken’s project is presented as an event or perhaps even a performative action. Encountered as a series of seven projections, several of which are grouped together, eraser opens with the subtitle; ‘a linear seven mile journey north to south on the island of Montserrat, West Indies’. The linear quality of this journey is inscribed in the editing and in the installation design, which is structured to include a few twists and turns, like a walk through slightly difficult terrain. According to Joachin Jäger, ‘we experience this trip in space: every step through the installation reveals new aspects of the sandy, abandoned island … Our own movements seem to assemble the “film” … Shorelines, beaches, vegetation, ruined houses, boats and machinery lie disconnectedly alongside one another, a montage of the depopulated landscape’.38 Fading up from black, the images presented on the first two screens are highly dramatic and notably subjective. Many of the shots are details of the landscape, such as lush undergrowth or ripples on the surfaces of small streams. The footage (exhibited on video) was shot by Aitken on 16mm film with the assistance of a small production crew. Yet the inclusion of footsteps on the soundtrack, combined with the highly subjective and mobile camera, creates the vague impression that the artist was alone on the island. The cinematography and editing also generate a strong sense of forward motion through time and space, asserting the presence of the artist as a traveller, a recurring theme in Aitken’s work.39 This forward motion is, however, complicated by oblique suggestions of a possible or imagined return to the moment of the eruption itself. The installation includes a sequence that seems intended to evoke or reference the eruption, through flickering lights and sound effects, including a juddering montage that focuses on the clock tower that stands in the empty town centre. Traces of the past become more prevalent as the camera moves through deserted buildings and streets, often lingering on the detritus of communication technologies, from telephone cables to satellite dishes. At another point, there are signs of animation as a bright light in an empty phone box briefly flickers into life and car headlights pass in the distance. The connections here with Stasi City are compelling, but though Aitken dwells upon fragments of the past and even brings inanimate objects temporarily ‘to life’, his portrayal of Montserrat seems to articulate a more complex understanding of place as a relational experience. By framing the work as a ‘seven mile journey’ from North to South, one year after the eruption, eraser hints at the geopolitical as well as geological forces shaping the experience of time and space in Montserrat. This ‘linear seven-mile journey’ is temporal as well as spatial and, by dwelling upon clocks, phone lines, satellite dishes, and even sentimental soundtrack music, Aitken highlights the significance of communications in the experience of place. Aspects of the geopolitical history of Montserrat are suggested by its location in the ‘West Indies’, a relic of the region’s position in relation to the former European colonial centre; and at one point, the name of the island itself also appears on a boat beached on the shore, referencing the maritime history of the island and 73

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:41 Page 74

Doug Aitken eraser, 1998 7 laserdiscs (installation) dimensions variable Images courtesy the Artist / Victoria Miro Gallery, London and 303 Gallery, New York

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:41 Page 75

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:41 Page 76

The Place of Artists’ Cinema region.40 Elsewhere, an abandoned tower (the Montserrat Volcano Observatory) and an array of damaged satellite dishes alludes to more contemporary networks of communication. These images also acquire other, more exotic, associations through the use of sound and music, in particular a fragment of ‘We have all the time in the world’, a song performed by Louis Armstrong on the soundtrack of the 1969 Bond film On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. The song is obviously out of place, its sentimental chords cutting through the atmospheric collage of location recordings assembled by Steve Roden. Yet it serves as a reminder of the processes through which Montserrat might have been imagined through photography, cinema or other forms of representation – alternately brought close and rendered distant through activities of mapping, measurement and even museological reconstruction.41 It is in this context that the recurrent references to communication technologies begin to acquire meaning, alluding to the processes through which representation, whether in the form of a public monument or a multiscreen projection, may erase as well as preserve memory.42 Bridges and Backdrops: Re-Run (Willie Doherty, 2002) In 1611, John Speed published his atlas in four volumes, The Theatre of The Empire of Great Britain, in which he depicted the bridges, palisades, towers, bastions, gates, walls, and outworks of the harbors and ports of England, Ireland, the Mediterranean, West Africa, the West Indies, and North America. … In Ireland, Belfast (1614) was built on reclaimed land, using the giant oaks felled by Carrickfergus hewers; Dublin became a ‘Bristol beyond the seas’ as its workers exported grain and built ships … while Wexford prospered with the fishing trade. Derry, both port and plantation, was rebuilt in the early seventeenthcentury, after British conquest, by the labors of the conquered natives. Peter Linebaugh and Marcus Rediker, The Many-Headed Hydra: The Hidden History of the Revolutionary Atlantic.43 The work of Peter Linebaugh and Marcus Rediker offers a lens through which it is possible to identify the connections between Montserrat and Derry, which might otherwise remain somewhat opaque. Their study of the ‘Revolutionary Atlantic’ provides an insight into the cartographical imagination at work both in the formation of links between distant places and in the physical creation of cities in accordance with pre-existing social and economic models. This cartographical imagination has been interrogated by Willie Doherty through a series of photographic and video works both set and shot in his native city of Derry. Re-Run (2002) is a silent two-channel video featuring two looped thirty-second sequences, offering different perspectives on the same action, projected on opposing screens. A man runs across a bridge at night, apparently terrified; in one sequence, he runs towards the camera, continually looking back over his shoulder. On the opposing screen he is seen from the perspective of a pursuer, following at a distance. Both sequences are densely edited, consisting of multiple low-angle shots, all centred on the running figure, with frequent cutaways to details of his feet and face. The man wears a dark suit and white tie and the whole scene is suffused 76

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:41 Page 77

Multi-screen Projections and Museum Spaces with the rich, ominous red glow of the street lights. The scene is also intensely claustrophobic, both because of the tight framing of the shots and because the bridge itself is covered and this sense of entrapment is intensified by the large scale of the projections facing each other on opposing walls. As the action in both sequences appears simultaneous, it is tempting to try to view both perspectives together, reproducing the conventional structure of a chase sequence, a variant of the classical ‘shot/reverse-shot’ formulation that has been theorized through the psychoanalytic concept of ‘suture’.44 But the position and scale of the projections makes it impossible to view both sequences simultaneously and constant shuttling between screens serves only to prolong the tension, obscuring the seam in the loop and artificially extending the narrative well beyond its actual thirty-second duration. Re-Run was filmed on the Craigavon Bridge over the River Foyle in Derry, which dates from the 1930s and is the only double-decker road bridge in Europe. The structure appears in several other works by Doherty, such as The Bridge (Diptych) (1992), one of his first photographic pieces to mark a shift away from an early signature combination of text and image, and various video works including Same Old Story (double screen, 1997), Control Zone (single screen, 1999) and Drive (double screen, 2003), a companion piece to Re-Run featuring the same actor. The Craigavon Bridge is a well-known city landmark and, within the context of an art work by an artist known for his engagement with the history of Derry, it can be readily interpreted in metaphorical terms through reference to the relationship between two divided communities. When filmed at night and from the interior, however, the bridge is also open to interpretation as a signifier of post-industrial urban space. This play of meaning is not simply incidental. Instead, the dual identity of the bridge as both a specific place and as a more generic setting is integral to Doherty’s exploration of both photography and the moving image. Writing in 2003, Caoimhín Mac Giolla Léith categorizes the evolution of Doherty’s work during the 1990s in terms of ‘a movement, or rather a series of movements, from the specific to the generic’.45 Doherty seemed to acknowledge this trajectory in an interview that coincided with the first presentation of Re-Run, as part of his first major retrospective exhibition at the Irish Museum of Modern Art in 2002: It’s very specifically Derry in the earlier pieces, and you’d almost need a detailed local knowledge to pick up the references. And as it came to be exhibited more and more in different places, it seemed to me that you’d almost need to provide the audience with a crash course on the history of the North. But I think it’s more open now.46

Next page: Willie Doherty Re-Run, 2002 Video Installation with projection on two screens (colour, thirty seconds). Unique. Courtesy Kerlin Gallery, Dublin.

77

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:41 Page 78

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:41 Page 79

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:41 Page 80

The Place of Artists’ Cinema This new emphasis on openness is not simply a consequence of the need to address an audience that is physically removed from the context of production, it is also a response to changes within the cityscape itself. Noting that his practice has long been informed by a critique of documentary conventions, Doherty emphasizes that many of his photographs ‘have become documents despite themselves’47 simply because the appearance of the city itself has changed over time. How does Re-Run articulate this apparent shift from the specific to the generic, and what exactly is the significance of the ‘generic’ within a practice that is so clearly defined by a critique of narrative form and the conventions of media representation? Prior to Re-Run, Doherty had explored several locations beyond Derry, most obviously in the video projection True Nature (1999), partly filmed in Chicago, and in the photographic series Extracts From A File (2000), depicting Berlin at night. By returning to the Craigavon Bridge, however, he seems to confront a persistent tension in his work, between the sense of place that is articulated by, if not embodied in, particular locations and a more explicit exploration of place as ‘event in progress’, to use the terms offered by Claire Doherty.48 It is important to note that Re-Run is silent, unlike some of his earlier double screen projections such as The Only Good One is a Dead One, (1993). This earlier work features two projected thirty-minute sequences, presented simultaneously on opposite walls: one is a point of view shot from the interior of a moving car at night, while the other is a point of view shot from a stationary car. In a separate soundtrack that seems to intersect with both video sequences at different points, a young man describes his fear of assassination and his desire for revenge. The soundtrack repeats at shorter intervals than the projections so that the relationship between image and sound shifts continually. Re-Run, however, is characterized by a much more pronounced emphasis on visual sensation and even though it is clearly concerned with repetition and memory, the principal tension evident within the work is spatial. Returning to Catherine Fowler’s exploration of in-frame and out-of-frame dynamics, as discussed in Chapter 1, Re-Run both stages and investigates the experience of off-screen space and the ‘centrifugal force’ of the cinema image.49 Since shots of the figure from the front and from behind are never integrated on a single screen, the anxieties generated by repeated references to off-screen space are never resolved. More importantly, the formation of what Stephen Heath might describe as ‘narrative space’ is complicated by the status of the bridge as a setting that is both generic and specific; both ‘narratively-motivated’ and ‘discursively-motivated’, to use the terms offered by Paul Willemen’s analysis of avant-garde film.50 As noted in Chapter 1, this ‘splitting’ of the setting is a feature of several films from the 1970s and 80s, many of which also appropriate aspects of both documentary and classical genres, such as melodrama. The division between the specific and generic is often accompanied by another split at the level of narrative, between story and genre. Re-Run evokes an array of fragmentary and half-remembered images to the extent that its (admittedly minimal) ‘story’ takes second place to its references to generic setting. The mise-en-scène of Re-Run is deeply indebted to Film Noir (as well as its postmodern successor, ‘neo-noir’), evoking a long-established tradition of representation that extends from classical Hollywood cinema through to recent British and Irish film and television. Doherty’s exploration of these generic codes is inflected by their mobilization within the local context, in cinematic representations of the ‘Troubles’ but also in government-sponsored advertisements for the Confidential Telephone line.51 80

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:41 Page 81

Multi-screen Projections and Museum Spaces The camerawork and heightened pace of Re-Run, combined with the focus on a single male character, also calls to mind one of most iconic explorations of cinematic space which both defines and transcends the genre of Film Noir: North by Northwest (1959). This film has served as a focal point for numerous theorizations of authorship and narrative form and, according to Fredric Jameson, it is marked both by a distinctly ‘episodic’ structure and a complex ‘spatial system’. Jameson notes that in North by Northwest Hitchcock often disrupts the sense of stasis produced by deep focus cinematography; for example, in a scene where the central characters address each other from the edges of the frame, the spectators are ‘obliged to turn their heads from side to side, in order to observe the character who happens to be speaking’.52 The character of ‘Roger Thornhill’ is also continually in motion, much like the nameless figure running across the Craigavon Bridge, even though his task is to react to rather than propel the narrative forward. It is also worth noting that the various tricks used in North by Northwest include back projection, so that ‘Thornhill’ is continually pictured next to well-known monuments or landmarks yet seems to occupy a different physical space. The key relevance of Jameson’s reading in relation to Re-Run, however, lies in its examination of the relations between different forms of space: public and private; open and closed. Each episodic unit in the film introduces a radically different form of ‘concrete space’, yet it refuses to offer a space that is either wholly private or wholly public. The private realm is evoked through reference to the ideal of marriage (in the words and actions of ‘Eve’) while the public realm is emphasized in comments made by the ‘Professor’ concerning the Cold War. But Jameson notes that neither ideal can be represented directly and so ‘must be taken on faith, as existing somewhere off screen’.53 In fact, Jameson argues that Hitchcock’s spatial system discloses the very impossibility of public space within ‘the regime of private property’. This is particularly apparent in the famous cornfield scene, in which ‘the vision or space of the empty field rapidly unmasks itself – not as the demonstration of a space which is open and public simultaneously, but rather as the confused attempt to image such a space, which may in fact be un-imaginable’.54 This problem becomes acute when public monuments (such as Mount Rushmore) are presented as an image of public space. In the finale of the film, the back of Mount Rushmore is revealed, emphasizing the fact that this supposedly ‘public’ and open space is actually ‘uniquely closed by virtue of its sculptural existence as sheer representation (and representation best seen from a great distance at that)’.55 Although Doherty’s practice is perhaps less obviously concerned with questions of property, his work has evolved in a context where the limits of the public monument as a manifestation of public space are all too apparent and the everyday experience of space is inflected by a history of media representation in which the generic and the specific continually intersect. Multiple Practices and Multiple Locations: Baltimore (Isaac Julien, 2003) While some artists have moved away from multi-screen projection towards feature filmmaking, Isaac Julien has sought to develop and maintain a multi-faceted exploration of the moving image, working across many different contexts. Baltimore, a three-channel video projection, is partly informed by the research he undertook for an assemblage-style documentary on blaxploitation 81

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:41 Page 82

Isaac Julien Déjà vu, Baltimore Series 2003 Courtesy of Isaac Julien

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:41 Page 83

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:41 Page 84

The Place of Artists’ Cinema cinema, entitled BaadAsssss Cinema (2002).56 The connections with this earlier work are evident and Baltimore even features a central performance by Melvin Van Peebles, writer, director and producer of films such as Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song (1971).57 While Baltimore clearly forms part of Julien’s ongoing exploration of the relationship between the ‘Black Atlantic’58 and popular film culture it also offers interesting parallels with Vagabondia (2000), an earlier double screen work shot in Sir John Soane’s Museum in London. Vagabondia unfolds primarily within the interior of the museum, previously a private house and currently the site and setting for a vast and eclectic collection, bequeathed to the public on the condition that the original arrangement of displays and artefacts would be preserved. Donald Preziosi has analysed the layout and organization of the Soane museum in a text that takes the form of an illustrated ‘walk through’ and he identifies various oppositions between physical and virtual spaces, the latter of which include spaces reflected in mirrors or accessible only in a visual sense. He also outlines the Masonic principles that underpin and structure Soane’s project, noting that ‘the rise of the modern museum as an instrument of individual and social transformation during the Enlightenment was a specifically Masonic idea’.59 According to Preziosi, the arrangement of the objects (which include replicas and overtly theatrical elements) cannot be understood through reference to art historical categorizations but when interpreted through a Masonic schema, they map out a journey ‘from death to life to enlightenment; from lower to higher; from multiple colors to their resolution as brilliant white light; from a realm where there is no reflection … to one where everything is multiply reflected and refracted’.60 While Julien focuses primarily on the Soane museum’s associations with colonialism, Vagabondia also emphasizes the distinctively disorienting spatial characteristics of the building and the collection through the use of mirroring effects.61 The same action appears on both screens at various points, reversed so that the architecture is reduced to (or revealed as) a pattern and, as Preziosi’s analysis indicates, there are both historical and pedagogical precedents for this use of reflection. Like Vagabondia, Baltimore is concerned with art historical epistemologies and countermythologies but it extends its investigation of the relationship between virtual and physical space beyond the museum and into the architecture of the city. It is shot in three distinct locations around the city: the National Great Blacks on Wax Museum (established in 1983), the Walters Art Museum (the core of which is a nineteenth-century collection begun by a wealthy industrialist) and the Peabody Library at Johns Hopkins University. The latter is one of the most architecturally significant libraries in the US and it forms part of the Peabody Institute, which was dedicated by its founder to the people of Baltimore in 1857 and still remains open to the public. These three buildings all feature prominently but the characters repeatedly enter and leave the National Great Blacks on Wax Museum from the street, as though one space might provide a portal to the others, echoing and amplifying the spatial ambiguities explored in Vagabondia. Baltimore follows the movements of a man (Van Peebles) and younger woman (Vanessa Myrie) as they walk separately through the streets of the city, engaged in some form of quest or investigation.62 While Van Peebles’ character is costumed in the style of a blaxploitation hero, his female counterpart is less easy to place in time, or space. She undergoes a series of visual 84

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:41 Page 85

Isaac Julien Baltimore Series 2003 Installation view FACT, Liverpool, 2003 Courtesy of Isaac Julien and FACT, Liverpool, UK Photographed by Roger Sinek

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:41 Page 86

The Place of Artists’ Cinema transformations, first removing her 1970s-style afro wig to reveal a shaved head and later displaying the superhuman strength and modified body of a cyborg. With hands and eyes that appear to function as computer interfaces, she might be a superhero or even a visitor from the future. In a scene set in the Peabody Library, which combines a spectacular setting with the overt display of post-production effects, she jumps high into the air and then hangs motionless for a moment as the camera pivots around her. Although there are parallels here with the ghostly figures that populate Stasi City, the staccato movement of the camera in this work places it much closer to genre films such as the Matrix trilogy, specifically recalling the ‘bullet-time’ effect now used extensively in science fiction and action cinema.63 The characters in Baltimore seem to be engaged in a kind of cartographical process, scanning and surveying the spaces of the museum and library. But these spaces are also subjected to a kind of transformation, because the city itself is in flux, sliding between past, present and future as the generic register shifts between documentary, blaxploitation and science fiction. At one point, an early establishing shot of the city skyline reappears and is dramatically transformed as a diagonal line suddenly describes the route of an unidentified flying object, shooting towards the ground. The boundaries between two and three dimensional space are also complicated in a sequence that involves a series of close-ups of a Quattrocento painting of unknown authorship, known as ‘View of an Ideal City’. Under the watchful eye of Van Peebles, the camera comes to rest on three tiny painted figures standing in an otherwise deserted square, the architecture of which is loosely echoed in the interior of the Peabody Library. The camerawork alludes to the dynamics of observation and surveillance at work within the museum through occasional glimpses of another figure. But this interplay of looks and reflections becomes even more complex when it transpires that the figure watching Van Peebles is actually his wax double, transposed from the collection of the Great Blacks on Wax Museum. Here, we are very clearly in the domain of the museum as ‘mausoleum’, in a space where the construction of the self is mediated by the presence of objects, even if these objects are not always literally our doubles.64 Of Other Worlds: The Silver Bridge (Jaki Irvine, 2002) All of the works discussed in detail so far have been marked, in some way, by ghostly or spectral presences, suggesting that an emphasis on the otherworldly may be characteristic of multi-screen installation over the past decade. In fact, these concerns were already apparent in artists’ cinema in 1995, noted by Michael Newman in an article that comments upon an emergent ‘sense of the enigmatic and the paranormal’ in the work of several artists, including Jaki Irvine. Newman suggests that contemporary video work can be distinguished from the video art of the sixties and seventies, which has ‘a more rationalistic basis’.65 A rejection of rationality is certainly apparent in a number of moving image works that explore the history of a particular place or community through reference to the supernatural, including not only Stasi City but also various works by Susan Hiller and Adam Chodzko, among others.66 It would seem that the realm of the supernatural offers the possibility of uncovering a history particular to a specific place, which may be hidden or indeed repressed. Fredric Jameson’s brief but tantalizing discussion of the 86

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:41 Page 87

Jaki Irvine The Silver Bridge, 2002 Installation Layout for IMMA 2003 Courtesy of the Artist

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:41 Page 88

Jaki Irvine The Silver Bridge, 2002 8 part DVD installation Dimensions variable Collection Irish Museum of Modern Art Purchase, 2003

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:41 Page 89

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:41 Page 90

The Place of Artists’ Cinema ‘ghost story’, as theorized in relation to the Overlook Hotel and the return of repressed class consciousness in The Shining (1980), would appear to be relevant here. Distinguishing Kubrick’s film from King’s original novel and other explorations of the occult in Hollywood cinema of the 1970s, Jameson theorizes the ghost story as a sub-genre characterized by a ‘peculiarly contingent and constitutive dependence [on] physical place and, in particular, on the material house as such’.67 He notes that the ghost story first emerged in this form towards the end of the nineteenth-century as a reaction against bourgeois culture’s insistence on the life span of the biological individual at the expense of collective cultural memory. In the golden age of the genre, he notes, ‘the ghost is at one with a building of some antiquity, of which it is the bad dream, and to whose incomprehensive succession of generations of inhabitants it makes allusion as in some return of the repressed of the middle-class mind.’68 If, as Jameson suggests, the return of this genre in the late 1970s articulates renewed anxieties concerning the loss of trans-generational memory, it is perhaps no surprise that images of the supernatural should figure prominently in contemporary works that explore or respond to processes of urban redevelopment. Irvine’s exploration of the supernatural seems at first to be deliberately disconnected from the realm of the public or the collective; the belief systems to which she alludes are highly personal and often difficult to localize. Many of her works are self-consciously enigmatic, even though they may evoke popular film narratives; for instance, the single screen video Ivana’s Answers (2001) features a reading of tea leaves in which an image of birds feature prominently. Later, this image is mirrored by shots of birds in an aviary, recalling scenes from Hitchcock’s The Birds and hinting at the possibility of narrative closure. But the precise form of Ivana’s enquiry is never fully revealed. Winged creatures also feature prominently within a more recent work, In A World Like This (2006), a multi-screen video projection that depicts a sanctuary for birds of prey (the Irish Raptor Research Centre). Although this work documents actually existing relationships between birds and their human handlers it is also replete with suggestions of the supernatural, specifically evoking the concept of the ‘familiar’. The otherworldly quality of these creatures is amplified in the sound design and the dispersal of action across multiple screens; this creates the suggestion of invisible movement, as the birds seem to depart at one point and come to land elsewhere within the room. The Silver Bridge (2002) is an eight-channel video projection that also features richly layered soundscapes and scenes of the animal kingdom, but it is characterized by a more pronounced emphasis on both the theme of the supernatural and the history of a particular place. It was shot at a number of Dublin locations with nineteenth-century associations, including the Natural History Museum, the Phoenix Park, Dublin Zoo and Waterstown Park. The latter is the site of the silver bridge itself, a decaying cast-iron structure that is also known as the Guinness Bridge because of its historical connection with the Guinness estate. Acquired by the Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA) in 2004, The Silver Bridge was exhibited in 2005 in a series of interlinked rooms offering several possible routes through the space. The installation environment at IMMA was not overtly ‘immersive’, as the windows were covered by light filters rather than wholly obscured, and the partial view of the parkland surrounding the Museum offered a degree of orientation in relation to the geography of the city. Structured as a series of eight distinct sequences, or chapters, much of the imagery in The Silver Bridge is oblique but 90

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:41 Page 91

Multi-screen Projections and Museum Spaces suggestive; in one of the first projections, a flock of starlings circle overhead, suggesting a form of wordless communication. The work also incorporates more conventional references to the supernatural: two bats clinging to the roof of a large cage seem to huddle together as though for comfort, while elsewhere a herd of deer stand in a forest amongst white wooden doors that suggest portals to other worlds. A sense of stasis pervades many of these settings, as though both human and animal creatures are waiting for something: in one scene, a young man sits below a tree while elsewhere (in a different era) a young woman observes bats in a Bat House decorated with a vaguely Gothic mural. In another sequence a woman surveys the collections of the Natural History Museum from a height, the exaggeratedly slow movements of her eyes recalling halfremembered fragments of other film narratives, such as La Jetée (Chris Marker, 1962). Finally, the stasis is broken in two sequences filmed with ‘day-for-night’ techniques: in the first, a woman creeps on all fours across the silver bridge, as though pulling herself along a horizontal ladder; in the second, she suspends herself from the structure alongside another female figure and together they enact a careful yet acrobatic embrace before finally dropping noiselessly into the valley below. This is the only sequence to incorporate special effects (in the form of compositing) and both the human figures and the bridge are subtly dislocated from their surroundings. Irvine has cited the short story ‘Carmilla’ by the Irish writer Sheridan Le Fanu as a source for certain elements within The Silver Bridge. Published in 1872 as part of the collection In a Glass Darkly, the story includes overt references to lesbian sexuality and is widely acknowledged as a precursor to Bram Stoker’s Dracula (published almost thirty years later).69 Le Fanu’s writing is also marked by a fascination with displacement in relation to ideas of home and belonging. The story of Carmilla is set in an era of considerable social upheaval, associated with the Napoleonic Wars, and in this context the vampire exists as a revenant who is irrevocably bound to a point of ancestral origins (the family burial ground). In a Glass Darkly also explores settings that are closer to Le Fanu’s home and the shifting architecture of Dublin city figures within ‘The Familiar’, the story of a captain who has returned from the sea but cannot escape the ghosts of his past. Walking through areas of the city under construction, the captain sees the ghost of a crew-member he once mistreated, and from that day forward he is haunted until his death.70 Perhaps the exploration of history and memory in The Silver Bridge is not entirely distinct from the exploration of place that seems to characterize many other evocations of the supernatural in artists’ cinema. The Silver Bridge seems specifically concerned with the realm of public space, as suggested by the use of settings such as the museum, the zoo and the park. Yet, as is characteristic of Le Fanu’s work, the public realm becomes the site for the staging of personal desire and memory. This suggests that the boundaries between the museum and the more explicitly public context of site-specific installation are somewhat permeable. If, as Jameson suggests, the ghost story is associated with the return of a repressed collective cultural memory, then perhaps the museum itself could be read as the ‘haunted house’ of film and video installation. The rise of the multi-screen projection since the early 1990s has of course been paralleled by the reinvention of former industrial sites as cultural destinations. This process of reinvention can involve the embrace of the new, as in the case of the Guggenheim Museum 91

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:41 Page 92

The Place of Artists’ Cinema Bilbao, but it can also encompass the prominent showcasing of the industrial past, as in the case of ‘Turbine Hall’ at Tate Modern. During the 1980s, a post-industrial site in Dublin docklands was actually proposed for The Irish Museum of Modern Art but eventually rejected in favour of a seventeenth-century neoclassical building (the Royal Hospital Kilmainham), which once provided a home for retired soldiers.71 The Museum opened in 1991 and now occupies part of the Hospital, which continues to be maintained as a heritage site, with the largest rooms reserved for corporate or state use; as a consequence many of the exhibition spaces in the museum are relatively small, consisting of interlinked rooms, such as those used to display The Silver Bridge. When viewed within this context, some of the Dublin locations that feature in Irvine’s work begin to acquire other meanings. In particular, the decaying cast-iron bridge that serves as the setting for the final scenes begins to resonate as an oblique reminder of an industrial past not yet wholly recuperated within the discourse of urban cultural regeneration. Domestic, Therapeutic and Public Spaces: Consolation Service (Eija-Liisa Ahtila, 1999) Eija-Liisa Ahtila’s Consolation Service (1999) has been exhibited both as a single screen 35mm film and as a double-channel video projection with two screens placed side by side.72 My discussion focuses on the double screen version, with particular emphasis on Ahtila’s staging of public and private space and her exploration of the role of the narrator. Like Baltimore or ReRun, many of the settings used in Consolation Service (a home, a therapist’s office, a frozen lake) are generic rather than specific. In fact, they would not be entirely out of place in the ‘woman’s film’ of the 1930s and 1940s and Ahtila’s work is clearly marked by a fascination with the history of melodramatic form. Like many classical film melodramas, Consolation Service is framed by a voiceover, a narration that in this instance is provided by the ‘writer’ of the work, a figure who moves between diegetic and non-diegetic space.73 Ahtila’s Where is Where? (2008), which centres on an incident involving the killing of a child in Algeria, also features a writer as a central character: a Finnish poet who acts as the guardian and mediator of public memory. In Consolation Service, however, the writer is not depicted directly, and her relationship to her characters is marked by proximity, rather than temporal or spatial distance, because she is their neighbour. In the opening section, the camera pans over a frozen lake and the voiceover explains that the formation of the ice may make it weak and unreliable; signalling the fact that appearances in general may be deceptive. Later, we observe an unidentified man playing with his dog in a snow-filled yard from the perspective of the narrator, as she explains that she is writing a story about a young couple who live nearby. She explains that the couple are planning to divorce so this is a ‘story about an ending’ told in three sections: ‘the first section describes how to do it, in the second one it happens and the third is a kind of consolation service. Here it is’. At this point (in the double screen version only) a small hand-written diagram incorporating sections marked ‘Anni’ and ‘J-P’ appears on the left screen, as though offering a plan of the installation, or perhaps the narrative structure. The protagonists then appear, as though called on stage. J-P 92

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:41 Page 93

Multi-screen Projections and Museum Spaces is first seen walking through a hospital waiting area to join Anni and their baby in a therapist’s office. As the therapy session unfolds, the couple argue violently and the subject matter is vaguely reminiscent of reality television or observational documentary. But the tone of the scene shifts abruptly when, in a moment of extreme frustration, Anni screams ‘help me!’ and the men and women in the waiting area suddenly stand up and enter the therapist’s office, seating themselves silently around the edges of the room. They are invisible to the protagonists but when the therapist stages a ‘ritual’ of separation to help Anni and J-P make the transition from ‘lovers’ to ‘parents’, they seem to function as witnesses. It should be evident by this stage that the exploration of duality in Consolation Service extends beyond the use of two screens. The boundaries between inside and outside, and between family and community, have already been called into question through the figure of the narrator as ‘neighbour’ and the arrival of the ‘witnesses’ into the therapy room. The conflict between Anni and J-P also hinges directly upon a series of binary oppositions, linked to the social and economic construction of gender. She resents her role as mother while he describes her as a ‘princess who doesn’t live in this capitalist realism with its bills and working hours’. This comment, which knits together the realms of the familial, economic and fantastical, recalls a critical tradition of feminist artists’ cinema that is strongly informed by a critique of narrative form, to which I will return. Towards the end of the therapy session, J-P calmly explains that they both plan to celebrate his birthday and leave the baby with their neighbour, the woman ‘who is writing this story’. In the second section, the voiceover narration continues, providing a commentary as JP, Anni and their friends walk through the woods towards a lake. But when they fall through the ice there are two voiceovers: Anni reflects on her own feelings of desire and loss as she floats in the darkness underwater, while the other narrator (the ‘writer of the story’) offers a more metaphorical reading of the action, explaining that there are many bodies under the ice, including ‘bank workers without their electronics’, and explaining that even ‘in the midst of the living there are states of death’. In the third section, it becomes apparent that Anni has survived while J-P has not and he then takes on the role of the narrator, moving outside the diegesis into another realm. He materializes in the hallway of Anni’s apartment and attempts to conclude their ritual by bowing to his former wife but she shakes him angrily, unsure that it is really him. J-P’s ghost responds by bowing lower, shrinking into a miniature figure before disappearing altogether and then reappearing a second and third time, until Anni eventually returns his bow so that the ritual can finally be concluded. An important precedent for the focus on home, motherhood, fantasy and the ‘excesses’ of female desire in Consolation Service can be found both in classical film melodrama and the work of feminist filmmakers such as Sally Potter, Yvonne Rainer, Chantal Akerman, Laura Mulvey and Peter Wollen during the 1970s and 1980s.74 The focus on the therapy room, as the scene of the ‘talking cure’, very specifically situates the work in relation to both the mise-en-scène of classical film melodrama, and the exploration of psychoanalytic film theory in feminist film and art practice. It is not possible, however, to read the recurrence of ghosts and spectres in Ahtila’s work (and multi-screen projection generally) wholly through reference to the psychoanalytic theorizations of narrative and fantasy. The ghostly witnesses could be understood as a melodramatic articulation of Anni’s impossible desires, but their appearance in the waiting room 93

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:41 Page 94

Eija-Liisa Ahtila Consolation Service, 1999 35mm film, DVD installation 23 min 40 sec, 1:1.85, Dolby Surround Copyright Crystal Eye Ltd, Helsinki Courtesy of Marian Goodman Gallery, New York and Paris

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:41 Page 95

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:41 Page 96

The Place of Artists’ Cinema actually contributes to the achievement of a narrative resolution. In fact, Consolation Service asserts a strong structural relationship between the three-act narrative and the realm of the supernatural, as the ghost of J-P appears three times to Anni in order to conclude the ritual. This dynamic is particularly interesting given the rhetoric that surrounds the ‘open’ and active characteristics of the multi-screen projection in general. It is of course possible to argue that Ahtila complicates or disrupts the achievement of narrative closure by blurring the boundaries between diegetic and non-diegetic space through the figure of the narrator, but Consolation Service still involves a therapeutic staging and resolution of conflict. In order to understand this relationship between conflict resolution, public space, and the spectral or supernatural, it may be useful to expand the frame of analysis through reference to Rosalyn Deutsche’s well-known analysis of democracy and public space, entitled ‘Agoraphobia’. Drawing upon the work of Claude Lefort, among others, Rosalyn Deutsche explains that the establishment of democracy involves a transformation in the imagining of the social unity. Instead of ‘[an] organic totality’, constituted and represented in relation to an outside (and absolute) power, the social order is re-imagined as ‘“purely social” and therefore a mystery’. Deutsche states: Unprecedented in democracy is the fact that the place from which power derives its legitimacy is what Lefort calls ‘the image of an empty place’. … Democracy, then, has a difficulty at its core. Power stems from the people but belongs to nobody. Democracy abolishes the external referent of power and refers power to society. But democratic power cannot appeal for its authority to a meaning immanent in the social. Instead, the democratic invention invents something else: the public space.75 Deutsche notes that the ‘guardians of public space’ repeatedly deny the emptiness that lies at the core of democracy by referring their power to sources of social unity that are imagined to exist outside the social. This strategy is defined by Lefort as an act of appropriation, which is distinct from the necessary exercise of power and involves the attribution of ‘“proper” hence incontestable meaning’ to social space, thereby closing down public space. Deutsche goes on to analyse the exploration of otherness in the work of artists engaged in a feminist critique of visual representation. Focusing on the exhibition ‘Public Vision’ (1982), she notes that works by artists such as Sherrie Levine, Cindy Sherman and Barbara Kruger expose ‘the viewer’s noncontinuity with itself’ and ‘disturb the sense that otherness is purely external’.76 These works articulate an understanding of publicness as a set of relations that exceed the individual but are not wholly separate from, or outside of, the individual. Deutsche notes that, for some theorists of public space, the feminist critique of vision actually contributed to the loss of an imagined ‘resurgent public sphere’, which was instituted by the dematerializing practices of the 1960s. Here, she is referring specifically to a public lecture in 1987 in which art historian Thomas Crow proposed that women’s groups, through their emphasis on separatism, had rejected the notion of a ‘unifying ideal’, therefore abandoning the attempt to create an artistic public sphere.77 While Crow does not assert the existence of an actual social formation, his appeal to an ‘ideal’ nonetheless illustrates the dynamic described by Lefort, whereby a source of the social is imagined to exist, somewhere outside the social. 96

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:41 Page 97

Multi-screen Projections and Museum Spaces Reluctant to abandon the concept of the public sphere entirely, Deutsche instead explores the possibility that it may be integral to democracy precisely because it is exists as a phantom and she cites Thomas Keenan, who has suggested that the various books and articles lamenting the loss of the public sphere constitute an oblique acknowledgement of the fact that it is ‘structurally elsewhere, neither lost nor in need of recovery or rebuilding but defined by its resistance to being made present’.78 According to Deutsche, this imaginary ‘lost’ public sphere becomes ‘a place where private individuals gather and, from the point of view of reason, seek to know the social world objectively’,79 aiming to ‘find’ a society that transcends difference. This process, however, involves a form of closure that is at odds with the necessary incompleteness and even emptiness of the democratic public space. Many of the multi-screen projections I have discussed seem to investigate these anxieties and Willie Doherty’s Re-Run is perhaps particularly significant. Through a combination of in-frame and out-of-frame strategies, evoking a history of cinematic representation in which the landmark and the monument figure prominently, it both stages and resists the desire for a public space defined by reason, coherency and closure. Performing the Public: Turbulent (Shirin Neshat, 1998) Shirin Neshat’s early double screen installations Turbulent (1998), Rapture (1999) and Fervor (2000) depict a series of scenarios where gender differences are maintained in all social interactions and enshrined in the architecture and use of public space, articulating a critique of Iranian society after the Islamic revolution. Although the installation design is not consistent (Turbulent and Rapture involve opposing screens while the screens in Fervor are side-by-side) all three works involve the staging of visibly separate spaces, or spheres, for men and women. This emphasis on opposition or division is also formally underscored by the editing, directing attention from one screen to another, and by the use of black and white cinematography. Yet despite the existence of multiple image sources, each work is characterized by a relatively cohesive sonic environment, in which layered audio effects merge with music. Although these early works were shot on film (16mm) and have often been categorized as ‘cinematic’, Neshat has explicitly sought to differentiate the multi-screen experience from cinema, emphasizing the active position of the spectator within the installation: Unlike a cinematic picture, where you are sitting in your chair and are passive, here you become part of the piece. It’s a very emotionally and psychologically demanding situation in which you have to keep debating whether you should be looking on this side or that side. You can never watch both as the same time. You have to make a decision which side you are going to watch, which means you have to decide which part you are going to sacrifice. It puts you in a very peculiar position where you have more impact as a spectator.80 Ruth Noack has, however, contested some of the claims made in relation to Neshat’s use of multi-screen installation. Noting that heterogeneity and coherence seem to co-exist in Turbulent as a consequence of the editing style, she points out that the contemporary art audience is 97

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:41 Page 98

Shirin Neshat Video Still Turbulent, 1998 Video/sound installation: black and white, 16 mm film transferred to laserdisk, Duration: 10 minutes Projected image: 9 x 12 feet minimum each image Copyright Shirin Neshat Courtesy Gladstone Gallery

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:41 Page 99

Multi-screen Projections and Museum Spaces ‘confronted by multi-screen projections with increasing frequency [and] has long since become used to – and able to compensate for – this assault on the phantasmatic coherence of its subjectivity’.81 Some commentators, such as Hamid Naficy, have situated Neshat’s work in relation to the broader context of Iranian cinema and culture. Naficy suggests that the trilogy explores the ‘unique poetics of vision and veiling’ that are articulated in everyday Iranian life as well as in its traditional art forms and he also identifies parallels with the ‘evolving filmic grammar’ of Iranian post-revolutionary cinema, which discourages close-up photography of women and has given rise to particular forms of framing and composition.82 Although double-screen works such as Turbulent were developed specifically for museum and gallery exhibition contexts, Neshat has in fact begun to explore feature film production in recent years. Perhaps Naficy is also responding to the fact that the final work in the trilogy, entitled Fervor, not only identifies Barbara Gladstone as producer but also includes a full crew list and acknowledgement of the various individuals and groups associated with the production location in Marrakesh. Turbulent is framed somewhat differently, however: it does not display production credits on screen and also lacks the picturesque, and recognizably non-Western, settings that are found in Rapture and Fervor, such as fortified cities and windswept deserts. Instead, the action takes place in a large, anonymous and relatively modern auditorium that might be found almost anywhere in the world. Turbulent opens with a wide shot of the auditorium on both screens; in each case the stage is empty but for a spot-lit microphone, a retro model that vaguely recalls the 1950s. On one screen, the auditorium is full and the seats are occupied by men wearing white shirts and black trousers, waiting expectantly. On the other, the auditorium is empty and the seats are in darkness. Both screens fade briefly to black and in the next shot the camera pans right across the full auditorium to offer a closer look at the men, and pans left across the empty one. The next (and final) shot mirrors the opening image but this time the stage is occupied. A man wearing a white shirt enters and bows to the male audience, who applauds; he then turns to face the camera, the music starts and he begins to sing. The pace and structure of his song suggest a popular tune, possibly a folk melody, and the camera remains fixed in one position throughout his performance. Meanwhile, on the other screen, a female figure stands with her back to the camera, her head covered with an ornate veil. She is visibly attentive, waiting for her turn to perform. When his song has finished, the male singer walks to the edge to the stage, accepts the applause of this audience and then returns to the microphone, looking directly at the camera again. At this point, the woman begins to sing, wordlessly and apparently without accompaniment, as the camera circles slowly around her body. Her face is gradually revealed, in close-up, as she alternates between different vocal styles and demonstrates a degree of virtuosity that is not evident in the performance of the male singer, introducing the possibility of competition rather than dialogue. Yet there is a certain disjunction between the lone female figure on screen and the complex soundtrack, which incorporates various audio effects, such as the panning of sound back and forth between the speakers. As the woman’s song does not have a familiar structure it is impossible to know when it might end; while she sings her male counterpart stands silently, but 99

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:41 Page 100

The Place of Artists’ Cinema visibly frustrated and confused by her performance. When she finishes, the camera comes to rest on her face and both screens fade into darkness. It is worth noting that Neshat herself has distinguished between Turbulent and the later works in the trilogy. The first instalment is ‘about contemporary Iran’ while the second and third are concerned with ‘a more philosophical and timeless question’, examining the ‘relationship of Moslem women, or at least religious women, with nature’.83 She goes on to state that ‘there appears to be something extremely artificial in the way that every thing about them is controlled … such that we can hardly picture them in the context of nature’. But Turbulent is marked by a more nuanced and complex exploration of artifice, evident in the doubling of the physical space and in the exploration of melodramatic ‘excess’ through cinematography and audio effects. It is also the only work in the trilogy to be explicitly concerned with the place of the audience as a collective, and the use of the microphone also clearly refers to the possibility of an audience that is not physically present to the performers. In turning his back to the seating, the male singer obviously addresses his song towards an audience that exists beyond the auditorium. Whilst this might be the visitor in the installation space or even the female performer, the retro style of the microphone also suggests a radio audience, existing in another place and potentially another time. In contrast, the fact that the female singer faces the empty auditorium implies that she performs for ‘herself’ rather than for anyone else. But the situation is complicated by the fact that the singer is Sussan Deyhim, known in her own right for a combination of extended vocal techniques and digital processing (specifically the layering of audio recordings).84 The use of post-production effects obviously undercuts any straightforward alignment of feminine wordlessness with purity, authenticity or truth, but Deyhim’s claims to authorship are still stronger than those of her male counterpart because the male voice we hear is not that of the on-screen actor (Shoja Azari). Instead it is that of Shahram Nazeri, a well-known Kurdish Iranian folksinger. The opposition proposed between these two forms of performance cannot then be understood simply in terms of gender or the regulation of public space. Instead, Nazeri and Deyhim seem to stand for a different, albeit related, opposition – between the national and the transnational body politic. The former is present and visible to itself while the latter is displaced, but not without power. This suggests that, while the multi-screen projection may initially appear to provide the appropriate context for an exploration of surveillance, the museum is also a somewhat provisional setting for Neshat’s investigation of public space, which extends beyond the gallery to encompass cinema and broadcasting. Reconfiguring Multi-screen Production: Drift: diagram vii (Anne Tallentire, 2005) While Neshat’s work seems to be oriented away from the gallery context, the multi-screen form remains absolutely integral to the exploration of public space in other practices. Drift: diagram vii (2005) by Anne Tallentire consists of a series of short videos, all shot in London, focusing on the everyday activities of people who work on the streets of the city or who pass through them each day. It forms part of a larger project, entitled Drift (2002–2006), consisting of 21 silent videos intended for exhibition in various different configurations or ‘diagrams’. The videos, which 100

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:41 Page 101

Anne Tallentire Drift 11.40 video still Courtesy the artist

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:41 Page 102

Anne Tallentire Drift 13.00 video still Courtesy the artist

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:41 Page 103

Anne Tallentire Drift 17.10 video still Courtesy the artist

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:41 Page 104

Anne Tallentire Drift: diagram vii, 2005 Detail, 6 screen installation, Void Gallery, Derry Photograph: Paola Bernardelli Courtesy the artist

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:41 Page 105

Multi-screen Projections and Museum Spaces take the form of single shots, are all time-stretched so that the action is slowed-down, suggesting an almost pseudo-scientific investigation of mundane moments and actions. Most are relatively short, extending from twenty three seconds to about five and half minutes, and each video is identified in accordance with the time that shooting began, rather than by subject matter, location or running time. So, for example, ‘04.02’ refers to a video of a woman cleaning a desk in an office, viewed through the window from the street outside in the early hours of the morning. In many of the videos the camera is tilted upwards, and Tallentire has zoomed in so that her subjects appear isolated from their environment. Sometimes, they move through the background rather than the foreground, as in the case of ‘07.10’, where the camera lingers on café furniture while people pass by or ‘5.14’, where the camera rests on a traffic island as men and women cross the street before sunrise, under the orange glare of neon street lights. Often, when directing her camera at someone who is intently engaged in a specific task, Tallentire deliberately focuses on the movements of hands or feet rather than on facial expressions, so it is difficult to determine their age, gender or ethnicity of her subjects.85 At one point her gaze is returned directly, however, when a man throwing water from a doorway out onto the street suddenly looks straight at the camera. He stares at it for a few seconds and then turns away. Some of the videos depict moments of rest or relative stasis, as in the case of ‘13.00’: a closeup of the feet of two workers engaged in conversation. Others depict workers whose labour might not usually be described as ‘manual’, such as a news crew waiting for action beside a group of tripods. Elsewhere, apparently menial and mundane tasks are revealed to require considerable dexterity and precision; this is most obvious in the carefully framed shot of a worker painting a stop sign on the road. After laying out a grid with string, he or she expertly completes the sign, using the most rudimentary tools to guide the flow of the heated yellow rubberized paint as it spells out the letters. The task is accomplished with speed as well as skill, a fact highlighted by the time-stretching of the video. The ‘stop’ sequence is also particularly interesting because it offers a satisfying sense of closure – at the end of the process the finished product is clearly visible on the street. But in many of the videos, there is a sense that the task will never be completed and is, instead, destined to be repeated over and over again. At these moments, Tallentire reveals the strategies and rituals that often make drudgery bearable, as in the case of the pond sweeper who carefully clears a ‘square’ of black sludge before tackling the rest, as though engaged in the production of a huge abstract painting. As an artwork, Drift is partly indebted to a conceptual model of practice, where production and exhibition are governed by a carefully articulated and highly logical set of principles. Significantly, the work does not propose or demand an ideal space for installation. In fact, unlike many artists working with the moving image, Tallentire’s ‘diagrams’ are highly flexible and adaptable. Each installation is configured according to the possibilities and limits of the exhibition situation, in relation to space, lighting and technical resources available. This flexibility extends to the type and dimensions of the monitors or projectors that may be used. When Drift: diagram vii was exhibited at Void gallery in Derry, the videos were presented as DVD projections in two separate gallery spaces. In gallery one, eighteen of the videos were organized into three sequences, simultaneously projected directed onto the gallery walls, and with one side of the projection aligned against the corner. The ceiling height is relatively low in these rooms and the projections 105

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:41 Page 106

The Place of Artists’ Cinema (each about four or five feet in width) were placed just below eye level. The videos were sequenced so that the early morning works would play first on all three walls but due to the variable running times of each video, they would quickly drift out of sync. Meanwhile, in gallery two, the three remaining videos, many of them with relatively long running times, were shown simultaneously. Tallentire’s exploration of the ‘diagram’ is not simply a pragmatic response to the vagaries of exhibition. Rather, it should be situated in relation to an ongoing investigation of art world conventions of production and authorship. Since the 1980s, Tallentire has worked across a range of media, including performance, eventually removing her own bodily presence from her solo performances. Her practice also encompasses an ongoing collaboration with John Seth, formalized under the name ‘work-seth/tallentire’ in 1998. Drift is partly informed and shaped by one of work-seth/tallentire’s first collaborations, entitled trailer (1998). Taking place over a period of two weeks in Dublin in December 1998, trailer encompassed a series of actions performed on each working day in various locations throughout the city. The coordinates of these locations were established through a pre-defined principle of selection, involving the contents of the daily newspaper. The actions were all performed without witnesses and video documentation was presented each evening in a succession of venues, which had to be located by phoning an information line. A single image from each performance was also posted on the website of Project Arts Centre, commissioners of the work. In an analysis published as part of the project, Uriel Orlow proposes that trailer mediates between two different versions of the city, evoking de Certeau’s distinctions between the metacity, represented by the newspaper and the map, and the city that is experienced without a map. He emphasizes that work-seth/tallentire’s use of video documentation actively resists interpretation as an archive or even as representation: The nightly screenings cannot be understood as the opening of an archive-drawer allowing a glimpse of something which has taken place during the day. No past, however immediate, is made accessible. Instead, something is taking place again. The videos are of the order of repetition or reproduction and not of representation. By repeating an event or place where an event might have occurred or will occur, in another place, both places leave the realm of unique locality and enter the realm of spatial and temporal interrelation.86 The videos that formed part of trailer often included fleeting references to the activities of passers-by, as well as details of the site, and Caoimhín Mac Giolla Léith notes that it is this material that prompted Tallentire to consider ‘the possibility of using video alone to explore the significance of the ongoing and overlooked performances of everyday life’.87 As with trailer, however, this process of ‘framing’ in Drift is highly self-reflexive and it does not exclude Tallentire. Even through her own body is not in front of the camera, her presence is written into the structure of the work through her use of shooting time to identify the component elements. Tallentire also avoids producing a typology of labour by including several videos that appear to focus on the same individual, or at least someone in similar clothing engaged in a similar task. The inclusion of multiple videos that record different stages or elements of process seems to be informed by Tallentire’s attention to distinctions between ‘work’ and 106

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:41 Page 107

Multi-screen Projections and Museum Spaces ‘labour’. Rather than observing, categorizing and so fixing workers in place within a rigid system, Drift focuses on the activity of labour somewhat separately from the ‘worker’. In addition, many of the videos seem to highlight the various ways in which the activity of labour may yield meaning beyond its economic or exchange value, even in a context where exchange value dominates. Finally, Tallentire’s exploration of flexible and adaptable approaches to production and exhibition calls attention to her own position as an artist whose ‘work’ also has exchange value (even if this value is not wholly determined by the commercial art market). Even though the videos continually emphasize a sense of distance from her subjects, she too is engaged in a form of labour and, like many of those she observes, her work must fit into and around the schedules of others, necessitating flexibility and adaptability. Conclusions Multi-screen video projection is clearly implicated within broader institutional and political imperatives involving the staging of ‘publicness’ in contemporary art museums. Focusing on a small selection of diverse works that share a concern with public memory, the formation of public space and the social body, I have identified a distinction between works that engage with specific places and those that employ more generic locations, while also noting a blurring of boundaries between these approaches, particularly in The Silver Bridge. Other tendencies have also emerged through my selection of works, most notably the persistent references to supernatural forces. It seems that the recurrence of ghostly figures (in Stasi City, The Silver Bridge, Consolation Service) or the uncanny disruptions of temporal and spatial order (eraser, Baltimore) may be a consequence of the desire to explore repressed or marginalized histories that are both embodied and disembodied in particular places. This might simply be a continuation of the trend noted by Michael Newman in 1995 in relation to the work of Jaki Irvine and others, whereby video art articulated a resistance to rationality and the possibility of any objective truth through recourse to the supernatural. Yet it is also tempting to read these ghostly presences as a displaced articulation of the ‘phantom’ quality of the public sphere. In any case, this concern with the supernatural seems to be explicitly aligned with the evocation, and staging, of other times and places within the publicly-funded museum or gallery, itself often forcefully aligned with processes of transformation associated with urban regeneration. In this context, the interplay between the generic and the specific in works such as Re-Run acquires particular significance, highlighting the ongoing formation of a sense of place in popular film and television. Other works could be said to operate somewhere between the realm of the supernatural and the rational. The use of time-stretching in Drift: diagram vii, for example, seems to amplify the ‘ghostly’ presence of certain workers within the city. The form and scope of Tallentire’s work, and the appropriation of terms such as the ‘diagram’, places it in relatively close proximity to sociological or scientific modes of observation. But Tallentire is not solely concerned with the experiences of the labourers who are visible on screen. Instead, by embracing and accentuating the flexibility and adaptability of the multi-screen projection, she gestures towards the multiple points of connection the might exist between artists and other workers. 107

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:41 Page 108

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:41 Page 109

Chapter 4 Event-sites and Documentary Dislocations

Christine Molloy and Joe Lawlor (desperate optimists) Joy, 2008 anamorphic 35mm film, 10 minutes Courtesy Christine Molloy and Joe Lawlor

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:41 Page 110

The Place of Artists’ Cinema If we subscribe to a notion of place as an intersection of social, economic and political relations, rather than a bounded geographic location, where and how does artistic engagement with the context of the exhibition start? How do such works coalesce to form a meaningful ‘exhibition’ for the biennial visitor when the experience of place itself is an event in progress? … And furthermore, how do context-specific projects and artworks become meaningful outside the signifying context of the exhibition? Claire Doherty, ‘Curating Wrong Places’.1 Location is … by definition the site of performativity and of criticality rather than a set of naturalised relations between subjects and places. Irit Rogoff, ‘The Where of Now’.2 Introduction In a recent analysis of curatorial practices concerning place, Claire Doherty cites a number of projects that have given rise to films, including The Battle of Orgreave (Jeremy Deller, 2001), One Flew Over the Void (Javier Tellez, 2005) and When Faith Moves Mountains (Francis Alÿs, 2002). Writing in 2007, she defines these works as amongst the ‘most significant projects to respond to place of the past five years’, producing dislocations that have been meaningful ‘beyond the specifics of Lima, Orgreave and Tijuana/San Diego’.3 Elsewhere, Doherty explores the issues raised by the documentation of Alÿs’ project, in which 500 volunteers moved a sand dune about four inches from its original position in Ventanilla, an area outside Lima, Peru. As a contribution to the third Bienal Iberoamericana de Lima in 2000, she notes that both the live event and the film that documented it were required to ‘resonate in a highly charged local context and translate to a global Biennale culture’.4 For projects like When Faith Moves Mountains, which exist in multiple forms from the outset (as event and as document) she also distinguishes between ‘originating’ contexts and ‘displaced’ contexts. Drawing upon Doherty’s work, this chapter examines the relationship between site, document and location in several examples of artists’ cinema works, many of which seem to operate between originating and displaced contexts. The majority of these works appropriate modes of address from documentary film and television and some are also directly concerned with themes (such as migration or globalization) that are commonly explored through documentary media. But even though they may evoke the aesthetics of documentary; in terms of cinematography, narrative structure or the use of location sound, or even incorporate interviews, voiceover, archive footage, direct address to camera or dramatic re-enactment, these works rarely claim to be ‘documentaries’. This chapter is organized into two parts, the first of which focuses on a selection of works, by Laura Horelli, Tacita Dean, Christine Molloy and Joe Lawlor (also known as desperate optimists) and Jeremy Deller, all of which originated as public art projects. Each one was commissioned by a publicly-funded agency or organization for exhibition in a publicly accessible, non-gallery, context. All of these works incorporate some element of what might be conventionally termed ‘location shooting’ and three were initially exhibited in close physical 110

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:41 Page 111

Event-sites and Documentary Dislocations proximity to the shooting location. The fourth project (Deller’s The Battle of Orgreave) is more ambiguous because it was a live event staged largely for the purposes of documentation in the form of a film directed by Mike Figgis. My argument is that these processes of production and exhibition give rise to the hybrid formation of an ‘event-site’. The second part of the chapter focuses on works by Pierre Huyghe, Stan Douglas, Melik Ohanian and Gerard Byrne, which involve reconstruction, remaking, re-staging or re-enactment. These four works were all developed for museum, gallery or biennial exhibition contexts, rather than ‘off-site’ or overtly ‘public’ projects or commissions. But, like Deller’s The Battle of Orgreave, each work refers to events that have already been depicted or documented in some public form, whether as Hollywood film drama, Latin American Third Cinema, political documentary or magazine article. The works of Deller, Dean and others assert the production location as a literal site, to use the terminology offered by James Meyer and discussed in Chapter 1. This second grouping of works, however, implies a more open-ended and functional engagement with multiple, dislocated sites of documentation, dramatization and publication, where the alignment of the ‘event-site’ with notions of authenticity is called into question. My use of the term ‘event-site’ is also informed by Pierre Huyghe’s claim that the ‘replay’ now supersedes the event itself, to the extent that representation of the event is now routinely incorporated into the conception of the project.5 Before addressing the relationship between site, event and document, some broader issues concerning the concept of location in both installation practice and film production should be noted. Installation, Location and the Site-specific Project as Film Set In her analysis of site-specific art and locational identity, Miwon Kwon describes a ‘thematisation of discursive sites, which engenders a misrecognition of them as natural extensions of the artist’s identity’.6 In this instance, the ‘legitimacy of the work’s critique [of site, institution or context] is measured by the proximity of the artist’s personal association (converted to expertise) with a particular place, history, discourse or identity, etc (converted to content)’. In other words, the artists’ relationship, not only to the ‘specific’ site or context of production but also a succession of other sites and contexts, provides the frame through which it is interpreted, particularly by critics and commissioners. This is somewhat similar to the operations of seriality in modernist art, where individual works are legible only through reference to the series. Sometimes, however, these personal associations actually become the substance of the work, determining the logic of its production, as in the case of Das Totes Haus Ur, an ongoing work of art by Gregor Schneider in which the artist continually reconfigures the interior of his own home. While Schneider’s work does not feature in Kwon’s analysis, perhaps because it is seems to belong to the category of ‘installation art’ rather than ‘site-specific art’, Das Totes Haus Ur does figure prominently in Claire Bishop’s Installation Art: A Critical History, where it serves to illuminate an important distinction between location and ‘set’. Bishop notes that even though Schneider’s work is literally, as well as metaphorically, tied to a specific dwelling, it does not resist commodification; instead the rooms are reproduced by the 111

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:41 Page 112

The Place of Artists’ Cinema artist as ‘dead limbs’, complete with further alternations and revisions, and installed in galleries, museums and private collections.7 Like all installation works, the rooms of Das Totes Haus Ur undergo a process of (re)construction within the space of gallery or museum once they are detached from the original house. So while the museum or gallery may serve as the actual location of exhibition, this location is secondary to the imaginative setting of the work (Schneider’s house). Here, installation remains integrally linked to its ‘place of origin’ and offers access to an interior space that is closely aligned to the physical presence of the artist without posing any particular challenge to established conventions of authorship or commodification. Many forms of installation practice, however, explicitly counter this recourse to the body of the artist as site of meaning. The key example in Bishop’s account is the work of Mike Nelson, which is broadly comparable to that of Schneider in terms of scale, materials and mode of construction. In addition to various works for galleries and museums, Nelson has developed large-scale sitespecific installations for non-gallery contexts, such as The Deliverance and the Patience, devised for and installed in a former brewery in Giudecca during the Venice Biennale in 2001. As Bishop notes, his work is often marked by a critical stance towards the commodification of art and experience, as well as an overtly cinematic and dream-like quality. Unlike Schneider’s ‘dead limbs’, Nelson’s installations do not derive their meaning primarily from proximity to his own body, imagined or otherwise. Instead, the citation of literary, historical and popular cultural references serves to establish connections with much broader networks of inquiry. So in The Coral Reef (2000), for example, Nelson explicitly references an array of subcultures, social groups and belief systems, ‘the alternatives that form a substrata (a coral reef ) beneath the “ocean surface” of global capitalism in the West’.8 In addition, Nelson’s work is often characterized by the reorganization of established boundaries and the relocation of entrances and exits, which further complicates the dynamics of place, position and location. This strategy was employed in the design of the installation spaces for Nothing is True, Everything is Permitted at the ICA in 2001; Nelson built an elaborate succession of passages and rooms, incorporating a number of dead ends, which proved particularly disorienting for those familiar with the exhibition space.9 The notion of the installation as a ‘set’, in the sense of a stage for the exploration of subjectivity, recurs in Bishop’s account. It is integral to her claim that certain forms of installation art can produce a sense of dislocation or fragmentation while at the same time ‘instating’ a unified subject through their insistence upon the bodily presence of the viewer. In Bishop’s model it is the status of the installation as a constructed set that enables an oscillation, and even antagonism, between fragmented and coherent subjectivities. So, as discussed in Chapter 1, ‘installation art does not just articulate an intellectual notion of dispersed subjectivity (reflected in a world without a centre or organising principle); it also constructs a set in which the viewing subject may experience this fragmentation first-hand’.10 This concept of the set requires elaboration in relation to site-specific art because it suggests certain parallels between site-based practice and the use of non-studio locations for film and television production both of which require the cooperation and material support of various civic agencies and authorities for their execution. It is not unusual for commissioned site-specific works to involve the temporary reinhabitation, or re-purposing, of familiar public sites. Yet this does not mean that such works 112

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:41 Page 113

Event-sites and Documentary Dislocations necessarily emanate from, or originate in response to, a specific site. In fact, the directors of Artangel note that ‘place or location, whether a natural or architectural environment has always emerged at different points’ in the development process; sometimes, it is a starting point and sometimes it remains ‘abstract until very late’.11 This suggests that, even in projects that are experienced as site-specific, locations may have been scouted and secured in a manner that is not radically different from standard practice within the film and television industry. Site-specific works may also evoke aspects of cinematic experience even when they do not involve the moving image. In a text that accompanied documentation of a selection of Artangel projects, Bishop describes the various rituals that shape the experience of art outside the gallery. Initially comparing the journey towards an Artangel project to a kind of ‘pilgrimage’, in keeping with the organization’s use of religious terminology, she then reverts to a different metaphor. She suggests that preparations in advance, such as gathering maps etc., acquire a ‘quasi-cinematic charge’.12 Locations for film and TV production can be chosen specifically because they feature recognizable landmarks or closely resemble the settings that feature in the narrative, serving to enhance verisimilitude. The prominent use of recognizable locations (particularly those that are coded as ‘foreign’ or exotic within the diegesis) has also been identified as a feature of postclassical film production during the 1960s. In an analysis of European co-productions during this period, Tim Bergfelder identifies a shift away from the classical narrative paradigm and a return to the genre formulas of the 1910s, particularly the episodic adventure serial. The most successful version of this revival is, he argues, the James Bond series, which has replicated the ‘attractions of the European adventure film [such as] foreign locations, special effects stunt acrobatics … on a gigantic and epic scale’.13 While it might seem somewhat implausible to compare an Artangel project to a James Bond film, Bergfelder’s analysis is interesting for its re-conceptualization of the location as a spectacular ‘attraction’. In cinema studies, the term ‘attraction’ is widely associated with Tom Gunning’s analysis of the overtly ‘presentational’ modes of address that are found in early cinema, revived in certain forms of avant-garde film and also (according to Scott Bukatman), invoked by the use of visual effects in post-classical genres such as science fiction.14 Once location is understood in the sense of ‘attraction’, it is possible to see how site-specific art projects might evoke the tensions between narrative and spectacle that are integral to the pleasures of certain post-classical film genres. Furthermore, these tensions might occur instead of, or perhaps in addition to, the oscillation between the fragmented and coherent subjectivities that Bishop identifies in installation. This phenomenon is most relevant to those projects where the parallels between the location shoot and site-based artwork are actually foregrounded, as in the case of The Battle of Orgreave. Documentary Desires and the ‘Event-Site’ Writing in the early 1990s, Michael Renov laments the ‘relative impoverishment of a documentary film culture, an energized climate of ideas and creative activities fuelled by debate and public participation’.15 In recent years, however, documentary has emerged as a point of connection between practitioners and researchers in the fields of visual art, ethnography and visual 113

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:41 Page 114

The Place of Artists’ Cinema anthropology to the extent that in a publication from 2008 Renov notes a ‘remarkable vitality within the realm of contemporary non-fiction media … bringing the documentary world in evercloser contact with the realm of contemporary art’.16 It is likely that Documenta 11 (2002) contributed to this renewed vitality by focusing attention on a diversity of intersections between artists’ cinema and documentary since the 1970s in a programme that included works such as Naked Spaces: Living is Round (Trinh T. Minh-ha, 1985), Handsworth Songs (Black Audio Film Collective, 1986), and From the Other Side (Chantal Akerman, 2002).17 The documentary turn within art practice and curatorial discourse has also been paralleled, and perhaps even prompted, by the emergence of activist practices that are characterized by a pronounced trans-nationalism. 18 In recent years, Irit Rogoff has noted a shift in artists’ cinema towards a mode of practice ‘that informs in a seemingly factual way, but at slight remove from reportage.’19 Exemplified by the work of artists such as Anri Sala, Francis Alÿs, Jeroen de Rijke and Willem de Rooij, this work is associated with the exploration and articulation of ‘newly imagined realities’, which are not necessarily anchored within a particular location yet perhaps evoke certain ‘claims to the real’ associated with documentary.20 Noting that this type of work is sometimes characterized by a ‘level gaze of considerable duration’, she points out that, while this gaze may operate from the ‘edge of the world’, criticality is not necessarily aligned with marginality. In fact, Rogoff suggests that in certain forms of documentary practice the marginal is often constructed in terms of ‘tumultuousness’. In this model, what she perceives as the conventional ‘western gaze’ becomes overwhelmed by what it ‘observes to be a chaotic or irrational logic of the elsewhere’21 a logic that is essentialized and placed outside the spatio-temporal order of the West. By contrast, she argues that a ‘level and therefore unsettling gaze’, such as that found in the films of de Rijke and de Rooij, seems to acknowledge the existence of multiple temporalities while also revealing ‘the co-joining of space and time’ in globalization. At this point, it is useful to recall a number of ‘fundamental tendencies’ or ‘modalities of desire’ that Michael Renov has identified as particular to documentary, and which intersect and overlap in contemporary artists’ cinema. The first modality, the ‘record/reveal/preserve mode’ is linked to the need to represent a mimetic or ‘real’ quality that is ‘common to all of cinema [but] intensified by the documentary signifier’s ontological status’.22 This desire sometimes finds expression in explorations of archival formations and in works that exploit or emphasize the indexical properties of film. The second modality is concerned with persuasion or promotion while the third, the desire to analyse or interrogate, is sometimes aligned to a Brechtian critique. I will return to the second and third modalities at a later stage (the fourth, to express, is perhaps less relevant). But first, I want to explore the impulse to record/reveal/preserve as it clearly invites analysis in relation to site-specific projects that engage with the history of a particular place or community. There are, of course, many precedents in artists’ cinema for the exploration of history through the archive or archival fragment. In her contribution to Ghosting: The Role of the Archive within Contemporary Artist’s Film and Video, Lucy Reynolds traces the exploration of found footage as ‘fragment’ through the history of experimental film. Echoing Benjamin’s theorization of the archive, she argues that for Ken Jacobs, Abigail Child and Morgan Fisher, among others, the fragment is aligned with a process of multiplication rather than with disintegration or 114

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:41 Page 115

Event-sites and Documentary Dislocations destruction. Reynolds questions whether the viewer ‘trained to perceive meaning through cinema’s unbroken narratives, can … experience this cinema of fragments as anything more than a breaking down of meaning, and thus the onset of a pervasive sense of anxiety and loss’.23 One possible outcome is suggested: It could be argued that the found footage film requires the viewer to become an archivist, transforming a passive state of perception into an active process of restoration, by piecing together new meaning drawn from personal memory, association and imagination.24 This address to the viewer as archivist is closely linked to the indexical qualities of found footage and so might not seem directly relevant to all of the works under discussion in this chapter. But if the fragment is understood through reference to Benjamin’s distinctively spatial exploration of the ruins and debris of the arcades, other processes of multiplication may emerge in the interplay between event, document and the multiple sites of production and exhibition. Uriel Orlow, another contributor to Ghosting, is more interested in the role of the artist (than the viewer), who is characterized as an ‘archive thinker’ engaged in the deconstruction of the notion of the archival. To search the archive is, he suggests, to experience it as continually slipping away – a dynamic that becomes apparent in works such as Susan Hiller’s The J. Street Project (2002–2005), an inventory of 303 roads, streets and paths throughout Germany that bear a name which refers to a former Jewish presence.25 Existing as a video work, a book and a series of photographs, Hiller’s project explores the limits of memorialization, particularly in the traditional form of the public monument or memorial, which may actually suppress rather then preserve memory. According to Orlow, Hiller ‘creates a milieu for memory, a visual archive; a conceptual, time-based “space” where remembrance becomes possible’.26 But he does not fully address the formation of this time-based space or identify exactly where and how it comes into being. The concept of the ‘milieu’ for memory is derived from Pierre Nora’s 1989 article ‘Between Memory and History: Les Lieux de Mémoire’, which actually claims that there are ‘no longer milieux de mémoire, real environments of memory’ and instead only ‘lieux’ or ‘sites’ of memory.27 According to Nora, these lost ‘milieux’ are exemplified by ‘peasant culture, that quintessential repository of collective memory, whose recent vogue as an object of historical study coincided with the apogee of industrial growth’.28 Prefiguring Huyssen’s analysis of mnemonic culture, discussed in Chapter 3, Nora argues that the prevalence of the material trace, exemplified by the monument, signals a shift from true memory to history. The boundary between memory and history is not entirely fixed, however, and the site of memory is itself characterized by its hybrid form, emerging at the intersection of the material, the functional and the symbolic. Within these categorizations, there are further distinctions: the material attributes of memory might be portable, topographical or monumental. Although the latter implies fixity, Nora emphasizes that monuments can be relocated without a loss of meaning, which is not the case with topographical ‘lieux’, which ‘owe everything to the specificity of their location and to being rooted in the ground’. Here, Nora cites as an example the conjunction of ‘tourism and … historical scholarship’ in the location of the Bibliothèque Nationale on the site of the Hôtel Mazarin, in Paris.29 115

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:41 Page 116

The Place of Artists’ Cinema The concept of the ‘lieux de mémoire’ presents a number of challenges when thinking about the ‘event-site’. In Nora’s model, memory is resolutely aligned with the concrete as well as with spaces, gestures, images and objects, while history is bound to temporal continuities, events and to what he terms as the ‘relations between things’. Artists’ cinema certainly encompasses an engagement with the concrete and the spatial, typically responding to or incorporating material traces of architecture or infrastructure. However, my analysis suggests that locations of production and sites of exhibition are very often chosen by artists for their generic significance (as spaces of labour, leisure, etc), indicating an awareness of, and sensitivity to, the ‘relations between things’. Instead of attempting to recover a ‘true memory’ (associated with the lost milieux of peasant culture) these works are marked by a productive tension between the functional and the symbolic, which may perhaps be most pronounced in works that do not privilege the material trace. Dislocations of Labour and Leisure in Helsinki Shipyard/Port San Juan (Laura Horelli, 2002–2003) Before extending my exploration of sites of memory and the event-site further, it is useful to consider an example of documentary practice in artists’ cinema that focuses more narrowly upon the spatial relations between people and things; through its strategies of production and exhibition. Laura Horelli’s Helsinki Shipyard/Port San Juan is a two-channel video work exploring the connections between two very different places, linked by the economy of the cruise ship. In the opening shot of Helsinki Shipyard, a worker surveys the construction area, exclaiming ‘it’s impossible to imagine that a cruise ship will come out of these small pieces’. This comment introduces a theme that runs through the work concerning the tension between the visible surface and less visible forces associated with flows of capital, labour and desire. Both videos consist mainly of interviews, some of which are conducted in a relatively casual manner that emphasizes Horelli’s presence within the same physical spaces as her subjects. The use of a handheld camera at certain points also enhances the sense of immediacy, even urgency, communicated in her voice as she poses questions off screen. Originating as a site-specific project, curated by Paula Toppila for the PR’02 [En Ruta] Biennale in San Juan and Bayamon, Puerto Rico (2002), Helsinki Shipyard/Port San Juan was first shown on separate monitors in Diner’s, a San Juan restaurant favoured by crew members from the cruise ships. It was subsequently included in Manifesta 5 alongside a broad range of works that explore the image of the ship, and the figure of the artist as sea-farer.30 Horelli conducted numerous interviews with workers in Helsinki and San Juan, almost all of whom are identified on-screen by name and job title, and intertitles are used to present factual information in support of her analysis of labour relations.31 The structure of the work, and the relatively didactic quality of the intertitles, aligns it to the persuasive (second) modality of the documentary film described by Renov. The textual insertions that punctuate the interviews frame the project within the discourse of sociological research but, because sources are not provided in the manner of an academic (or indeed journalistic) report, Horelli’s inquiry seems subjective, even idiosyncratic. 116

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:41 Page 117

Above and next page: Laura Horelli Helsinki Shipyard/Port San Juan, 2002–2003 2 channel video installation, 14:19 /17:39 min, colour, sound Courtesy Galerie Barbara Weiss, Berlin

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:41 Page 118

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:41 Page 119

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:41 Page 120

The Place of Artists’ Cinema Although Helsinki Shipyard is interspersed with occasional shots of the cruise ships, many of the interviews take in place in relatively mundane settings, such as offices complete with conventional desktop computers as well as plans and diagrams of cruise ships. The company has gradually moved away from the construction of heavy icebreakers towards cruise ships, which are characterized by ‘surface and luxury’. This shift provides the frame for much subsequent discussion about the changing nature of the production process, in which workers are under increased pressure to meet targets and deadlines. One of the managers explains that the company now competes on the open market for business, rather than negotiating for contracts at governmental level. Although it has become increasingly reliant upon subcontractors, often outsourcing elements of the production process, this change in production is not necessarily apparent to outsiders. A subsequent discussion of pollution regulations also points towards the unreliable nature of the visible: the ships are not allowed to emit black smoke while travelling through Alaskan territory, even though visible smoke may actually be less dangerous than invisible emissions. One of the engineers explains that the cruise ships are getting longer each year, partly to cope with the width restrictions imposed by the Panama Canal. Holding up a diagram of a ship’s hull, she explains that at the narrowest point of the canal there is often only half a metre on either side of the ship. The Helsinki shipyard is too small to accommodate the new ships, however, so these will have to be built elsewhere in the country. In another scene, Horelli asks a foreman in the ‘Interior Outfitting Department’ if he can imagine a floating city in the future. He replies that the ships are already floating cities, with everything but a parliament, and this statement is followed by a torchlight tour of the tiny cabins for the crew members, as though to illustrate the limits of this ‘city without a parliament’. Later, the focus shifts towards the experience of the passenger as a designer explains that the interiors are deliberately elaborate and excessive in order to ‘help the time pass’. One consequence of this focus on surface decoration, however, is that the construction workers experience a growing sense of alienation from the process of production – one man claims there is ‘no longer any sign’ of what he made in the finished ship. Port San Juan opens with an interview with a cruise company representative, hinting at some of the constraints shaping this part of Horelli’s inquiry. As noted in an intertitle, the cruise companies selected all employees to be interviewed on board the ships, and only one (an unnamed beauty therapist) agreed to talk while off-duty. Even though the company representatives boast that they ‘own the bay’ of San Juan (capital city of Puerto Rico, itself a dependent territory of the US) crew and passengers are not necessarily familiar with the city. Many remain on board, unwilling to spend money on food or afraid to venture out because they have been warned that San Juan is dangerous. The ships are sold as ‘destinations’ in themselves, so they do little to support the Caribbean tourism industry, with land-based visitors spending three times the amount of money onshore as cruise passengers. Again, in her questions to the crews, Horelli introduces the theme of the ship as ‘floating city’ and managers happily embrace the idea, proudly explaining that the ships even feature prison cells and hospital beds. In fact, as the intertitles point out, six of the eight major cruise lines in the Caribbean actually own private islands, offering (in Horelli’s words) ‘simulations of what the Caribbean supposedly was or should be’. 120

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:41 Page 121

Laura Horelli Helsinki Shipyard/Port San Juan, 2002–2003 2 channel video installation, 14:19 /17:39 min, colour, sound Installation view, Galerie im Taxipalais, Innsbruck, 2005. Courtesy Galerie Barbara Weiss, Berlin

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:41 Page 122

The Place of Artists’ Cinema This is followed by a series of excruciating exchanges with crew-members engineered by Anthony, a manager and ‘social host’, obviously assigned to monitor Horelli. At first he simply selects interviewees but he soon takes over entirely, exhorting ‘Ashley from India’, ‘Angela from Peru’ and ‘Daniela from Romania’ to proclaim their enthusiasm for the company. At various points, however, the camera appears to wander unsupervised, tracking across huge (and often deserted) restaurants, bars, theatres and casinos. Despite all attempts to stage-manage Horelli’s interactions with the crew-members, the life that many of them describe emerges as less than appealing. All seem to work seven days a week, from early morning to late at night, for a minimum of six months and, because the ships are often flagged in countries like Liberia, their employment rights are severely limited. It is difficult to see what the potential benefits might be for any employee with a degree of choice and mobility, but one brief exchange towards the film’s close hints at the hidden appeal of this artificial world. As she moves through one of the bars, a female worker gestures towards the city beyond the portholes. She exclaims, ‘I took three weeks on vacation – I was in Aruba, it was great, I cannot complain. But when I am inside, when I am on board I feel more secure – it’s weird isn’t it?’ As Irit Rogoff has noted, many artists have turned their attention towards the sea and shipping industries in recent years precisely in order to investigate global flows of labour and capital.32 But Horelli’s focus on the cruise ship enables a particularly self-reflexive exploration of the relationship between forms of material and immaterial labour, in which the practice of documentary is directly implicated. In recent years, she has begun to explore a more participatory approach to her video work, partly informed by her experience of recording and editing Helsinki Shipyard/Port San Juan. In an interview with Marius Babius, she notes that some of the shipyard workers in Helsinki were curious about the funding of her project, and many were surprised that she had the resources to visit San Juan. At one point, she overheard one worker complain ‘she probably gets paid better than we do’ and this prompted her decision to become ‘more present in the work’. As a consequence, she subsequently focused on sociology as a form of labour that connects directly with her own practice, and is perhaps more attuned to the dynamics of complicity that are integral to her work.33 This shift in Horelli’s approach raises interesting questions with respect to those forms of artists’ cinema in which the activities of mediation and negotiation are obscured, rather than addressed. The Everyday and the Ephemeral in Presentation Sisters (Tacita Dean, 2005) Tacita Dean’s signature style of extended takes, static cinematography and natural or ambient lighting clearly indicates her sensitivity to the time and space of production. This does not mean, however, that she is averse to using the various tricks that have long formed part of the documentary repertoire, and which necessitate the collaboration (or collusion) of her subjects, and I will return to this point later. Tacita Dean’s 16mm film Presentation Sisters was filmed in the Presentation Centre on Evergreen Street in Cork, which is home to a group of nuns belonging to the Presentation Order. The film was first exhibited in a former school house next to the Centre, alongside a series of dry-point works on alabaster, entitled Presentation Windows, 122

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:41 Page 123

Event-sites and Documentary Dislocations which incorporated references to the architecture of the sacristy.34 Both the dry point series and the film continue to circulate outside this context and are not always shown together. At the Berlin Biennial in 2006, for example, Presentation Sisters was screened at regular intervals in a semi-darkened room on one of the upper floors of the Former Jewish School for Girls, the most historically loaded of the various ‘rooms’ on Auguststrasse that hosted the exhibition. The installation was relatively low-key, with little alteration of the former schoolroom interior beyond the construction of a projection booth. Presentation Sisters occupies an interesting place within Dean’s practice both because of its origins as a publicly-funded art project and because it has been acknowledged as the product of a collaboration with its participants, who include the five members of the Presentation Order based at Evergreen Street. The film is both a response to a specific site, a complex of predominantly nineteenth-century buildings including a convent, chapel and graveyard, and a document of the daily life of the women who live and work there. Dean first became aware of the site when she was brought on a tour of the city by the project commissioners, and was attracted to the small picturesque graveyard. When Dean discovered that the site was still occupied, however, she was determined to include its inhabitants, who she perceived as the last remaining adherents to an old order.35 Her expectations in relation to the sisters were somewhat confounded, however, by the fact that they are actively engaged in reinventing their home as a resource for local communities and also a living memorial to their founder (Nano Nagle) who challenged the eighteenth-century Penal Laws by educating Catholic children.36 The Presentation Order supported Dean’s project from the outset because they were aware of the historical and cultural significance of the site, and sought to promote awareness of it within the city and beyond. The Order was originally founded with a strong emphasis on outreach into the community, and the sisters’ participation in Dean’s film is very much in keeping with this mission. According to Sister Carmel, one of the main collaborators, the main role of the Evergreen Street community is one of ‘hospitality’, offering an unexpected link to the discourse of relational aesthetics. The Presentation Centre is apparently widely used by a range of local groups, including women, recovering addicts, young people and recent immigrants. Yet the film actually features only the sisters and their housekeeper, so the various communities that benefit from the sisters’ ongoing hospitality remain as invisible as the artist and the production crew.37 During the research process, Dean showed the sisters some examples of previous works that might be relevant to the project. These included The Uncles (2004), which focuses on a conversation between Winton Dean and Jonathan Balcon about their fathers Basil Dean (1888–1978) and Michael Balcon (1896–1977). Yet Presentation Sisters is in many ways much closer to Dean’s portraits of buildings or institutions, such as Palast (2004), which captures the play of light on the glass surface of the former Palast der Republik in Berlin, and Kodak (2006), which documents the final days of a film manufacturing plant in France. All three films are concerned with material traces of memory (monuments, buildings, machines) that are animated by mechanical forces and the movement of light as well as by the habits of their occupants and users. Each film is also marked by an anthropomorphic impulse: bringing something to life while at the same time mourning its transience. But while Kodak depicts a wholly interior world and Palast presents only the exterior, 123

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:41 Page 124

Above and next page: Tacita Dean Presentation Sisters, 2005 Anamorphic 16mm, optical sound, 60 minutes Courtesy the artist, Marian Goodman Gallery, Paris and New York and Frith Street Gallery, London

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:41 Page 125

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:41 Page 126

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:41 Page 127

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:41 Page 128

The Place of Artists’ Cinema Presentation Sisters pays more attention to the boundary between them, attuned to the rituals of the sisters as they move between the building and its garden. Presentation Sisters opens with an image of the graveyard on a sunny morning in high summer, with Nano Nagle’s stone tomb visible in the background. There is little indication that this calm place is located in the centre of Cork city, apart from a barely audible hum of traffic in the distance. Although the buzzing of insects and the green grass seem to suggest a place that is very much alive, the first shot of convent is framed by the barren branches of a tree, hinting at a different mood. Soon, however, the convent comes to life, as the sisters’ ‘day’ begins to unfold, much in the manner of the early ‘city symphony’ films, and also pointing towards (more oblique) connections with feminist explorations of the everyday, most notably Chantal Akerman’s Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai de Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975). The combination of lush anamorphic cinematography and domesticity also situates Presentation Sisters in relation to classical film melodrama in the era of Technicolor, and the framing of certain shots recalls the compositional strategies used by Douglas Sirk to suggest isolation or repression.38 A close-up of an upstairs window, against which a butterfly flutters, is particularly evocative of the melodramatic register, recalling the framing devices and other visual metaphors used by Sirk to signal the impossible desires of female characters. Much of the action is relatively mundane, depicting each sister within her own domain (kitchen, dining room, garden or office) as the day unfolds, and then focusing on the meals and other rituals that they share. At one point, the sisters all leave the house and walk towards the garden in a line. The action appears slightly staged, perhaps because the camera remains static and at a distance, revealing the fact that the production process involved a degree of artifice. Although edited to give the impression of a single day, it was actually shot (with a crew of three camera operators) over three consecutive days, with additional location sound recording. The sisters agreed to wear the same clothes for the duration of the shoot in the interests of continuity, and this, combined with the unusually consistent weather, adds weight to the illusion. Certain sequences also emphasize the differences between the sisters, most obviously in a scene in which Carmel, Maeve and Helena watch a Gaelic football match on television. They are clearly engrossed in the match and their absorption is contrasted with that of Margaret, who is depicted cutting rhubarb in the garden in a scene filmed on another day. The re-ordering of events in the editing process is wholly conventional within documentary filmmaking, as is the strategy of re-staging. Michael Renov notes (with particular reference to Flaherty) that ‘the desire to retain the trace of the fleeting or already absent phenomenon has led the nonfiction artist to supplement [the] event-in-history with its imagined counterpart – the traditional walrus hunt of the Inuit which was restaged for the camera, for example’.39 So it should be no surprise to discover that Dean used several cameras and slightly restructured the order of events. Yet both the subject matter of Presentation Sisters and the discourses of (material) authenticity that circulate around Dean’s use of 16mm film tend to amplify the ‘truth claims’ of this work. Dean herself has emphasized the relationship between analogue media and ‘description’:

128

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:41 Page 129

Event-sites and Documentary Dislocations Analogue, it seems, is a description – a description, in fact, of all things I hold dear. It is a word that means proportion and likeness, and is, according to one explanation, a representation of an object that resembles the original; not a transcription or a translation but an equivalent in a parallel form: continuously variable, measurable and material.40 She goes onto assert a link between analogue media and embodied interiority, defining ‘analogue’ primarily as the opposite of ‘digital’, and largely acknowledging the elegiac and nostalgic quality of her investment in celluloid. Even though it focuses on a group of women who are clearly very much alive, Presentation Sisters is marked by an elegiac treatment of light. Its structure also suggests a literal and metaphorical descent into night. The interior of the house (actually an airy tall building located on a hill) seems unnaturally dark in many scenes, perhaps due to the extreme brightness of the July sunshine visible through doors and windows. As the ‘day in the life’ of the sisters progresses, the cameras dwell on the slow movement of light around the building, tracing reflections along the gloss-painted walls and across the glass-fronted bookcases. Eventually, the sun begins to set slowly in the hills and its last rays are captured in a mirror, with the steady gaze of the camera recalling Dean’s study of a solar phenomenon in The Green Ray (2001). The final shot is filmed from above the spire that adorns the chapel, as the city below gradually slips into darkness. These closing shots are amongst the few to hint at the urban setting of the convent and there is only one other point in the narrative where the busy world outside is evident. This is a shot of Sister Helena, filmed from across the street as she walks down the road and turns into the entrance, wearing a traditional habit (not worn by the others) that acts as a reminder of an earlier era. Even though Dean was aware of the changing function of the Presentation Order with the city and the world beyond, her film does not address these issues directly. The place occupied by the sisters within the city is in fact shaped by some of the same processes of regeneration and spatial delimitation that give rise to initiatives such as the European Capital of Culture, discussed in Chapter 2, which provided the context for the funding and commissioning of Presentation Sisters in Cork in 2005. There is, however, one other allusion to the complex bonds between the sisters and the wider community; this is a scene involving the housekeeper Joan O’Halloran, who is depicted at work alongside Sister Maeve in the kitchen. Although credited as a collaborator like the sisters, Joan adopts a slightly different attitude to the filmmaking: while the other women valiantly attempt to ignore the camera, Joan looks directly at it. This section also features a hushed discussion between several sisters about the funeral arrangements for a nun in another community and, at another point, a shot of Sister Carmel sitting alone at the kitchen table. This is one of the very few occasions where she actually remains still on-screen. The framing of this shot and its placement in relation to the funeral discussion reinforces the fact that, although wholly engaged in the minutiae of the everyday, Presentation Sisters is attuned only to the traces left by the ‘present’ as it slips into the past.

129

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:41 Page 130

The Place of Artists’ Cinema Re-enactment as Fiction and Event: Joy (Christine Molloy and Joe Lawlor, 2008) Over the past decade, re-enactment and remaking have both emerged as significant strategies within artists’ cinema, prompting a range of articles, exhibitions and academic research projects. Adam E. Mendelsohn has suggested that this fascination with re-enactment is, paradoxically, a function of contemporary art’s fixation on the new. Noting that ‘art devotees are junkies that forever chase the new, the ancient, the authentic, the unique, the true, the weird’ he suggests that ‘perhaps the most ethereal, unobtainable “high” is access to the past’.41 The rise of the reenactment may also signal a crisis of belief in the future, in line with the economic and social developments in the post-68 era.42 Chris Darke has also argued that the close of the 1990s was marked by ‘an excess of endtimes – centennial, millennial and digital’, which contributed to a ‘pathological’ dissection of film grammar and history, most obviously in relation to the work of Hitchcock. He cites a range of cinematic ‘returns’ within the realm of feature filmmaking, the most obvious being Gus Van Sant’s re-make of Psycho (1998).43 The work of Christine Molloy and Joe Lawlor (also known as ‘desperate optimists’) operates somewhere between these contexts: circulating in film festivals but funded largely through public art structures. Joy is a short film commissioned by the Arts Team of Birmingham City Council, set in Handsworth Park and featuring a cast of predominantly non-professional performers drawn from the local area. It is one of a series of short films made by Molloy and Lawlor under the heading ‘Civic Life’, each of which was shot in a specific urban context. But Joy differs in certain respects from these earlier works because it was completed during the production of their first feature film, Helen (2008), and features elements of the same setting, plot and characters. Joy opens on a small group of men and women in the middle distance, facing towards the camera. A girl in her late teens is at the centre of the frame, wearing a bright yellow jacket, while the others wear black jackets marked ‘police’. The setting is a gently sloping hill covered with autumn leaves and in the distance another group of figures watches and waits. When the signal is given, the girl in yellow (identified as ‘Helen’) is directed to take up her position as the standin for ‘Joy’, leaving one policewoman alone in the foreground. Moving to one side, the policewoman addresses the camera with these words: ‘A girl has gone missing. Her name is Joy. She was last seen disappearing into the woods that back onto this park. She hasn’t been seen since’. She then explains that the discovery of a yellow jacket in the park has added a new urgency to the ‘quest to find Joy’ but her next words seem to suggest that this ‘urgency’ is mingled with uncertainty: ‘As far as we know, Joy is a beautiful caring and generous girl’, emphasizing that there are many things ‘we’ do not know. This address to the camera solicits the participation of a live audience that is imagined to exist in the same ‘here-and-now’ as those participating in the police reconstruction: ‘We’re appealing to you today, as you watch this reconstruction, to cast your mind back to the day Joy disappeared’. But direct address soon gives way to another approach, as the music begins and the camera starts to track slowly right, moving over the shoulder of the policewoman and up into the air. The title (Joy: A Film by Christine Molloy and Joe Lawlor) appears on-screen and at this exact moment another female voice is heard to issue the order ‘cue the stand-in’. When we next hear the policewoman, the soundscape is radically different – all diegetic sounds (of the 130

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:41 Page 131

Event-sites and Documentary Dislocations park, the wind, the performers) have gone, replaced by voiceover and music, creating a sense of timelessness. The camera now continues its arc towards the right, moving slowly up and panning out over the park. ‘Today we are appealing to you’, the voice continues, ‘you must be our eyes and ears’, but this request only underscores the temporal ambiguity of this event. The reconstruction begins to unfold, with the action now in slow motion; the young woman in yellow begins to walk down the hill, moving towards the path where she embraces each one of her friends before parting. The sunlit parkland setting, combined with the use of slow motion, evokes another exploration of female adolescent friendship and disappearance: Picnic at Hanging Rock (Peter Weir, 1975). The tone of the policewoman’s voice changes, shifting focus from the ‘here-and-now’ towards some other time, as she describes how she deals with the anxieties of parents in this type of situation: ‘I tell them that young people go missing all the time. I tell them that statistically the numbers are in their favour’. As Helen hesitates before she steps off the path and into the park, the narrator gently suggests that ‘Joy may be one of those young people who wanted to get lost’. While the voiceover unfolds and Helen continues to trace Joy’s route through the park, various figures move in and out of the foreground: a boy rehearses a clarinet; three young girls play among the fallen leaves; a young man kicks a football towards her and she returns it. At one point, a group of young boys and girls assemble on the path and look directly into the camera as it passes, while the voiceover suggests that it is important to imagine the woods as ‘a good place, not a bad place’. Finally, the camera follows Helen as she continues up the hill. The light has changed, and the golden glow of the earlier scenes has given way to a much darker mood. Now that we are following her, we can no longer see her face, raising the possibility that the stand-in may herself have been replaced. The spectral quality of the final moments is perhaps linked to the fact that Joy seems to constitute an allegory of Molloy and Lawlor’s own practice as filmmakers. Like the organizers of police reconstructions, they have developed an approach to filmmaking that relies upon the involvement of non-professional performers, often working within an explicitly participatory context of production. Commenting on this mode of production, Ben Slater has suggested that their films constitute a ‘spectral documentation’ of a performance that is usually hidden: ‘the marshalling of camera, crew, actors, space and time [which] needs to be performed with the utmost precision and confidence’.44 While this might be true of many different practices, Molloy and Lawlor’s work is marked by heightened risk because they employ long takes (often more than ten minutes) and shoot on 35mm film.

Next page: Christine Molloy and Joe Lawlor (desperate optimists) Cast and crew of Joy (anamorphic 35mm film, 10 minutes, 2008) Photo by Steve McClean. Courtesy Christine Molloy and Joe Lawlor

131

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:42 Page 132

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:42 Page 133

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:42 Page 134

The Place of Artists’ Cinema Joy is not the only film by Molloy and Lawlor to explore the theme of disappearance, or to stage this exploration in a public space, and there are strong parallels between this and an earlier work entitled Daydream (2006). Like many of the films in the ‘Civic Life’ series, Daydream was funded partly as a public art project, forming part of a series of initiatives intended to support urban community development and regeneration. The opening scene takes place in a park where a group of children have gone missing, and the theme of being ‘lost’, in the sense of being dislocated from the familiar, provides a link between the various scenarios that follow. Some of characters are poised on the threshold of a new life (a new business is about to be launched, the members of a housing association meet in preparation for a building project) while others experience a much darker sense of dislocation. Although there is no direct reference in Joy to the theme of urban regeneration, it is perhaps obliquely evoked in the voiceover description of the moment of transition from childhood to adulthood and the imaginative possibilities of being ‘lost’. Joy also articulates a transition in Molloy and Lawlor’s production model: a shift in balance between the various audiences that their work seems to address, if not actually constitute. These constituencies include the physicallysituated audiences that are imagined during the commissioning and development of a public art project, such as Joy, and the audiences that are likely to experience the work on the film festival circuit. Both the theme of the ‘reconstruction’ within Joy and the continual oscillation in the voiceover between the ‘here-and-now’ and some other time articulate a certain self-consciousness about this split address. From this perspective, it is possible to read Joy as a reflection upon the tensions and interdependencies between two modes of film development and production (the public art project and the short film), and on the possibilities of exploring something in-between. Document as Event: The Battle of Orgreave Devised by Jeremy Deller as a spectacular re-enactment event, commissioned by Artangel45 and staged on 17 June, 2001, The Battle of Orgreave focused on a particularly violent clash during the miner’s strike at Orgreave in South Yorkshire on 18 June, 1984. My discussion here primarily concerns the film of the event, which was directed by Mike Figgis and broadcast on Channel Four on Sunday 20 October 2002. Deller contributed to the production and editing of the film, and apparently conducted most of the research interviews, while also appearing on-screen as observer and interviewee. Yet he has never sought to assert his ownership over the film, just as he has never made any authorial claim upon the subject matter of the work, emphasizing that the event ‘existed in the public domain before it existed in the art world’.46 Instead, he has noted that he wanted ‘to make a political film about the miner’s strike on the back of an artwork’, while simultaneously describing the film as ‘a good piece of evidence of the event’.47 The status of the film as a ‘piece of evidence’ is complicated, although not necessarily undermined, by the fact that its production served as the principal focus and motivation for many of the participants and organizers associated with the event. Although Figgis’ film has not enjoyed the broad distribution of a commercial feature, and was only released on DVD by Artangel Media in 2006, it has been widely exhibited within 134

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:42 Page 135

Jeremy Deller The Battle of Orgreave, 2001. Commissioned and produced by Artangel. Photo by Martin Jenkinson

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:42 Page 136

The Place of Artists’ Cinema contemporary art contexts, often presented alongside a much larger group of artefacts associated with the project. The Battle of Orgreave Archive (An Injury to One is an Injury to All) (2004) includes an extensive collection of documents and audio recordings, relating to the Orgreave re-enactment and the history of re-enactment culture in the UK, as well as various objects (posters, badges, clothing) associated with the miners’ strike. It also features a timeline of factual information and commentary on the strike, extending from the early 1980s to the present.48 The exhibition of the film alongside the Archive retrospectively reconfigures it as part of the original event, as well as re-inscribing it within the context of Deller’s practice. Nonetheless, it is constructed as a television documentary made for a television audience, alternating between interviews, archival material and footage of the re-enactment itself, rather than as a document of an artwork. Although there is no voiceover, extensive use is made of on-screen titles, archive material in the form of photographs, television clips and even time-lapse photography. The reenactment itself was filmed partly with handheld cameras, but cranes and dollies are also used to offer a range of different perspectives on the same action. The editing and the music (at moments of heightened drama) both contribute to the development of a highly dramatic narrative structure, complete with exposition, denouement and resolution. This structure is broadly chronological, moving from preparations to rehearsals and culminating in a section identified as ‘The Re-enactment’, although the interviews tend to complicate this timeline. There is no indication as to when the interviews took place, although it is likely that they formed part of the research process conducted by Deller, and they serve as a means of moving the action along, establishing suspense and reinforcing certain claims made by participants in the reenactment. The film opens with a shot from a position just behind the ‘police’ frontline as it heaves and strains to the accompaniment of ominous drumming. Soon, however, the camera pans to reveal the slightly makeshift costumes of those behind the frontline, and the sense of dramatic realism dissipates. As the rest of the battlefield comes into view, on-screen text introduces the concept of the re-enactment and explains that ‘many of those taking part were veterans of the original conflict’. This is a significant claim, underscoring the existence of an ‘original’ event and asserting the authenticity of this re-enactment. The next sequence documents a briefing given to a group of former miners in a meeting room overlooking Barnsley football stadium, where event director (and former organizer of English Heritage re-enactments) Howard Giles explains the concept and the tradition of the re-enactment. This sequence is crucial to the development of certain ‘characters’ within the narrative, many of whom are interviewed again at the Orgreave site as the re-enactment gets underway. The stadium setting itself is also significant and the camera pans across the empty arena from a great height, obliquely evoking earlier convergences between spectacular entertainment and re-enactment in both proto-cinematic culture and, more recently, in post-classical epics such as Gladiator (Ridley Scott, 2000).49 Deller is then interviewed in an empty field, reflecting upon the origins of the project and his own personal relationship to the events of 1984, which hinges upon the memory of watching television coverage as a seventeen-year-old. A series of ‘experts’ are then introduced in other interviews, including David Douglass (identified as ‘NUIM Branch Secretary for Hatfield Main Colliery and Mining Historian’), Tony Benn (identified as ‘MP for Chesterfield 1984–2001’), 136

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:42 Page 137

Event-sites and Documentary Dislocations Mac McLoughlin (‘Ex-miner and Former Police Officer’) and Stephanie Gregory (‘Former Chairperson of the Rotherham Miner’s Support Group).50 Douglass’ role is primarily to situate the events at Orgreave in June 1984 in relation to the miners’ strike and the economic and social policies instigated by the Thatcher Government. Douglass is depicted in an office surrounded by files and documents, framing him within the narrative as keeper of evidence rather than a direct witness to the event, making overt reference to archival history and practice. McLaughlin, the only participant who can attempt to articulate the experience of the police during the events at Orgreave, emerges as a particularly isolated figure. An ex-army serviceman as well as ex-miner, he explains that he was motivated to join the police force in 1983 in order to serve his community, but soon realized that he and his fellow recruits was being trained as strike-breakers. His contributions, along with those of Stephanie Gregory, highlight the destruction of the mining community and the trauma experienced by many different groups affected by the events at Orgreave. As the narrative unfolds, many contributors explore the possibility that the period actually constituted an era of ‘Civil War’ because of the way in which the strike, the Thatcher Government’s tactics and the media coverage contributed to the creation of deep divisions that are not yet resolved. This notion also comes to fore in the emotional contributions from a group of former miners at the re-enactment site, many of whom claim that Nottingham workers who profited from the strike have sought to claim the memory of the strike by participating in the re-enactment. The documentary also highlights the consequences of Margaret Thatcher’s provocative claim that the striking miners constituted an ‘enemy within’, incorporating a segment from a Newsnight interview conducted in July 1984. Thatcher claimed that the industry had to be ‘modernized’, a position refuted by Douglass, who points out that mining in Britain was already highly mechanized by the early 1980s. In fact, the closure of the mines gave rise not only to resistance in the form of strikes, political campaigns and activist film and video, but also a process of ‘museumization’ through which educational displays on the history and culture of the miners found their way into the display cases of museums and other public institutions.51 Deller’s exploration of re-enactment culture in the staging of the event and in the formation the Archive, is directly informed by these developments but also attuned to the complex processes of meaning-making at work within popular cultural practices.52 Returning to the film itself, Claire Bishop identifies a pronounced and disconcerting ‘clash in tone’ between the fairground atmosphere of the re-enactment and the emotional interviews with former miners and their supporters. She seems to celebrate this clash, emphasizing that the project as a whole ‘unworks’ community by re-opening the wound created by the original events, rather than offering some form of catharsis.53 Deller certainly seeks to distance himself from a tradition of public art practice that is concerned with the rebuilding of social or communal bonds. In an interview that forms part of Figgis’ film, he insists that the event ‘isn’t about healing wounds. It’s going to take more than an art project to heal wounds’. In fact, this comment marks one of the few references to the event as an art project; a tacit acknowledgment of the fact that it was not perceived by locals in that way.54 Most of the participants are wholly focused on the production of the film and this is particularly apparent at the outset of the rehearsal process when Ken Wyatt (‘Ambulanceman of Orgreave’) delivers a speech welcoming the re-enactors to the town and emphasizing the need to ‘put on a good show’ for the local 137

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:42 Page 138

The Place of Artists’ Cinema audience but also ‘for the cameras’. There is a very strong sense that the filming of an accurate re-enactment at the site of the original event will somehow correct the public record distorted by media representation. Howard Giles, director of the event, emphasizes that there should be no ‘spin either way’, particularly because in this case ‘the reportage wasn’t quite as accurate as it should have been’. The footage broadcast by the BBC showed a group of miners throwing stones, followed by a police charge, but in an apology released in 1991, the BBC admitted that the order of the shots was reversed, ‘in the haste of putting the news together’. The film also explores the historical relationship between conflict and media representation and, at various points, a shared repertoire of cinematic images of war begins to surface. For example, in a sequence involving experienced re-enactors and former miners, the ‘police’ are advised to beat their shields in an intimidation tactic derived from Zulu warriors, evoking scenes from the film Zulu (Cy Endfield, 1964). At another point, in a moment of light relief, a former miner shouts ‘I am Spartacus!’ at one of the organizers and then collapses in laughter. There are also definite links between Deller’s project and the work of Peter Watkins, which explores the staging of conflict as a means of maintaining public order, perhaps most notably in Culloden (1964) and Punishment Park (1971). As is well known, Watkins works largely with non-professional actors and often recruits members of special interest groups to play particular roles in his films. In more recent works, such as La Commune (Paris, 1871) (2000), he favours the use of a makeshift studio over the naturalism of location shooting. There are also significant differences between Watkins’ approach to casting and the strategies employed in the re-enactment at Orgreave. Watkins’ generally recruits non-professional performers who share an ideological connection to the characters they portray, just as in The Battle of Orgreave; most of the former miners are playing ‘themselves’. But in Deller’s event, several of the miners were persuaded to supplement the small ‘police’ group to counter any tendency for the re-enactment to turn into an actual fight. Perhaps more importantly, Watkins and Figgis employ very different approaches to the use of the interview. In The Battle of Orgreave, the interviewers are usually off-camera but in La Commune (Paris, 1871), they are continually on-screen, occupying a prominent and deliberately unsettling place in relation to the diegesis, taking up the position of ‘TV reporters’ even if the events they are covering took place prior to the twentieth-century. Figgis also does not shy away from certain tactics associated with the ‘docu-soap’ genre, such as the development of specific characters. This is most apparent in the coverage of the rehearsal and performance of the reenactment, which is experienced from the perspective of a small selection of ‘characters’. This strategy allows Figgis to explore a conflict between the experienced re-enactors, deputized as group leaders in vaguely ‘managerial’ roles, and the former miners, who are inexperienced as re-enactors yet essential to the authenticity of the event. The tension between these positions becomes apparent in two exchanges involving re-enactors. Struggling to assert his authority over the group of former miners, a young middle-class man explains that he is nervous because this event is ‘ultra-realistic’, while later, a ‘police officer’ in the frontline points out that the former miners are connected by shared experiences and pastimes. Rather than actually acknowledging the shared trauma of the strike and unemployment, he simply notes that many of the former miners continue to drink together in the same pubs and support the same football teams. Nonetheless, he seems to recognize that he lacks a strong connection with his fellow re-enactors. 138

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:42 Page 139

Event-sites and Documentary Dislocations This focus on class difference could be in keeping with Deller’s strategy of ‘unworking’, as theorized by Bishop, but the management of the event ensures that that these conflicts also operate as dramatic devices within the production of a temporally coherent document. Mediated Histories and Multiple Copies: The Third Memory (Pierre Huyghe, 1999) The Third Memory opens with an FBI warning against copyright infringement, punishable by fine or imprisonment, but the repetition of this image across two screens hints at the possibility that these laws might not readily extend to the realm of the gallery or museum. In fact these restrictions are repeatedly flouted through the incorporation of clips from Dog Day Afternoon (Sidney Lumet, 1975), depicting the attempted robbery of the Chase Manhattan Bank in Brooklyn on August 22, 1972. The robbery was led by John ‘Sonny’ Wojtowicz and the event was dramatized with Al Pacino in the role of ‘Sonny Wortzik’. Shortly after the release of the film, Wojtowicz publicly contested its accuracy in a letter first published in Gay Sunshine: A Journal of Gay Liberation in 1976 and subsequently republished in Jump Cut in 1977. In the same letter, a copy of which was included in Huyghe’s installation55 along with news clippings and footage of the actual bank robbery, Wojtowicz also protests against his treatment as a prisoner and the violation of his contract with Warner Brothers. The Third Memory ostensibly provides Wojtowicz with the opportunity to tell his own story in relation to the robbery and its media coverage, as he inhabits the multiple roles of narrator, prompter and choreographer of the action. But the short running time (approximately ten minutes) allows limited scope for exposition, let alone contextualization. Both the staging and editing of The Third Memory tend in fact to undermine Wojtowicz’s charge of Dog Day Afternoon as an inaccurate representation: when the ‘original’ and ‘re-enacted’ scenes are placed side-by-side, the similarities are overwhelming. The opening shots take place in a brightly-lit studio set, complete with cashiers’ desks and vault, but the action also extends outside the limits of the set into the darkness beyond. In addition, Wojtowicz is often framed in mid or wide shot so that the floor and ceiling of the set are visible. There is no attempt at naturalism: Wojtowicz addresses the camera directly and the actors step in and out of character on cue and repeat the lines that he feeds them. This introduces the vague possibility that The Third Memory is a re-enactment of the original film shoot, rather than of the robbery. It is also relatively easy to identify thematic and formal connections with Huyghe’s earlier work L’Ellipse (discussed in Chapter 1), also concerned with the use of locations, the structure of cinematic time and space and the theme of doubling. The status of ‘double’ and ‘original’ is never fully resolved in The Third Memory. At one point, Sonny refers to Dog Day Afternoon as the ‘real movie’, but he also claims that he and his ‘troops’ borrowed many of their tactics from The Godfather (released in the spring of 1972), which they saw in preparation for the robbery. In many respects, Huyghe’s work also constitutes a kind of ‘double’ of the analysis of Lumet’s film provided by Fredric Jameson in ‘Class and Allegory in Contemporary Mass Culture: Dog Day Afternoon as a Political Film’. Originally published in 1977, Jameson’s article briefly explores the possibility of splitting Lumet’s film into two separate versions: a ‘neorealist’ documentary on one hand and a ‘glossy robbery film’ on the other.56 139

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:42 Page 140

Pierre Huyghe The Third Memory, 1999 double projection, Beta Digital, 9’46” Courtesy Galerie Marian Goodman Paris / New York

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:42 Page 141

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:42 Page 142

The Place of Artists’ Cinema In general terms, Jameson reads cinema as one of many narrative forms that are integral to the ‘figurability’ of class consciousness but also contribute to the ‘reprocessing’ of social and class conflict. For this reason, he is less interested in the ‘overt political content’ of the narrative than in the inscription of power dynamics in the spatial and social relations between the various characters and settings. The allegory that he describes is initially spatial; the branch office of the bank is envisaged as a ‘colonized space … with its peripheralized and marginalized workforce’,57 while the conflict between the local Police lieutenant and the FBI officer stands for the erosion of local and state-wide power structures by a faceless and decentralized power network. These power relations are further allegorized through the casting of key roles in which ‘Sonny’ (representing the marginalized workers) is played by the star (Al Pacino), Moretti the Police Lieutenant is played by a respected character actor (Charles Durning) and Sheldon the FBI officer is played by a ‘faceless’ unknown (James Broderick).58 It is this aspect of Jameson’s analysis that seems to most closely anticipate the exploration of authorship, characterization and performance that runs through The Third Memory and Huyghe’s practice as a whole. Several commentators have noted a recurring concern with performance and authorship in Huyghe’s work, most notably in Blanche-Neige Lucie (1997), which questions the ‘property relation of self as “one’s own”‘59 and in Remake (1995), a re-filming of Hitchcock’s Rear Window in which the actors attempt to recall and reproduce the action in the original film, shot-by-shot. Jean-Christophe Royoux notes that Remake articulates Huyghe’s interest not only in the notion of collective memory but also in the figure of the actor as a ‘free-time worker’, whose labour is specifically associated with the time and space of leisure. According to Royoux, cinema serves as a ‘huge public archive’60 that is integral to the formation of ‘spaces of common reference’, where the imaginary and the real intersect, compose, and decompose. Television, however, is associated with a very different form of temporality, constituting: [a] time of continuous representation whose programming is the negative (copy) of a typical day in the life of the average worker. As a dominant model of the staging of the real, the programming of free time seems more than ever to be based on the model of work time.61 This model is clearly at odds with the public service ideal, organized around the social and familial rituals that make-up the typical ‘day’, instead, it describes the experience of television in a post-public service era characterized by flexibility. Royoux’s theorization of television also introduces the possibility of other ‘negative’ copies of the ‘typical day’. The Third Memory actually hints at the existence of such a copy through a doubled image of a bank vault complete with floor-to-ceiling metal bars: one vault belongs to a scene from Dog Day Afternoon and the other is constructed in the studio. This generically inflected image evokes another space that is neither wholly private nor wholly public: the space of the prison cell. Wojtowicz actually served a total of fourteen years in prison and he first saw Lumet’s film (by special permission) while he was incarcerated, prompting him to begin his letter-writing campaign. The threat of prison is present in Dog Day Afternoon but it is never directly represented on screen. In The Third Memory, however, the event of the robbery is inseparable from Wojtowicz’s experience of prison, where he lost not only his physical freedom but also all ownership of his life story. 142

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:42 Page 143

Event-sites and Documentary Dislocations Dislocating Sound and Image: September 11, 1973 _ Santiago, Chile, 2007 (Melik Ohanian, 2007) Melik Ohanian has employed various forms of appropriation and re-making in his work, without necessarily engaging in a straightforward ‘re-enactment’. This ambiguity is particularly apparent in September 11, 1973 _ Santiago, Chile, 2007, a two-channel work that appropriates both a three-minute fragment and the entire soundtrack of The Battle of Chile: Part 2 (1977), directed by Patricio Guzman. Before exploring the structure of Ohanian’s work in more detail, it is necessary to briefly contextualize Guzman’s film. The Battle of Chile is a trilogy that documents the overthrow of the Allende government; the footage was smuggled out of the country and made into three documentaries in Cuba during the mid-1970s, released internationally but banned in Chile. Guzman has continued to focus on the events of 1973 and their historical representation and, twenty years later, he returned to his native country to screen The Battle of Chile and conduct a series of interviews with young people as well as several people who appeared in the original films. This process formed the basis for a new documentary entitled Obstinate Memory (1997).62 Guzman is not the only political filmmaker whose work has served as a source and point of reference for Ohanian. Invisible Film (2005) is an earlier two-channel work in which one video consists of the soundtrack to Peter Watkins’ film Punishment Park (1971), displayed as white text on a black background. Set in a dystopian and not-too-distant future, Watkins’ film mimics the form of a documentary and it depicts an experiment in social control in which those charged with social order offences are offered the chance to evade prison by enduring two days in a desert nicknamed ‘Punishment Park’. The other component of Invisible Film is a single static shot of a 35mm projector in a desert; there is no screen and no audience and the only sound is the whirring of the projector and the distant, muffled audio of Punishment Park. As the sun sets and the desert slips into darkness, the beam of the projector becomes more pronounced but the film itself remains ‘invisible’. This work can be read partly as a pointed comment on the ‘invisibility’ of Watkins’ film, which received only a limited distribution when it was first released. But although it is marked by an elegiac quality, there is no real way of knowing that the film being projected is indeed Punishment Park. Similarly, the site of projection might be any desert, so it is impossible establish a definite connection to the production location used in Watkins’ film.

Next two pages: Melik Ohanian September 11, 1973 _ Santiago, Chile, 2007 HD video on DVD with surround sound. 90mn photos © Vartan Ohanian Courtesy the artist / Galerie Chantal Crousel, Paris / Yvon Lambert, New York

143

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:42 Page 144

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:42 Page 145

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:42 Page 146

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:42 Page 147

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:42 Page 148

The Place of Artists’ Cinema Ohanian’s recent work seems to be more directly concerned with the temporal structure and form of documentary. It also invokes the concept of ‘suture’ associated with 1970s psychoanalytic film theory through its exploration of the coup as a cut or break. The theme of the ‘cut’ also figures in Guzman’s original film, which frames the events of September 1973 as an unprecedented break in Chile’s long-established and (in Latin American terms) unique tradition of representative democracy. In September 11, 1973 _ Santiago, Chile, 2007, sound and image are again dislocated across two channels: the installation at the Venice Biennale consisted of a flat screen monitor with speakers suspended on one wall of a darkened room, opposite a large scale video projection. The monitor presented the soundtrack of The Battle of Chile in the form of subtitles, accompanied by audio, while the clip from Guzman’s film and the footage of presentday Santiago was projected. The projection opens with a shot of two teenage boys sitting on the edge of a pavement singing directly to the camera in Spanish; although the words are not translated, the tone is gentle and slightly mournful. The scene shifts to ‘Santiago, Chile – 1973’ and the opening credits for Guzman’s film appear, followed by (black and white) footage of people running towards the camera, accompanied by the sounds of sirens and distant gunfire. The voiceover narration of Guzman’s film, delivered in French and subtitled in English, explains the events preceding the coup from a perspective that is clearly sympathetic to the Allende government. The narrator points out that an unsuccessful coup was staged on June 29, 1973, resulting in the deaths of 22 people. As a soldier on-screen appears to take aim at the camera, the voiceover continues: ‘An Argentine journalist films his own death. He also records two months before the final coup, the true face of a sector of the Chilean army’. The shot is interrupted and the screen fades to black before reverting to Ohanian’s footage of present day Santiago, in which ordinary people go about their business on the streets and in the subways. The highly animated audio track from Guzman’s documentary continues to emanate from the speakers on the opposite wall, creating a very different sense of space and time. The relationship between past and present is not simply one of contrast, however. This is because the subtitles from Guzman’s film appear on both screens and ambiguous parallels emerge when they are overlaid on the contemporary footage. As Guzman’s narrator describes the entry of tanks into the city in 1973, the present day movements of cars and pedestrians observed from above acquire a sinister cast. Later, when protesters loyal to the Allende Government chant the phrase: ‘use a heavy hand!’, the camera lingers on the passive hands of commuters as they travel up the escalators in a busy station complete with ‘revolutionary’ murals. Many of the locations referenced to by name in the documentary also appear on-screen, including the La Moneda Presidential Palace, and the industrial ‘belts’ where workers’ cooperatives attempted to defend the Allende Government. This strategy recalls the oscillation between narratively- and discursively-motivated settings theorized by Paul Willemen. It also calls attention to the structure of Guzman’s documentary, in which the (failed) coup of June 1973 functions as a dramatic device, prefiguring the events of September. September 11, 1973 _ Santiago, Chile, 2007 offers a more open-ended exploration of temporality, exploring the complex processes of memorialization and erasure that shape the formation of national history. This becomes particularly apparent in a sequence set in the Headquarters of the Communist Party of Chile, where the camera picks out the portraits of 148

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:42 Page 149

Event-sites and Documentary Dislocations both Allende and Fidel Castro before dwelling on an array of ‘lieux de mémoire’: from graveyards, graffiti and statues of Allende in the city streets, to the street signs at the sites of former cooperatives and the television studio that hosted debates between the opponents and defenders of the Government. This is not a roving ‘spectral’ camera, however, and Ohanian’s use of static shots suggests detached observation rather than some kind of haunting. The latter part of the work is also marked by a shift in tone towards a more polemical mode of address, closer to that of The Battle of Chile. At one point in Guzman’s film, a group of union delegates debate whether all industries should be nationalized. A contributor representing the Allende Government position tries to explain that this is not possible because of ‘international relations’, pointing out that Chile’s external debt is fixed by ‘Swiss capitalists’ at the Club de Paris. His opponents argue that this logic will not persuade the workers, whose concerns are more ‘local’ – demonstrating the historical precedent for contemporary anti-globalization struggles in South America and elsewhere. At this moment, the mood of the present-day city depicted on-screen seems to change as members of a new generation of activists gather on the streets, carrying banners for the Communist Party along with other organizations. The atmosphere is buoyant, even festive, before the arrival of armoured vehicles and mounted cavalry in riot gear. The final section of The Battle of Chile focuses on the (sometimes covert) role of the news media in the formation of a democratic public sphere, detailing the subsequent exposure of the CIA’s involvement in the coup, including the financing of protesters against the Allende government. As Guzman’s narrative approaches September 11, 1973, the date of a plebiscite intended to determine public support for Allende, present-day Chileans (mainly men) browse through the daily newspapers in a public archive or library. Then the temporalities of both films appear to briefly converge, not in some imagined future, but on September 11, 2001. In the most pronounced sign of an authorial ‘voice’ in Ohanian’s work, a stop-motion montage presents a series of framed newspaper clippings, each of them a front-page spread depicting the Twin Towers on fire. Later, as the voiceover is describing the bombing of radio masts on the day of the September 1973 coup, Ohanian’s camera documents the empty stands and dusty interiors of a sports stadium in present day Santiago. In the closing minutes of his film, however, the demonstrators are again gathering on the city streets, suggesting the continual renewal of the country’s democratic tradition and apparently answering the call to arms issued by Guzman: ‘The Battle of Chile has not ended’. Landmarks and Relics: Inconsolable Memories (Stan Douglas, 2005) If Ohanian’s project of re-making is marked by a polemical stance, then Stan Douglas’ work offers a striking contrast in tone. Inconsolable Memories is a two-channel 16mm film installation that draws many narrative elements from Tomas Gutierrez Alea’s 1968 film Memories of Underdevelopment, one of the first films to be produced in post-revolutionary Cuba, itself adapted from a celebrated novel by Edmundo Desnoes. Set in 1962 against the backdrop of the Cuban Missile Crisis, Alea’s film centres on Sergio, a white intellectual who remains in Cuba after his wife and family leave for Miami. Living in the Focsa apartment building, once a symbol 149

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:42 Page 150

Stan Douglas Inconsolable Memories, 2005 16 mm black and white film, sound, loop; 2 synchronized film projections; 15 permutations at 5 minutes 39 seconds © Stan Douglas Courtesy David Zwirner, New York

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:42 Page 151

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:42 Page 152

The Place of Artists’ Cinema of modernist progression, he walks around Havana remembering and imagining events, and questioning his relationship to the present. The original film is also distinctive for its blurring of boundaries between fiction and actuality: in a scene that seems to fold actuality into fiction, Sergio attends a public roundtable discussion in which writer Edmundo Desnoes appears as a participant. Alea makes extensive use of freeze-frames, often interspersed with montages of still images that are highly reminiscent of Chris Marker’s La Jetée (1962). At one point, clips from various other films, all featuring female nudity, appear to rewind and play again. This action is loosely motivated by the fact that some of the characters work for the Government and are involved in viewing and reviewing censored scenes, but it also highlights Sergio’s active fantasy life and attachment to the past. In Douglas’ version, the action has been transposed to 1975 and 1980, the latter being the year of the Mariel Boat lift when thousands of Cubans, including a group of convicts, left for Miami from the port town of Mariel outside Havana. Sergio, recast by Douglas as a black architect, is one of the convicts offered the opportunity to leave for the US, but he decides at the last moment to remain in Havana and, like the protagonist of Alea’s film, seems to live in a world of memory and regret. Like a film that has been reconstructed from memory, Inconsolable Memories echoes and amplifies certain self-reflexive strategies that are already present with Alea’s film, such as the use of narrative ‘loops’ to articulate Sergio’s experience of time.63 Fragments of television broadcasts and newsreel are also found in both works, although they tend to be more jarring in Douglas’ version. Certain elements are faithfully reproduced, such as the sequences where Sergio observes the outside world through binoculars. In both versions, the apartment is the centre of the action; the setting for a succession of temporally ambiguous interactions that are often accompanied by voiceover. There are, however, significant differences between the two versions in relation to production and exhibition. Within Inconsolable Memories, the theme of the temporal loop is articulated materially through the projection of two intermeshing film loops onto the same screen within the exhibition space. Both loops consist of series of black-and-white film sequences and blank film and, as they are unequal in length, fifteen different permutations of the narrative (each 5.39 minutes) are created.64 At various points, the soundtrack of one loop overlays the picture of another, while at other moments, two-line titles are generated through the conjunction of the loops, creating phrases (such as ‘An Endless Problem’, ‘Another Situation’, ‘A Familiar Adventure’, ‘A Tropical Problem’, ‘A Forgotten Situation’) that suggest mistranslations of Hollywood film titles or pulp novels.65 There are also significant differences in the realm of location shooting. Alea’s film makes use of highly mobile camerawork, capturing Sergio’s point of view as he moves through the city streets, parks and cafes. In contrast, Douglas relies almost entirely on studio production, making extensive and overt use of back projections, models and sets so that all of the settings appear highly unstable. This strategy heightens the sense of spatial dislocation introduced within the original film, recalling the fact that, at one point, Alea’s Sergio scans the streets of Havana with his telescope, reflecting to himself that ‘suddenly, it looks like a set, a cardboard city’. Although each ‘permutation’ of Inconsolable Memories is relatively short, it is still difficult to piece together the sequence of events as they unfold in the ‘present’ and Sergio’s recollections. 152

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:42 Page 153

Stan Douglas Inconsolable Memories, 2005 Installation view at Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha, NE 16 mm black and white film, sound, loop; 2 synchronized film projections; 15 permutations at 5 minutes 39 seconds © Stan Douglas Courtesy David Zwirner, New York

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:42 Page 154

The Place of Artists’ Cinema The scenes set in 1975 centre on events surrounding the departure of Laura (Sergio’s wife) and his friend Pablo. Echoing Alea’s film, Sergio travels to the airport with Pablo in the latter’s car. In Douglas’ version of the scene, the overt use of back projection serves to disconnect the car from its surroundings so that the passing landscape is reduced to a series of images. At one point, Pablo adopts the manner of a gangster and tears a banknote in half, explaining that its serial number will serve as a primitive code. Later, he sends Sergio a package that causes him to be arrested and imprisoned for four years. The main ‘prison’ scene, echoing a shot from Alea’s film, suggests a theatrical tableau in which years are compressed into moments. In one exchange with his fellow inmates, Sergio mentions the ‘code’ that he used with Pablo in order to establish his credentials as a criminal. One of the other prisoners mocks this method, pointing out that a pattern is bound to appear through repetition – suggesting a comment on Sergio’s reminiscences as well as the form of Douglas’ work. In 1980, Sergio gets the chance to leave for the US along with other prisoners but, instead, returns to his apartment, now occupied by Elena. In order to avoid arousing suspicion, he claims to be an acquaintance of a neighbour (Jimmy) but this chance remark appears to lead to his downfall as Jimmy then pursues and stabs him, accusing him of a mysterious crime that is never fully explained. Through this violent act, absent from Alea’s film, and the transposition of the narrative to the 1980s, Inconsolable Memories invokes another cinematic representation of the Mariel boatlift, which is also a type of ‘remake’. The opening sequence of Brian de Palma’s Scarface (1983), which was scripted by Oliver Stone, incorporates elements of newsreel footage of the boatlift and speeches by Castro denouncing the departing Cubans. De Palma’s film derives certain narrative elements from the 1932 film of the same name, directed by Howard Hawks and based upon the life and death of Al Capone. However, the lead character is not an ItalianAmerican rising to power in the New York underworld, as in the original Scarface. Instead, Tony Montana (played by Al Pacino) is one of the many thousands of former prisoners rejected by Castro as an impediment to the progress of the revolution. On his arrival in Florida, Tony actually describes himself as a ‘political prisoner’, and his initiation into the Miami underworld is achieved through a political assassination. The moment of transition from the world of the Cuban exile to that of the upwardly-mobile gangster takes place in a exterior scene at a fastfood stand, below a huge and vividly coloured image of ‘Havana’: one of an array of destabilizing visual devices used in de Palma’s film which include back projections and elaborate camera movements. While Sergio cannot leave Havana because he is haunted by his past, Tony seems to embrace a particular vision of the future by embarking on a life of crime in which the ‘underworld’ converges with ‘high finance’. Ultimately, however, he fails to let go of some attachments, remaining pathologically fixed upon his own sister. Sergio is also troubled by his relationships with women, but he is a far less aggressive figure than Tony Montana. In both versions of the story, he is a philanderer who is vulnerable to illogical and self-destructive attachments, which are centred upon places as well as people. Of the many fragments of the past that permeate Sergio’s world in Inconsolable Memories the most significant is the Focsa building itself, an iconic symbol of Havana’s ‘modernity’ at a particular moment, which Sergio cannot seem to escape. He is continually reminded of the past as he moves around the apartment, often alighting upon physical relics such as a photograph of Anna 154

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:42 Page 155

Event-sites and Documentary Dislocations (an ex-girlfriend). The relationship between photographic image and memory is explored in a scene in which the photograph seems to come to life. Anna is walking towards the camera and then she and Sergio are pictured together at the entrance to the Ciudad Libertad. This is one of the few shots in Inconsolable Memories that seems to situate Sergio within the physical setting of Havana. Even so, it is not entirely reliable as evidence of his presence within the city because a very similar image of Ciudad Libertad actually features among a selection of colour photographs by Douglas, exhibited alongside Inconsolable Memories.66 Dating from 2004–2005, all of the photographs in the series depict landmark buildings that are referenced in the work, either directly or indirectly. Many are accompanied by lengthy captions, which chart the history of these buildings as they circulate within conflicting value systems. The Habana Libre/Havana Hilton Hotel for example, has fulfilled many functions, from hotel to command post to embassy and, finally, hotel again. These images cannot be misread as a form of ‘location research’, asserting the authenticity of the sites appearing in Douglas’ film. This is because the exhibition also includes another photographic image, presented separately: a single aerial shot of the ‘Set for Inconsolable Memories’ in Vancouver. This is not the first time that Douglas has highlighted the city’s status as a location for film production67 and the inclusion of this image emphasizes the processes of substitution at work within Douglas’ practice, both in the selection of film and television locations and in Sergio’s own experience of place. Sergio continually experiences waves of dislocation that seem to be spatial as well as temporal. At one point he observes that ‘they used to call Detroit the Paris of the Mid-West’, recalling Douglas’ earlier exploration of spectral memory in La Detroit (1999), and later, as the camera surveys the decaying La Rampa quarter, he continues this process of substitution, explaining that ‘if Havana was the “Paris of the Caribbean” then La Rampa was the Left Bank’. These comments articulate a process of spatial dislocation, whereby the ‘margins’ are continually situated and re-situated in relation to the colonial, or post-colonial, ‘centre’. It is for this reason that Sergio (in both versions of the story) constantly returns to the Focsa building, mapping the shifting relationship between underdevelopment, modernity and progress as he sifts through his memories, embarking on real and imagined journeys within the apartment and the city beyond. The Future Past: 1984 and Beyond (Gerard Byrne, 2005-2007) Described by Gerard Byrne as a ‘reconstruction’ rather than a re-enactment, 1984 and Beyond consists of a video and an accompanying photographic series. It is one of a number of works by Byrne to be based upon material from a popular magazine. In this instance, the source is a discussion entitled ‘The Future of Life’ published by Playboy magazine in 1963 and featuring twelve prominent science fiction authors, including Arthur C. Clarke, Isaac Asimov and Ray Bradbury. The reconstruction has been performed live on at least one occasion68 but my focus here is on the video, which features a group of English-speaking Dutch actors, costumed in conservative 1960s clothing, including pipes and other props. Exhibited as a three-channel video, on flat-screen monitors, this work is marked by more than one form of repetition. This 155

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:42 Page 156

Gerard Byrne 1984 and Beyond, 2005–07 Production Still Courtesy the artist and Green on Red Gallery, Dublin

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:42 Page 157

Next page: Gerard Byrne 1984 and Beyond, 2005–07 Three-channel video installation, nonlinear duration (approx 60 minutes total), twenty black and white photographs. Dimensions variable. Installation shot Kunstverin für die Rheinlande und Westfalen, Düsseldorf, 2007 Courtesy the artist and Green on Red Gallery, Dublin

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:42 Page 158

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:42 Page 159

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:42 Page 160

The Place of Artists’ Cinema is because a slightly different selection of ‘chapters’ is presented on each of the three monitors, so that it is impossible to view the entire work without seeing some scenes at least twice. George Baker describes Byrne’s reconstructions as attempts to extract ‘stories’ from the massmedia by seizing upon forms of communication (such as the advertorial or the staged symposium) that were never actually intended to function as models. A key element within this practice is the artificiality, or ‘in-authenticity’ of the dialogues, which were not intended to be performed, ‘autonomizing further these already autonomized structures’.69 The reconstructions recall certain aspects of Renov’s third modality of documentary desire (to analyse or to interrogate) because Byrne is explicitly concerned with the forms and processes of mediation that are involved in the production of documentary texts.70 The performances in 1984 and Beyond are non-naturalistic in a recognizably ‘Brechtian’ sense and the actors deliver their lines like a series of monologues, emphasizing their status as ‘authors’. T.J. Demos has emphasized the deliberate lack of authenticity in their delivery and the camerawork, noting that the cast ‘mispronounces some English words, and their over-articulate deliveries smack of edited prose rather than spontaneous speech. Moreover, the camera cuts directly to each speaker already in focus, with a precision that betrays careful choreography’.71 In fact, 1984 and Beyond makes no attempt to mimic the conventions of documentary or reportage, even withholding some basic information about the event because it lists the participants in each ‘chapter’ as a group rather than identifying them individually on screen. Byrne also introduces elements of extemporization or improvisation, departing from the published transcript to include several scenes that are devoid of dialogue. The most significant of these is a scene in which seven participants observe each other as one of them performs the well known jazz tune ‘Take Five’. Elsewhere, the characters are pictured speaking on the phone in a glass-walled phone booth, searching through files in a library, conversing with each other out of earshot or smoking in the sculpture garden. The action is also interspersed with close-ups of sculptural objects, which seem to constitute wordless commentaries upon the discussion. The ‘Take Five’ sequence, reprised at a later point in the work, is amongst the most intriguing of these wordless interludes. First released as a single in the early 1960s, this piece of music is significant for its unusual time signature, but also because it encapsulates the mood of popular intellectualism that Playboy sought to project at that time. There are also several disruptions to the ‘1963’ diegesis in this scene, in the form of male and female observers and passers-by in contemporary clothing rather than the cardigans and business suits worn by the performers.72 These interruptions in the diegesis also highlight the absence of women from the discussion, pointing to the circumscribed visions of the future offered by the Playboy articles as a result. Byrne has often exhibited photographs alongside his reconstructions. In the case of the images that accompany New Sexual Lifestyles (1998-2002), also based on a Playboy roundtable, he notes that the photographs ‘work as a dialogue with the video, on the one hand they substantiate the work contextually and spatially, and on the other they operate like out-takes, a slightly detached vision that operates at a different speed. They also serve to physically index the fact that this is a re-construction. They evidence the contemporary situation of the video.’73 Byrne’s photographs cannot be described as production stills; they rarely feature the performers and do not always 160

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:42 Page 161

Event-sites and Documentary Dislocations depict the locations that feature in the reconstructions. In some instances, they may refer to a publication source, but not necessarily as any guarantee of authenticity. The first of Byrne’s film reconstructions, for example, entitled Why it’s Time for Imperial, Again (1998–2002), refers to an event that probably never even took place. It is based on a National Geographic ‘advertorial’ for the Chrysler Imperial car, featuring an encounter between Lee Iacocca and Frank Sinatra. The action is performed three times, as the actors move through a series of exterior and interior locations marked by post-industrial decline. It is generally exhibited alongside a series of photographs that depict both the original advertorial and the spines of various tattered back issues of National Geographic, displayed on a bookshelf. Many of the photographs in the 1984 and Beyond series were taken in America, while the reconstruction itself was filmed in two different locations in the Netherlands: filmed at the Provinciehuis building designed by Hugh Maaskant (from 1959–1971) in the city of Den Bosch, and at the Kröller-Müller Museum in Otterlo. The latter includes a sculpture pavilion originally designed by Gerrit Rietveldt for the Sonsbeek International Sculpture Exhibition (1955) and rebuilt at the museum in 1965, where it now houses several works by Barbara Hepworth. The reconstruction is staged so that the participants appear to move fluidly between these settings, alternating between the glass, steel and stone interiors of the Provinciehuis and the more prosaic space of the pavilion at the Kröller-Müller, where they congregate amongst the sculptures to smoke cigars. In a discussion that recalls James Meyer’s distinction between literal and functional sites as well as Paul Willemen’s analysis of discursively and narratively motivated settings, Lytle Shaw has emphasized the ‘uncontestable actuality’ and the excessive literalism of Byrne’s objects and ‘emphatically present stage sets’.74 Although Shaw is referring specifically to the use of theatrical props and sets in an earlier work by Byrne, In Repertory (2004–2006), his analysis of literal presence can be extended to the set of 1984 and Beyond. The locations at the Provinciehuis and the Kröller-Müller Museum have clearly been chosen for their ‘functionality’, their capacity to signify an engagement with modernism and its associated ideas. Yet like the performers in Byrne’s re-constructions, whose attempts to embody the ‘literal truth’ of archival objects generate a sense of artifice, the locations also acquire a performative quality. This tension between the functional and the literal, at the level of setting, gives rise to a process of counter reading75 so that these architectural signs become unstable and dislocated from familiar histories. Conclusion Returning to Doherty’s distinction between ‘originating’ and ‘displaced’ contexts, referenced at the outset of this chapter, it would seem that the production location is figured as a source of authenticity in certain works. However, there are inconsistencies in their self-conscious use of the documentary idiom, particularly in the case of Dean’s Presentation Sisters and Figgis’ film of The Battle of Orgreave. While both works present their subjects as participants or even collaborators, they share a tendency to downplay contradiction in the interests of a coherent narrative. This is perhaps most obvious in Dean’s work, where the Sisters are relentlessly aligned with the past, rather than in a process of actively negotiating the future. In Helsinki Shipyard/Port 161

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:42 Page 162

The Place of Artists’ Cinema San Juan, Horelli takes up the more traditional role of interviewer, engaging in face-to-face encounters with her subjects. But her interactions with the crew-members suggest that at least some of them lack any engagement with the ‘here and now’ that extends beyond the confines of the ship. In Joy, a public park serves both as the site of a participatory public art project and the location of a film shoot and, as though indexing a process of transition in the work of Molloy and Lawlor, the performers are both the ‘stand-ins’ for others and the ‘stars’ of a short film. While other works involve the re-making of an earlier film or the reconstruction of an earlier event, Joy employs the narrative device of the crime scene re-enactment to explore the tensions and differences between performance and participation. In the process, this film seems to extend the exploration of splitting and doubling evident in the treatment of setting in other works (including those discussed in Chapter 3) into the domain of social relations. Many of the works discussed here have been exhibited alongside archival materials or related art works such as drawings or photographs. In the case of The Battle of Orgreave, this strategy acts partly as a counter-narrative to the film, emphasizing the fact that the ‘originating context’ cannot be reduced to a single or specific event or site. By exhibiting a photograph of the Vancouver studio where Inconsolable Memories was filmed, as well as displaying images of the various locations recreated for the purposes of back projection, Douglas appears to shed light upon his production process while actually generating further ambiguities. The contextualizing materials that Huyghe presents alongside his installation of The Third Memory assert the existence of competing histories and claims through making reference to Sonny’s everyday life in prison. In some works, however, it is the interplay of multiple screens within the architectural space of the installation that generates a critique not only of documentary claims to the ‘real’ but also of the processes through which the specific site (in the form of the production location or the exhibition context) comes to stand in the place of the ‘real’. In September 11, 1973 _ Santiago, Chile, 2007, Ohanian relies primarily on the interplay between disparate, and physically dislocated, sound and image sources in order to articulate the limits of documentary footage. But in the case of Byrne’s 1984 and Beyond, the boundaries between the literal and the functional site are explored by separating the work into component elements (still photograph, performance and projection) to be recombined in various ways, and through the staging of the action across the two different locations of the Provinciehuis building and the Kröller-Müller Museum. Echoing the oscillation between discursively and narratively motivated settings identified by Paul Willemen in the avant-gardes of the 1970s and 80s, these locations become at the same time functional and undeniably specific.

162

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:42 Page 163

Chapter 5 Cine-material Structures and Screens

Next page: Bea McMahon [in,the] visible state, 2008 2 channel dv projection on milk coated mirrors with sound duration 7mins 25 secs screen sizes 120cm x 90cm and 240cm x 180cm Installation, Douglas Hyde Gallery, 2008 Courtesy the artist and Green on Red Gallery, Dublin Photo: Bea McMahon

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:42 Page 164

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:42 Page 165

Cine-material Structures and Screens The pavilion, itself a site of exhibition, in turn exhibited the culture of modernity, for it represented the very architecture of perceptual change the era brought about. Displaying in its structure the modern vision, the pavilion was ultimately a machine to see, and to see differently … The openness of the pavilion further embodied a social inclusiveness that defied elitist, privatised spatial exclusion. Conceived as a social space that was public, the pavilion reinforced the very sense of the public and the kinetic sensation of space made for and used by a public. Giuliana Bruno, Public Intimacy: Architecture and the Visual Arts.1 Introduction Recent years have seen a new wave of artists directing feature films devised for theatrical exhibition. Profiling ‘Hollywood’s New Wave’ in 2006, Linda Yablonsky claims that ‘more and more artists are directing feature films with large casts, big budgets, and elaborate story lines’.2 She cites Douglas Gordon and Philippe Parreno’s Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait (2006) as a prominent example, along with various projects (either completed or in development) by Shirin Neshat, Pipilotti Rist and Piotr Uklanski. One might also add to this list the forthcoming feature to be directed by Sam Taylor-Wood and also Steve McQueen’s Hunger (2008), which has generated significant critical attention in both film and art contexts.3 As precedents, Yablonsky cites various forays into directing during the mid-1990s by artists such as Robert Longo, David Salle, Cindy Sherman and Julian Schnabel, as well as the ongoing work of Matthew Barney. Yablonsky also identifies Andy Warhol as an obvious point of reference for the ‘new wave’ and this connection is particularly pronounced in the case of Douglas Gordon and Philippe Parreno’s Zidane, discussed in Chapter 2. It could be argued, however, that Warhol’s work also remains significant for the current generation because it contested the limits of the theatrical exhibition context. Chrissie Iles has emphasized the importance of the cinema auditorium as a setting for screenings of Empire (1964), the eight-hour running time of which far exceeds that of most features. Noting that ‘Warhol wanted people to walk out’ of Empire screenings, she emphasizes that it should always be projected on celluloid in a ‘cinematic kind of space’. This is because ‘just going to the doorway and seeing a cinema with something in it that doesn’t change is much better than seeing a reel of Empire transferred to video and then shown in a gallery or in a museum of modern art’.4 Here, Iles appears to assert not only the importance of celluloid as material but also the productive tension that may exist between the persistent, apparently unchanging, image of the Empire State building on screen and the occasional movement of spectators into and out of the physical space of the cinema auditorium. In this chapter, I want to consider the materiality of artists’ interventions into the cinema from a slightly different perspective, which is nonetheless informed by Iles’ emphasis on materiality. I am specifically interested in both the physical construction of ‘a cinematic kind of space’, in museums, galleries and other art world spaces, and the immaterial processes and strategies involved in the staging of these spaces as cinematic. Some closely approximate (or even replicate) a cinema auditorium, but others are far more ambiguous in terms of structure, form and cultural associations. 165

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:42 Page 166

The Place of Artists’ Cinema My analysis focuses primarily on works shown either in galleries and museums (by Bea McMahon, Aurélien Froment and Carlos Amorales) or presented in adapted or invented versions of ‘pavilions’ at the Venice Biennale (including examples by Aernout Mik, Andreas Fogarasi, Francesco Vezzoli and Tobias Putrih) or other biennial exhibitions (in the case of Thomas Demand’s work). All are intrinsically concerned with the formation of social space but I want to highlight two different currents, which intersect and overlap. The works discussed in part one explore collectivity through the architecture of cinema and the material physical structures that reference the movie theatre, sometimes staging the exhibition ‘pavilion’ as space for reflection on the history of mobile spectatorship. Part two offers another perspective on this relationship between spectatorship and material objects. It focuses on a diverse selection of moving image works (most of which are projected) that explore the material properties of the screen, rather than the cinema environment. In some instances (as in the work of Aernout Mik) screens are used to organize the circulation and arrangement of bodies within the exhibition space, evoking the material architecture of social control associated with law enforcement. Elsewhere, in Bea McMahon’s work, the position of the screen and the treatment of the screen surface (generating reflections on the gallery floor) form part of a more open-ended exploration of identity, architecture and public space. Finally, both Aurélien Froment and Carlos Amorales offer explorations of the material architecture of the screen that are attuned both to the historical connections between cinema and museum (explored in Chapter 3) and to new developments within the sphere of production, associated with the pervasive use of digital technologies. Before proceeding further, the importance (and particularity) of the Venice Biennale as a context for artists’ cinema should be acknowledged. By the late 1990s, self-consciously cinematic moving image installations had emerged as a notable feature of the Biennale. Two of the multiscreen works discussed in Chapter 3, Turbulent by Shirin Neshat and Consolation Service by Eija-Liisa Ahtila, were exhibited there for the first time in 1999 and they feature prominently, alongside works by Jane and Louise Wilson and Doug Aitken, in at least one influential theorization of artists’ cinema from this period.5 The more recent exploration of ‘cine-material’ structures may point towards a shift in curatorial practice with respect to the moving image, perhaps suggesting that commissioners and curators at the Venice Biennale are actively exploring ways of making the experience of spectatorship distinct (and distinctly object-based) for an art audience. In addition, it should be remembered that the Giardini di Castello, which provides the setting for many of the national pavilions discussed below, also doubles as the site of the Architecture Biennale. So it provides a privileged environment not only for the exploration of architectural form but also for the investigation of a range of related social and political concerns, associated with urban development and planning.6 Functioning as emblems (or at least relics) of national identity, the situation of the pavilions in the Giardini specifically foregrounds the relationship between landscape design, public spectacle and the material architecture of modernity. In a discussion of the work of Jane and Louise Wilson, Giuliana Bruno offers a short history of the pavilion as architectural form. She notes that the term refers to any structure ‘built for the convenience of spectators’ and described the pavilion as ‘spectacular architecture that embraced the very spectacle of modern life’. She also proposes a direct parallel with cinema, understood as a ‘quintessential public space: an 166

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:42 Page 167

Cine-material Structures and Screens inclusive place of social gathering and public transit as well as a site of spectacle’.7 Evidently, however, there are significant differences between pavilions and cinemas. Most of the structures in the Giardini di Castello were not devised to house projected images and some of the architectural interventions and adaptations that I discuss have an obvious practical function. But it is also worth noting that even minor temporary adjustments to these buildings can be administratively complex, involving negotiations with national cultural agencies, and so are unlikely to be entered into lightly by artists or curators. Architectures of Artists’ Cinema: Materialities and Histories Recent intersections between cinema and architecture in the form of the ‘cine-material’ installation should be situated in relation to more amorphous explorations of architecture and design by artists. This wider current finds expression in the prevalence of architectonic models, structures, architectural plans and drawings in contemporary art practice. It is also underscored by the presence of architects and designers (as collaborators or as exhibitors) within many major exhibitions. Alex Coles historicizes this current in a short article on ‘Pavilions’, which references works by Rodchenko, Schwitters and Allan Kaprow among others. He highlights Dan Graham as the figure who has mounted the most sustained enquiry into the pavilion through his writings, models and structures, and also identifies Olafur Eliasson as a possible successor to this role. Coles also identifies major differences between the two, however, noting that while Graham’s pavilions always ‘bring the beholder back to the surface of the work and so insist that they reflect on the act of beholding itself’, Eliasson offers a ‘less cerebral and more phantasmagoric experience’.8 Coles goes on to identify an ‘impasse’ in Graham’s practice, linked to the fact that it explores the conceptual aspects of architecture while failing to push the contemporary boundaries of art in relation to design. He concludes that while Graham may use architects and engineers ‘as tools to help him realise his ideas’ it lacks the collaborative and interdisciplinary dimension often evident in Eliasson’s work. Nonetheless, Dan Graham’s work continues to serve as an important point of reference for contemporary explorations of cinema architecture within art practice. Cinema (1981), which currently exists only as an architectural model and a widely-published text, describes a cinema on the ground floor of a ‘Modern office building … sited on a busy corner’ in which both the façade of the cinema structure and the screen inside, located at the apex of the front corner of the building, are made of two-way mirrored glass. When the film is projected it can be seen both on the screen inside the cinema and from the street outside. The act of projection also enables a view of the audience, due to the disparity in light levels on the outer and inner sides of the mirror. Cinema is obviously strongly informed by ‘screen theory’, as suggested by Graham’s description: In my cinema project it is the screen, instead of the machine, and the system of voyeuristic identifications, which are exposed. It is assumed that the cinema is prototypical of all other perspective systems which work to produce a social subject through manipulating the subject’s imaginary identifications. In the cinema all looks are intersubjective: it is difficult to separate 167

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:42 Page 168

The Place of Artists’ Cinema the optics of the materials of the architecture from the psychological identifications constructed by the film images. The psychological circuit of intersubjective looks and identifications is echoed in and is a product of the material properties of the architectural materials, whose optical functioning derives from the properties of the two-way mirror glass.9 Graham’s Cinema can be read as a conceptual gesture, destined never to be built, but it can also be situated in relation to the history of cinema exhibition, recalling earlier interventions into the space of the auditorium such as Peter Kubelka’s Invisible Cinema (devised in 1950s and built at Anthology Archives in 1970). Surveying the relationship between cinema and museum since the 1960s, Chrissie Iles rejects the notion of any simple opposition between cinema and museum or between the film and ‘art object’ during this period. Instead, in the course of an illustrated survey, she situates the work of both Graham and Kubelka in relation to a diverse array of works, extending from Robert Smithson’s Toward the Development of a Cinema Cavern, or the Movie Goer as Spelunker (1971) to Anthony McCall’s Line Describing a Cone (1973), Michael Snow’s Two Sides to Every Story (1974), Marcel Broodthaers’ Musée d’Art Moderne, Department des Aigles (1968–1972), Gordon Matta-Clark’s Conical Intersect (1975), and a range of recent projects, including the Artists Cinema at Frieze Art Fair.10 Significantly, however, Iles differentiates the past from the present by noting that contemporary artists’ explorations of cinema are now likely to be mediated by memory and nostalgia associated with the materiality of celluloid. Commenting on a range of works extending from Deadpan (Steve McQueen, 1997) to Trailer for a Remake of Gore Vidal’s Caligula (Francesco Vezzoli, 2006), she suggests that the period since the 1990s has been marked by a new wave of artists ‘falling in love with cinema’, precisely at the moment when it is perceived to be ‘in crisis’.11 This crisis is partly rooted in the impending obsolescence of celluloid, a theme that is particularly pronounced in Kodak (Tacita Dean, 2006), and Iles is certainly right to highlight this shift in focus. But the mix of anxiety and nostalgia that imbues Kodak, and other examples of contemporary artists’ cinema, may also be found in forms of art practice where the loss of the ‘cinematic’ (defined in terms of industrial technologies and material processes) is not at stake. In fact, the articulation of a love of cinema, at the moment of its ‘loss’, may be linked to other forms of anxiety and nostalgia, articulated across a variety of practices, in a range of production and exhibition contexts where the relationship between cultural memory and public space is foregrounded. The national pavilion at the Venice Biennale is perhaps one such context, but there are many others. In his explorations of the ‘architectural uncanny’ and related concepts such as ‘warped space’, Anthony Vidler focuses on the potential of architecture to both mark a place (as landmark) and articulate a response to it. He is also interested in ways in which physical place may be mediated by virtual rather than material experiences of time and space. He suggests that the reception of Rachel Whiteread’s House (October 1993 – January 1994), a public art project commissioned by Artangel and the focus of much discussion at the time of its production and subsequent demolition,12 illustrates a certain anxiety about contemporary forms of spatiality. According to Vidler, the proliferation of the ‘void’, in works such as House is linked to a discernible nostalgia for space at the end of the twentieth-century. This nostalgia, he argues, is also articulated in the language used to describe new experiences of space to the extent that the emergence of terms such as ‘cyberspace’ or ‘virtual space’ 168

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:42 Page 169

Cine-material Structures and Screens articulates a need to ‘think the spaceless in spatial terms’, in response to (or perhaps in defiance of ) the possibility of an absolute void. Vidler goes on to suggest that the ‘vituperative attacks’ on Whiteread’s House might have been stimulated ‘by her shockingly simple gesture of shutting space out or, rather, shutting us out of space’: There is not only no room for us in House, there is no space left either. Space is both denied and destroyed; filled, where a modernist or postmodernist sensibility would demand that it be opened.13 While this analysis does not fully address the issues raised by the ephemerality of Whiteread’s intervention, it indicates the extent to which the experience of even an unquestionably physical artefact may be shaped by anxieties concerning emptiness or absence. It is also possible to understand the fear of the ‘void’ through reference to the theorizations of public space that are advanced by Rosalyn Deutsche, among others, and discussed in Chapter 3. Emphasizing that democracy actually derives its legitimacy from ‘the image of an empty place’,14 Deutsche notes that ‘guardians of public space’ continually deny the emptiness that lies at the core of democracy by referring their power to sources of social unity that are imagined to exist outside social structures. It may be that nostalgic explorations of the architecture of cinema, whether in terms of the experience of the auditorium or the fragile materiality of film, also communicate something of this fear of ‘emptiness’. Before exploring the cine-material turn in more detail, it is useful to consider one more perspective on the relationship between materiality, architecture and artists’ cinema. In response to an October survey on the theme of obsolescence, Liisa Roberts has reflected upon her use of 16mm film, as opposed to ‘digitally based mediums’: I was interested in accessing the specific characteristics of film, particularly because of its relationship to photography and thus its structural tie to an index, or what would at a certain point have been an ‘actual’ space and moment of time. I was also concerned with film’s anti-illusionist construction of a moving image based not on the simulation of real movement, but produced by the physical reality of one image following another at a given mechanical speed.15 Roberts argues that because digital (as opposed to ‘archival’) mediums are concerned with the delivery of information and with direct networks of communications, they dispense with ‘the need for any kind of informational translation of experience to be passed on from one location to another’. There are two key points here: firstly, Roberts suggests that in the ‘archival’ medium, time participates in the creation of space through the separation of one moment from the next, and secondly, she emphasizes that the archival is aligned with processes of translation. She goes on to describe a mode of practice in which the film (or archival document) constitutes a ‘potential framework for future actions’.16 The use of the ‘image’ as framework in Roberts’ practice is not limited to film, however, and might instead take the form of a specific building. She describes a project that focuses upon the Alvar Aalto Library in the city of Vyborg, a former 169

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:42 Page 170

The Place of Artists’ Cinema cultural capital of Finland that was annexed by Russia in 1944. The building was designed to exist harmoniously with its surroundings in line with the ideals of functionalism and Aalto’s practice as a designer and Roberts argues that its functionalist form (its ‘most obsolescent feature’) has turned it into a ‘filter of information both past and present’ transforming everything that surrounds it into a ‘reflective present’.17 This analysis of the building recalls the productive oscillation between generic and specific associations already discussed in Chapters 3 and 4, in relation to works by Willie Doherty and Gerard Byrne, suggesting that it may be possible for these same tensions to be embodied in (or perhaps enacted by) a physical structure. Cinemas, Pavilions and Heterotopias Screening programmes have become an almost ubiquitous part of urban public art projects and can encompass highly self-conscious explorations of the cinema experience such as those found in SunsetCinema (2007) by Bik Van der Pol and Apolonija Šušteršicˇ or in 12 Angry Films (2006) by Jesse Jones. Both of these projects involved the presentation of screenings and discussions in purpose-built temporary exhibition spaces, but while the SunsetCinema was a stylish structure located in the centre of Luxembourg, 12 Angry Films took place in a temporary drive-in cinema in Dublin. Devised for a former industrial site located close to Dublin Port, in an area scheduled for redevelopment, the drive-in was designed to operate for three nights only.18 It screened a series of feature length films exploring migration, workers rights and globalization along with six short videos, each set in a car, and produced by group of local artists and activists in response to the features. The soundtracks were broadcast on a frequency local to the car radios, and each screening programme was prefaced with a radio panel discussion featuring participants, researchers and activists. This strategy asserted a relationship between activities of production and reception, while also complicating the familiar narrative of ‘mobile privatisation’,19 whereby the car is figured as the antithesis of public life. The act of tuning the car radio into the 12 Angry Films transmission created a powerful sense of simultaneity,20 drawing the audience into a self-consciously utopian space in which local and global experiences of critique and resistance could be articulated. There is a striking contrast between the use of the car radio in 12 Angry Films and the creation of an immersive sonic experience in The Paradise Institute by Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller (2001). Staged in the Canadian pavilion at the Venice Biennale, the work constitutes an important precedent for many recent explorations of the architecture of the cinema, particularly in biennial exhibitions. While Cardiff’s signature sound works usually offer an experience of space and time that is characterized by isolation, the miniature cinema in The Paradise Institute seems to propose a form of collectivity. At the same time, however, the audience members are required to wear headphones, heightening the immersive qualities of the experience and potentially leading to a form of ‘aural engulfment’ and isolation.21 In contrast, the use of the car radio in Jones’ project meant that other sounds remained audible within the drive-in cinema (particularly as the audience members used their car horns to signal appreciation at the end of each screening).22 Unlike The Paradise Institute, Jesse Jones’s project also focused attention on the journey to and from the cinema. Not only was the drive-in located in a depopulated area, 170

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:42 Page 171

Cine-material Structures and Screens unfamiliar to most of the audience, but also the route and entrance to the site were marked by temporary forms of signage, including a large-scale and overtly sculptural construction spelling out the words ‘Drive In Cinema’. This exploration of the drive-in seems to be attuned to the rituals of cinema-going in another era, such as those theorized by Annette Kuhn in her ethnographic analysis of the reception and consumption of cinema in Britain during the 1930s. Despite its focus on theatrical exhibition, Kuhn’s study yields a number of insights that may be relevant to moving image installation, both in the gallery and beyond. Informed by the Foucauldian concepts of heterotopia and heterochronia, Kuhn focuses on the point (and place) of intersection between ‘cinema in the world’ and ‘the world in cinema’. She emphasizes that cinema memories of this period are marked by an insistence on place and the specificity of the local picture house. During the period analysed in the study, the local cinema functioned as a familiar and ordinary extension of the home and was clearly differentiated from the ‘special occasion’ cinema, reserved for dates as well as formal family occasions. Kuhn also notes that, due to continuous programming, it was relatively common for audiences to see the end of a film before its beginning, and to watch the film several times, challenging the ‘concept of the self-contained narrative with a beginning, a middle and an end, experienced in that order’.23 Whilst Kuhn emphasizes that ‘cinema time is always remembered within the frame of the temporality of the outside world, a temporality that would always eventually reassert itself’, the conjunction and collision between ‘ordinary time and place’ and ‘cinema time and place’ also enables a kind of overlapping or coexistence. In the process, ‘dreams, desires and wishes’ that are associated with the cinema become domesticated in cinema memory,24 while aspects of the everyday world acquire a magical quality. This analysis demonstrates the extent to which the actual and remembered experiences of cinema may converge, extending beyond the physical confines of the auditorium. In addition to publicly-sited projects such as SunsetCinema and 12 Angry Films, cine-material constructions have found their way into major public exhibitions, such as Documenta and the Berlin Biennial. Yael Bartana’s film Summer Camp (2007) depicts the reconstruction of Palestinian homes by a group of (predominantly Israeli) activists and it was presented at Documenta 12 in a purpose-built structure that evoked the early history of Soviet film exhibition. The screening space, which was characterized by a loosely Constructivist aesthetic, seemed to invoke an earlier intersection between montage, avant-garde film and propaganda while also providing a pragmatic solution to some of the acoustic problems of the exhibition venue. Although Bartana’s cinema space was clearly purpose-built, other artists have appropriated pre-existing structures which usually serve other functions. Eric Van Lieshout’s presentation at the 2006 Berlin Biennial featured a series of videos documenting the artists’ journeys through Germany which were screened in an adapted shipping container, complete with raked wooden seating that required visitors to lower themselves into holes. The crude transformation of the container and the claustrophobic quality of the seating added a certain force to Van Lieshout’s uncomfortable onscreen investigations of national identity and migration. Tsai Ming-Liang’s short film It’s A Dream, which formed part of the presentation by the Taipei Museum of Fine Art at the Venice Biennale in 2007, seems to propose a more nostalgic investment in the cinema as ‘national’ space. It should be noted that the Taiwanese exhibition, 171

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:42 Page 172

The Place of Artists’ Cinema entitled ‘Atopia’, did not constitute an official national representation but rather formed part of an extensive programme of collateral events in the Biennale.25 Set in a Taiwanese movie theatre from the 1970s, It’s A Dream offers a playful exploration of spectatorship, identification and desire that references aspects of psychoanalytic film theory. Although not presented on film, it was exhibited at Venice within a replica of a cinema that included a section of the plush red seating, sourced from the movie theatre pictured on screen. This area was curtained off from the main exhibition space and visitors could only enter the seating area when the film was about to begin, underscoring the threshold between the ‘cinema’ and the rest of the exhibition space, as well as the importance of the seating as a material link to an actual Taiwanese cinema. A very different exploration of the cinema as ‘dream’ space can be found in Pierre Huyghe’s ‘puppet show and film’ This is Not a Time for Dreaming (2004), devised as a response to Le Corbusier’s design for the Carpenter Center for Visual Arts at Harvard University. In keeping with the exploration of doubling that runs through Huyghe’s practice, this work reflects upon the latter’s own research into the commissioning and construction process. It is impossible to disentangle the moving image work from the ‘puppet show’ because the film includes the performance and documentation of its presentation for a live audience at the Carpenter Centre as well as exterior shots of the temporary structure that was built to house the performance. The relationship between these various elements is documented in a further element of This is Not a Time for Dreaming, a small publication that is generally exhibited alongside the film. Huyghe’s work does offer parallels with some of the projects discussed in this chapter in that its presentation incorporated a physical structure, constituting a response to a specific architectural context. Its emphasis on a specific architectural ‘auteur’ also places it in proximity to Thomas Demand’s project for the German presentation at the Sao Paulo Bienal, discussed below. This is Not a Time for Dreaming remains distinctive, however, for its attention to (and pronounced disruption of) the conventional temporal relationships between research, production, exhibition and documentation. Each stage in this process seems to have been folded inside the other so that it is impossible to pull them apart. It is not unusual for artist to adapt or revise an installation design for a specific context or site, particularly when combining a moving image component with a site-specific architectonic intervention. But in Huyghe’s practice, this strategy is often made explicit so that temporal and spatial ambiguities become impossible to ignore, tending instead to ripple outwards. Biennale as Imperial Court: Trailer for a Remake of Gore Vidal’s Caligula (Francesco Vezzoli, 2005) Before turning to a selection of works that engage specifically with the context of the national pavilion, it may be useful to consider a cine-material response to the ‘international’ exhibition at Venice. Installed in a darkened space complete with plush cinema-style seating, Francesco Vezzoli’s Trailer for a Remake of Gore Vidal’s Caligula (2005) was first shown at the Venice Biennale in 2005 as part of the international selection curated by Maria de Corral in the Italian Pavilion.26 Although the installation mimicked certain aspects of a cinema auditorium, specifically the seating, the work was screened continuously and the audience were permitted 172

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:42 Page 173

Francesco Vezzoli Trailer For A Remake Of Gore Vidal’s Caligula, 2005 35mm film transferred to DVD, 5 minutes © Francesco Vezzoli. Courtesy Gagosian Gallery.

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:42 Page 174

The Place of Artists’ Cinema to remain in their seats for successive viewings. The location of the installation space alongside many other black box spaces in the Italian Pavilion did not allow for any ‘crowd control’, giving rise to a degree of chaos in place of the orderly queues that are now common for many moving image installations at Venice. In many ways, Vezzoli’s work echoes the broader exploration of remaking and re-enactment discussed in Chapter 4 as it ‘proposes a whole forest of lost referents as a site for action: it is a trailer for an unmade remake of Tinto Brass’ infamous 1979 film Caligula, itself born of a historically accurate script by Gore Vidal hijacked and transformed by the film’s director into a semi-pornographic movie.’27 The various releases and re-releases of Brass’ film, by no means the only feature length version of the Caligula narrative, have also given rise to a proliferation of trailers. Several have appeared on YouTube, capitalizing on the notoriety of the film and claiming that ‘no rumour can match the reality’. Vezzoli’s Trailer takes this hyperbole to comic heights by interspersing an orgy scene with on-screen text in which the story of Caligula is presented as the greatest ever told, surpassing the ‘immaculate birth’ and ‘untimely death’ of Christ. It promises a visceral experience that is ‘so passionate in its extremes you can literally feel it coating you in the tableau’. Although he makes only a brief appearance, Vezzoli presents himself as performer as well as celebrated ‘creator’, citing earlier works such as ‘the international smash hit Le Comizi di Non Amore (2004)’. This earlier film, also shown in Venice in 2005 at the Prada Foundation, is a faux pilot for a television show featuring Catherine Deneuve, Marianne Faithfull and Jeanne Moreau. The cast of Trailer, which stars Milla Jovovich, Benicio del Toro and Gerard Butler among others, also asserts a direct link to the 1979 film through the presence of ‘the ravishing Helen Mirren as the Empress Tiberius in a triumphant return to the world of Caligula’. These stars appear separately, flanked by extras and framed against spectacular backdrops, complete with displays of writhing bodies engaged in comically perverse sexual acts. They all deliver their lines directly to the camera, addressing themselves to ‘Caligula’ as though he might be the filmmaker. While Vezzoli has recently turned his attention to the domain of political power with projects such as Democrazy (shown in Venice in 2007), his parodies tend towards the comic rather than critical.28 But Trailer does seem to offer a commentary on its own conditions of exhibition and its particular place within the setting of the Biennale. It was shot in a Californian ‘villa’, the façade of which vaguely evokes the neo-classical architecture of the Italian Pavilion, but might just as easily feature in the MTV’s Cribs series as the home of a celebrity sports star, musician or actor. The implication here is that both villa and Biennale pavilion can readily be described in the same terms used to sum up Caligula’s Rome: ‘a place thick with lust, overflowing with passion, dominated by corrupt power and sadistic pleasures’. The prominent presence of artworks around the villa, in the form of kitsch reproductions of classical statuary, offers a less than subtle link to the exhibition context. As a pastiche of art world excess, however, Trailer works best as an advertisement, both for Vezzoli and for the Biennale. Appropriately, a low resolution copy of the film recently found its way back onto YouTube and was available to view during the early part of 2008, before it was removed. This version included its own textual preamble, describing Vezzoli’s work as a ‘faux trailer for a non-existent remake’ and proudly proclaiming the fact that it ‘debuted June 10, 2005 at the Venice Biennale’. 174

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:42 Page 175

Cine-material Structures and Screens (Re)Animated Histories: Trick (Thomas Demand, 2004) Trick (2004) by Thomas Demand is a one-minute-long computer animation presented as a looped 35mm film projection. It can be described as a ‘remake’, or perhaps more accurately a ‘reanimation’,29 as it is based upon a segment from an early Lumière film, which used stopmotion animation to create the illusion of plates spinning magically on a table. In keeping with the framing and editing conventions of the early ‘cinema of attractions’ theorized by Tom Gunning, the shot is static and the framing is overtly theatrical. The cinema of attractions, unlike the classical narrative forms that largely supplanted it, often celebrated the status of film as a technological and material artefact, integrating conventions of representation and display associated with science, theatre and fairground spectacle.30 In Demand’s Trick, a dish and two plates spin continuously on a trestle table in the foreground, while at the rear of the room more dishes await their turn. The table is lit from above and strong shadows are cast onto the floor, which is decorated with a geometric pattern. The Lumière original offers only a grainy black and white image of the scene and it would have been shot on a film stock and at a frame speed that preceded the establishment of industrial film standards. In Demand’s version, however, grainy black and white cinematography has given way to the crisp, clean lines of a 3D computer animation, probably realized with the type of software typically used to create visualizations for architecture, cinema and gaming environments. Echoes of the indexical original persist, however, in the slight flicker that seems to animate the surface of the image. As a 3D computer animation based upon an indexical document and presented on 35mm film, Trick clearly mimics aspects of the complex processes of translation employed in the production of Demand’s photographic works. His standard procedure is to begin with a documentary still, from which a card and paper model is painstakingly constructed and then re-photographed to produce a large-scale colour image. Demand’s practice has been situated by some critics in relation to a broader tradition of appropriation, which would include the work of Richard Prince among others. In his analysis of Trick and related works, Bark Lootsma also calls attention to traditions that extend outside the domain of contemporary art, focusing in particular on forms of copying associated with Japanese calligraphy and architecture. He describes a process of meditation in which the production of copies forms the ‘basis for learning and understanding’; the copy never approaches the status of the original. Instead its production gives rise to ‘something else’, which he suggests can never be defined but remains irrevocably linked to the notion of loss.31 Lootsma also points out that Demand typically destroys the models used in the production process, noting that this act of destruction intensifies the sense of loss that is integral to the finished work, and to its status as an ‘autonomous’ aesthetic object. There is obviously a parallel here with the processes explored in Chapter 4, whereby an ‘event’ site is invoked in the form of an inaccessible model. In recent years, however, Demand has deviated from this practice and presented a model used in the production of a photographic work: Grotto (2006), installed at the Prada Foundation in 2007 as one of the Venice Biennale ‘collateral’ projects, featured a photograph, explanatory text and a collection of research 175

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:42 Page 176

Thomas Demand Trick, 2004 35mm-film-loop, 59 sec © Thomas Demand, VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn Courtesy the artist and Esther Schipper Gallery

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:42 Page 177

Cine-material Structures and Screens materials, including postcards, reproductions of artworks, drawings, etc. In a separate room, a large scale model was installed together with an array of photographic lights as though suggesting an interrupted studio scene. The display of this overwhelming collection of research sources did not confirm a point of ‘origin’ of the work, however, but instead intensified the ambiguities that surround Demand’s practice. Demand’s usual strategy of destroying (or at least withholding) the models directs attention towards other losses or absences at work within his source photographs. According to Lootsma, it is possible to identify a link between many of the spaces depicted in these images: Most spaces originally had a highly emotional meaning as a ‘lived’ space. (Bill Gates’ room at Harvard, Hitler’s Bunker, the corridor leading to Jeffrey Dahmer’s apartment, etcetera). This original life that is missing [from] the photographs defines the space more than the enclosure of its walls. But it is exactly that life that has disappeared. It is not even there in traces of dirt, footprints, smells or sounds’.32 Trick is, however, marked by slightly different forms of loss and absence. Like most of the physical models photographed by Demand, the computer model used to create the animation is not accessible to the viewer in its ‘original’ form. Perhaps more importantly, the Lumière film is itself characterized by the celebration of a magical absence – the whole appeal of the ‘trick’ lies in the fact that the plates appear to be spinning by themselves. Clearly, a trick film does not share the same claim to the documentary ‘real’ as the photographs of Hitler’s bunker, yet the original Lumière filmstrip nonetheless serves as a form of evidence. This is because the endless spinning of the plates constitutes the trace of a performer (who might also be the filmmaker), and the stop-motion technique that creates the illusion of continual movement also attests to a human presence behind the camera. The use of computer animation in Trick directs attention towards continuities that exist between early and post-classical cinema, both in terms of the use of special effects and in relation to exhibition strategies.33 But the muted colour palette of Demand’s film, consisting largely of browns, greys and metallic blues and purples, tends to situate it closer to architectural visualization than contemporary science fiction cinema or computer gaming. Trick was in fact first exhibited within the context of an architectural intervention, developed by Demand in collaboration with B&K+ architects as part of the German national representation at the 26th Bienal de São Paulo in 2004. Although modelled after the Venice Biennale, the São Paulo event is characterized by a more understated approach to national exposition and competition. The exhibition traditionally takes place within one venue, the Palace of Industry designed by Oscar Niemeyer in 1953, and in recent years the national representations have been mixed with the international selection or absent altogether. The creation of a structure that could be described as a temporary ‘German pavilion’ within the Niemeyer building could be read as part of a broader exploration of urban space and architectural history within the 26th Bienal,34 but it also constitutes an extension of Demand’s process of duplication. The collaboration with B&K+ architects gave rise to the production of two structures, one housed inside the other. The outer construction, described as a ‘free 177

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:42 Page 178

Thomas Demand Installation, German Pavilion, 26th Bienal de São Paulo, 2004 © Thomas Demand, VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn Courtesy the artist and Esther Schipper Gallery

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:42 Page 179

Cine-material Structures and Screens interpretation and reduction of a bar around a void’,35 consisted of three walls built from floor to ceiling around the two escalators on the second floor. The interior was used to display a selection of Demand’s large scale photographs, most notably Space Simulator (2003). Several additional images were hung on the exterior of the wall, which was finished with wooden slats to match those apparently used elsewhere within the Niemeyer building. This structure in turn housed a small screening room, complete with projection booth and described in the catalogue as a replica of a cinema that exists in another part of the Palace of Industry. This architectural intervention, itself the product and articulation of various forms of computer visualization (documented in the accompanying publication) constituted an extension of the processes of exchange and translation between two and three dimensional structures, and between the physical and digital models that simulated and replicated them. Lootsma suggests that Demand’s intervention can be read as an excavation of certain themes (such as cosmology, space travel and miniaturization) informing architecture and design in the 1950s. He also draws upon Deleuze’s re-reading of Plato, in The Logic of Sense, in order to distinguish between the productive copy (characterized by resemblance) and the non-productive simulacrum, characterized instead by the ‘effect of resemblance’.36 As theorized by Lootsma, the simulacrum possesses a ‘demonic power’, which gives rise to the ‘haunted’ quality of Demand’s photographic spaces. Yet it could be argued that Trick offers a more self-reflexive exploration of the dynamics of ‘haunting’ at work within Demand’s practice, particularly when considered through reference to Derrida’s notion of ‘hauntology’. Towards the close of Spectres of Marx, Derrida focuses his attention on the image of the haunted ‘séance table’ that Marx introduced in Capital in order to explain his theory of commodity fetishism. For Marx the table serves as a privileged example of an inanimate object that acquires life through the dynamics of commodity exchange. Derrida explains that the ‘mystical’ or ‘enigmatic’ character of the commodity actually stems from ‘an abnormal play of mirrors’, in which workers no longer recognize the social character of their own labour in the commodity form. So the haunted table not only refers to the ghostly character of the commodity but also to the process of commodification that transforms human producers into ghosts, by depriving them (like spectres or vampires) of any reflection.37 Proposing ‘hauntology’ as a counterpoint (or corrective) to Marx’s ontology, Derrida argues that the ghost first makes its appearance in use-value. He contends that it is impossible to locate a ‘pure use’ in advance of commodification because of the repetition that is necessarily associated with use-value. Use cannot be determined, he proposes, without some form of repetition, which should be understood as ‘substitution, exchangeability, iterability, the loss of singularity as the experience of singularity itself, the possibility of capital’.38 This means that the ‘ghost’ is already there, even before its first appearance. Certain aspects of the circularity theorized by Derrida seem to find expression in Demand’s thematization of repetition and substitution: just as Derrida seeks to displace Marx’s ontology with hauntology, Demand’s practice plays with presence and absence, invoking the question of origins but deferring the answer through a process of continual substitution.

179

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:42 Page 180

The Place of Artists’ Cinema Freed Time and Public Culture: Kultur und Freizeit (Andreas Fogarasi, 2007) While Vezzoli embraces the theatricality of the cinema and Demand offers a more metaphorical exploration of cinematic illusion and the commodity form, other artists have focused upon the cultural and political history of the auditorium as a context for collective leisure. Kultur und Freizeit (Culture and Leisure) is the title of Andreas Fogarasi’s installation, curated by Katalin Timár for the Hungarian pavilion in the Venice Biennale 2007. The project included six video works displayed in purpose-built screening and seating structures, collectively entitled Six Projection Spaces (2006–2007), and a publication that extends and contextualizes the artist’s exploration of architecture and social history. Each ‘projection space’ is a large wooden box on legs, facing a bench of similar construction, which seats five people at most. This mode of presentation served a highly practical function in the pavilion, enabling the presentation of moving image work in a very bright building that features an interior courtyard and a great deal of glass. These projection space structures, described as ‘room-within-a-room implants’39 also reference a tradition of adaptation that is specific to the pavilion, which has been subject to successive processes of alteration and restoration since it was built in 1909. As Barbara Steiner notes, there are direct links between the theme of Kultur und Freizeit (Culture and Leisure) and the history of the ‘country pavilion’40 at Venice, the original design of which incorporated elements of folk art as a gesture towards a utopian integration of art and life. Many of the videos, ranging from four to eight minutes in length, generate an ambiguous interplay between past and present through the use of on-screen texts and off-camera commentaries. At certain moments, these texts and commentaries constitute questions or unfinished statements, suggesting reflection on the process of research and production. For example, Workers’ Club (2006) incorporates the oblique statement, ‘to be screened in a gallery’, while A Machine for (2006) includes the question ‘What is my interest in this?’. The latter work, shot at the Óbuda Cultural Centre (built in 1973), provides a point of entry into the project. At the outset, the video seems to document a demonstration of the building’s mechanisms – in one scene red metal doors are pulled back to reveal the ‘main stage’ and later, more screens are laboriously manoeuvred to create a large open area. The on-screen text alludes to various benign activities, such as ‘pottery, drawing, singing, and chess’, which might have taken place in the building, but also discloses the somewhat ominous detail that the audience ‘did not always come voluntarily’. At this point, a succession of shots from the roof of the building, punctuated by sudden cuts to darkness, seems to suggest the blinking of a great eye. This optical metaphor is extended in a subsequent sequence of shots depicting the main auditorium: first, rows of seats inch slowly forward to the accompaniment of mechanical creaks and groans. This is followed by shots of the balconies high up at the sides of auditorium and the retraction of the ceiling so that daylight floods the interior, illustrating Fogarasi’s on-screen statement that the audience were themselves under ‘permanent observation’. Not all of the structures depicted are characterized by mechanical functionality: Workers’ Club focuses on a building that dates from the 1900s. Identified as the Apartment House of the Hungarian Printers’ Trade Union, it provides the (actual or imagined) site for various clubs, including the ‘Miniature-Book Collectors’ Club’, ‘Senior Citizens Club’ and even the ‘UFO Club’. There are other deliberate confusions between 180

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:42 Page 181

Cine-material Structures and Screens fact and fiction. The soundtrack to Workers’ Club features music from 1982 by an ‘underground punk’ group, Európa Kiadó, who never performed in this venue41 but were closely associated with the Ikarus Cultural Centre, built in a socialist-realist style in the 1950s and the focus of yet another video, Ikarus (2007). There is very little action in many of the videos but Periphery (2006) does incorporate some evidence of human activity – opening with shots of an interior, decorated with paper lanterns, later revealed as the scene of a children’s performance. In another sequence, footprints in the snow lead towards the entrance of a shopping centre. But the video plays in reverse, so that the footsteps are smoothly erased by two figures appearing to walk backwards into the building, as though sucked in by some supernatural force. Panning right to left across the snow, the camera gradually comes to rest on a group of buildings in the distance and, in the next shot, this ‘rewind’ motion continues, following a trajectory that leads towards the entrance of a different building, the Cultural and Leisure Centre of Dél-Buda. Both the title of this work and the erasure of the footsteps seem to refer to the historical dislocation of workers from the industrial centre of the city, and this work also proposes a more direct dialogue between past and present by incorporating a fragment of an off-camera interview with the director of a different cultural centre. Responding to a question posed on screen, she recounts a small act of resistance against censorship in 1988, which perhaps marks the limit of the overt systems of control that are explored in A Machine for.42 Another video in the series, Arbeiter verlassen das Kulturhaus (Workers Leave the Cultural Centre) (2006), charts the economic changes that have taken place since the late 1980s as a consequence of de-industrialization. The title of this work refers not only to the birth of cinema in the form of La Sortie des usines Lumière (1895) but also to the historical processes whereby the history of labour is memorialised and, in the process, erased. The MOM (Hungarian Optical Works), once located on this site, closed in the early 1990s ‘making place for an office park, a shopping centre and a multiplex cinema’, according to an on-screen text. As Zsolt K Horváth notes, the ‘structural and functional reformation of urban space is perhaps at its most plastic in the case of this factory’. This is because the former educational and cultural centre, complete with socialist-realist relief, has been left standing, ‘crystallizing into an aesthetic experience that meta-historical moment, so vehemently advocated by centres of power, when intellectual, worker and peasant stood together in solidarity’.43 Labour activist Sergio Bologna also provides a valuable insight into Fogarasi’s project and the concept of ‘freizeit’ in his contribution to the publication. He interprets this term as ‘freed’ time, won through political struggle, and describes the shift in the organization of leisure time during the nineteenth century – away from associations with alcohol towards educational organization. He charts the role of mutual societies within this process, gradually moving from forms of welfare and support towards enterprise, under pressure first from trade union movements, religious organizations and subsequently the state. Although the world he describes may appear to be static, even closed, Bologna emphasizes that it was also shaped by migration, particularly within in the ‘port cities’, which lent an ‘international dimension’ to the formation of ‘Kultur’. He also notes the significance of women’s work and experience, from their struggle to be paid fairly for work outside the home to subsequent feminist struggles for recognition in 181

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:42 Page 182

Andreas Fogarasi ‘Workers’ Club’, 2006 video, sound 4:00 min looped Courtesy Georg Kargl Fine Arts, Vienna

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:42 Page 183

Andreas Fogarasi ‘A Machine for’, 2006 video, sound 8:03 min looped Courtesy Georg Kargl Fine Arts, Vienna

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:42 Page 184

Andreas Fogarasi Kultur und Freizeit, 2007 Installation, Hungarian Pavilion, Biennale di Venezia 2007 Photo: Tihanyi-Bakos-Fotostudio Courtesy: Georg Kargl Fine Arts, Vienna

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:42 Page 185

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:42 Page 186

The Place of Artists’ Cinema other forms of labour, going on to trace the gradual erosion of Freizeit in the latter part of twentieth century so that the places (or palaces) of free time are slowly reduced to ‘mute testaments to a gradually vanishing civilization’.44 Echoing the trajectory theorized by Boltanski and Chiapello, among others, this later erosion is articulated in the rise of the ‘precariat’ – a class of workers in precarious employment as a consequence of increased out-sourcing and computerization. Finally, another contributor, Jochen Becker, explores parallel debates around the preservation or transformation of the Palast der Republik in Berlin. He describes a complex dynamic in which the former spaces of East German modernism were briefly reconfigured as ‘free spaces, material and ideological places that appeared to be open for both literal and discursive reoccupation’ through projects such as the ‘People’s Palace’.45 The latter involved the temporary transformation of the Palast into a collective space in 2004, an event that is obliquely referenced in the title of Fogarasi’s Fun Palace (2007), which depicts the Pataky Cultural Centre (built in 1975). As Becker’s analysis suggests, ‘free spaces’ for artists may actually contribute to processes of regeneration; indeed they often constitute a structural element of urban development in the neo-liberal economy. The Cinema Machine: Venetian, Atmospheric (Tobias Putrih, 2007) Venetian, Atmospheric (2007) by Tobias Putrih, the Slovenian representative at the Venice Biennale in 2007, consists of a series of two related projects in two distinct locations: an exhibition of sculptural models, drawings and photographs in Galleria A+A in the centre of Venice, and a temporary outdoor cinema (or ‘cinema-machine’) located on Isola San Servolo. The latter work effectively functioned as a Slovenian ‘pavilion’ and provided a site for the presentation of works by other artists in a series of curated film programmes. The majority of these works were made on film (although several are shown only on video or DVD) and many engaged with sculptural or architectural artefacts. The programme included Chris Marker and Alain Resnais’ Les Statues Meurent Aussi (1953); two retrospectives (one on the Slovenian group OHO, the other a selection of works by John Smith); and two curated selections: one was entitled ‘Future in the Past’ and dealt with science fiction and re-enactment while the other, ‘Cinematic Surfaces’, focused partly on the theme of reflections. My discussion here, however, is primarily concerned with the structure that housed the screenings, which is both a sculpture and a pavilion.46 Putrih has emphasized the problematics of working with objects in Slovenia in the mid-1990s, noting his need to ‘legitimise the production of an object’. He argues that while the creation of objects served as ‘as a counter-statement’, the exploration of cinema structures and forms offered a ‘place of equilibrium’. He states: ‘That’s why I focused on the phenomenon of the cinema auditorium. It’s an “in-between” space: between the reality of the sidewalk and the fiction of the projection’.47 Putrih’s ongoing exploration of this in-between space has centred primarily on the architecture of the movie theatre and, specifically, the work of John Eberson, the Romanianborn inventor of the ‘atmospheric’ cinema. According to Francesco Manacorda, one of the 186

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:42 Page 187

Tobias Putrih Venetian, Atmospheric, 2007 Plan/section/elevation (in collaboration with Luka Melon) Courtesy of the artist and Max Protetch Gallery, New York

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:42 Page 188

Tobias Putrih Venetian, Atmospheric, 2007 Plywood, OSB plates, scaffolding, PVC curtain, 16mm projectors, digital projectors 13 x 8 x 5.5 meters 43 x 26 x 18 feet Installation on the Island of San Servolo for the 52nd Venice Biennale, Slovenian Pavilion Courtesy of the artist and Max Protetch Gallery, New York Photograph by Michele Lamanna

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:42 Page 189

Cine-material Structures and Screens curators of the Venice project (along with Mana Ambroži ), Eberson’s cinemas were intended to suggest the experience of being outdoors in an exotic location. The ceilings accentuated this illusion, taking the form of white domes to ‘give the impression of infinite space, complete with small twinkling lights that evoke stars and special projectors designed to simulate a canopy of moving clouds in the nocturnal sky’.48 Each theatre was intended to evoke a specific location, so the ‘Avalon’ in Chicago (1927) was modelled on a Persian palace, the ‘Tampa’ in Florida (1928) suggests an Andalusian village, and the ‘Paradise’ (1929), which still exists in the Bronx, is based upon a Venetian campo and serves as the principal point of reference for Venetian, Atmospheric. Manacorda emphasizes, however, that Putrih is not involved in a project of re-enactment. Instead he is engaged in a process of experimental exploration in which his models and sculptures utilize materials drawn from the ‘vernacular of prototypes’ whilst operating within an ‘expanded fictional dimension’.49 Putrih describes the ‘Paradise’ as inspired by the ‘Venetian Baroque, with a trademark projected sky, stuffed birds and artificial trees’, noting that it succeeded in attracting audiences during the 1930s despite the Depression because it fulfilled a great demand for escapism. His own cinema is characterized by a far more restrained exploration of ornamentation, and is constructed from the types of material (unvarnished wood, scaffolding) that are widely used to evoke a ‘theatrical’ setting in contemporary art spaces. The thirty seat structure was open to the elements but surrounded by trees, which offered some protection from the elements. The exterior of Venetian, Atmospheric mirrors this setting through the creation of a ‘forest of scaffolding, an irregular structure that will hold up the scenery constituting its interior’ and function ‘like the back of a theatre set’.50 The interior, which is intended to resemble a ‘biomorphic cave’, enclosed a raked seating area with visible scaffolding. The San Servolo location, removed from the noise and lights of the city, also offered visitors the possibility of exiting from the cinema into a night sky full of actual stars. So Venetian, Atmospheric proposes a cinematic experience in which the spectator occupies a doubled position, conscious of both the cinematic setting and its relation to (or difference from) the world outside. It is also informed by Putrih’s understanding of the ephemeral rituals of cinema-going, which are not fixed but rather have evolved in accordance with changing modes of film exhibition associated with: ‘American movie palaces from the 20s, the black box cinemas from the 50s and the rise of the cinemaplex from the late 60s onwards’.51 It is tempting to read the Venice project as a response to the Biennale situation, not least because it echoes the broader exploration of the ‘pavilion’ as a cultural form in recent years. But although Venetian, Atmospheric was originally devised in response to the Venice context, it has also been presented within other settings such as at the ‘Psycho Buildings’ exhibition at the Hayward in 2008, where it was installed on one of the flat roof sections overlooking the city of London.52 Putrih has also employed similar strategies in a somewhat different exhibition context. Prior to the construction of Venetian, Atmospheric, his largest work was A Certain Tendency in Representation: Cineclub at Thomas Dane (2005), a full scale cardboard model for a twenty-five seater cinema in a commercial gallery that screened a programme of films and videos by other artists. Like Venetian, Atmospheric, this earlier structure was ‘simultaneously a sculpture and a display mechanism; an optical prototype and a dream machine’.53 Certain forms of construction 189

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:42 Page 190

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:42 Page 191

Cine-material Structures and Screens are found in both, with thin strips of wood (or cardboard in the case of the earlier work) used to create the walls, for example. At the Cineclub these strips were oriented in such a way that spectators could see through the entire structure if they stood in front of the screen, facing the projection booth. Similar strategies were employed in Venetian, Atmospheric, but the walls of this structure were actually moveable because the strips were suspended like vertical blinds. These ‘blinds’ were ritualistically opened and closed by ushers during the intervals between each programme. This called attention to the exterior environment, underscoring the dynamics of concealment and revelation within the design of the structure as well as referencing the illusory mechanisms of the cinema auditorium. Although Putrih’s practice seems overtly ‘architectonic’, in that it involves the construction of objects and structures, he is principally interested in the built environment as the trace (or container) for experience. His interest in this theme extends beyond the immediate sphere of cinema to encompass an array of ‘quasi-scientific and maybe even therapeutic’54 projects in which participants are required to follow simple rules, working together on a process of collective construction. In these works, it is the experiment or game (rather than the investigation of cinema architecture) that necessitates and, to some extent, legitimizes the production of the object. Nonetheless, cinema emerges in Putrih’s practice as both the principal focus of, and frame for, a sustained exploration of collectivity and spectatorship. The remaining works discussed in this chapter, by Aernout Mik, Bea McMahon, Carlos Amorales and Aurélien Froment, adopt a somewhat different approach to these issues: articulating an engagement with architecture and materiality of the screen without necessarily evoking a specifically cinematic context of reception

Tobias Putrih Venetian, Atmospheric, 2007 Plywood, OSB plates, scaffolding, PVC curtain, 16mm projectors, digital projectors 13 x 8 x 5.5 meters 43 x 26 x 18 feet Installation on the Island of San Servolo for the 52nd Venice Biennale, Slovenian Pavilion Courtesy of the artist and Max Protetch Gallery, New York

191

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:43 Page 192

The Place of Artists’ Cinema Architectures of Spectacle: Citizens and Subjects (Aernout Mik, 2007) Citizens and Subjects, Aernout Mik’s project for the Dutch pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 2007, includes a series of three moving-image works and an architectonic installation. It offers certain parallels with the work of Fogarasi in that it is framed as a political intervention into the material and institutional fabric of the national pavilion, as represented at international Biennales like Venice. Like Kultur und Freizeit, Mik’s project extends beyond the timeframe of the biennial exhibition to include a publication, and it also encompasses a programme of public discussions in the Netherlands, under the heading ‘Practices and Debates’. The publication also incorporates references to recent presentations (particularly by Jeroen de Rijke and Willem de Rooij in 2005) at the Dutch Pavilion, which is sometimes termed the ‘Rietveld Pavilion’ in deference to the designer and architect Gerrit Rietveld. Mik’s project responds directly to a perceived crisis in Dutch society, associated with a shift to the right in discourses around ethnicity, national identity and difference. Curator Maria Hlavajova, who is also the producer of two previous video works by Mik, describes the project in terms of a potential corrective or ‘counterbalance’ to this troubled public sphere: Contemporary art here is understood as a site where larger networks of cultural, political and social discourse intersect, thus creating new possibilities; a site where ideals that could potentially counterbalance troubling developments in the public sphere can be reimagined, where the moment of critique is offset by the creation of affirmative alternatives. The project Citizens and Subjects developed from the urgency to create a space within the traditional context of a large-scale perennial exhibition in which artists, writers, curators, scholars and the general public can engage in critical discussion.55 This affirmative ‘alternative’ may sound somewhat utopian but it is not defined by consensus – instead it is characterized by unease and discomfort. Instead of offering a ‘black-box’ space, in which viewers can take up a position in front of the screen in relative anonymity, Mik’s installation is brightly lit and organized in such a way that it is difficult to view the screen without obscuring the sightlines of other visitors. The videos include two double-channel works, Training Ground and Mock Up (both 2007), both of which depict staged scenarios involving the management of large groups of people, variously cast either as soldiers, law enforcement agents and emergency services personnel or as prisoners and detainees. These videos were shown alongside a four-channel work entitled Convergencies (2007), which consists entirely of found (or perhaps more accurately, ‘hunted’) footage derived from news media sources, depicting police engaged in crowd management and surveillance or detention of suspects. Back projection is used so that the source of the images is not immediately obvious, and all of the projections seem to blend with the environment, which has been furnished with prefabricated structures for office work, service provision or accommodation. The entrances and exits have also been adapted as part of a strategy that is intended to blur the boundaries between the space of the pavilion and the on-screen environment: 192

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:43 Page 193

Aernout Mik Citizens and Subjects, 2007 Exterior of Dutch Pavilion at Venice Biennale 2007 Courtesy the artist and Carlier Gebauer Gallery, Berlin Photo: Victor Nieuwenhuijs

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:43 Page 194

Aernout Mik Mock Up, 2007 4 screen video installation Courtesy the artist and Carlier Gebauer Gallery, Berlin Photo: Victor Nieuwenhuijs

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:43 Page 195

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:43 Page 196

Aernout Mik Training Ground, 2006 2 screen video installation Courtesy the artist and Carlier Gebauer Gallery, Berlin Photo: Victor Nieuwenhuijs

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:43 Page 197

Cine-material Structures and Screens I work with the prefabricated and furnished containers … to somehow destabilize the borders of the type of architecture the Rietveld Pavilion represents. Extending through the three entrances to the Pavilion, these prefab units sort of spread inside and out of the building. It is both something that penetrates the architecture within in a firm way, as well as stresses an opening to the outside world. In both a literal and metaphorical way, these are foreign bodies that challenge the modernist clarity of the Pavilion.56 He goes on to describe both the Pavilion and the prefab unit as ‘non-places’, recalling Marc Augé’s influential analysis of the anthropology of ‘supermodernity’.57 In addition, Mik’s use of terms such as ‘foreign bodies’ and ‘openings’ articulates a specific concern with the dehumanization of migrants, the control of their bodies as well as their movements, and the broader questions of biopolitics.58 It is clear that the viewing space staged by Mik is not aligned with cinema as the scene of some remembered or imagined utopian collectivity. Instead, the overtly ‘national’ setting, the arrangement of the screens around the interior and the source of the footage in Convergencies all reference television. Although historically associated with the formation of a distinctively national experience of time and space, broadcast media no longer occupies a particularly privileged place within the European public sphere. As such, the crisis that Citizens and Subjects alludes to is partly one of media representation. At several points during Convergencies, camera operators appear on-screen or the voices of journalists are overheard in the background. But the mediating narratives typically employed in television to frame this type of material are wholly absent, to the extent that it is difficult to find a point of orientation or to determine if both screens are offering different perspectives on the same event. The video, which has a running time of almost one hour, is punctuated by frequent cuts to black, which seem to differentiate one sequence from another, but despite disparities in setting, action and the uniforms of the various police forces depicted, the footage has a homogenous quality. Generally focusing on interactions between uniformed personnel and unidentified men, who might be migrant labourers, asylum seekers or protestors, the camera usually remains at a distance. This is also true of the staged works, which are silent. While Training Ground has a relatively sombre tone, focusing on the actions of a group of men and women as they rehearse a succession of structured yet opaque manoeuvres, Mock Up features a group of teenagers and is marked by a more chaotic atmosphere. The latter is filmed in Marnehuizen, an ‘exercise village’ in North Holland which contains various mock buildings and serves as the backdrop to a prefabricated ‘detention centre’ for illegal immigrants. According to Mik, the village ‘feels a bit like an enlarged toy for children’, while the mix of ruins and ‘mock’ buildings suggests ‘a strange moment inbetween’ the past and future.59 This ‘in-between-ness’ is heightened by the presence of the adolescents (some of them young girls wearing the hijab), who take on the roles of detainees, guards, police, fire brigade and medical personnel. Both of the staged works are installed so that the projections touch the floor, and ‘mirror the position of the viewer’. According to Mik, this means that a visitor to the exhibition already ‘populates the scene and “enters” into a larger social body under discussion’.60 This description emphasizes the extent to which the project actually relies upon the ‘theatricality’ of installation 197

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:43 Page 198

The Place of Artists’ Cinema for its effects. Significantly, Citizens and Subjects does not specifically foreground the apparatus of projection or direct attention towards the mechanics of perception. Instead, it proposes a relationship between the materiality of the props and settings depicted on-screen and the prefabricated components introduced into the pavilion, generating an experimental scenario in which the boundaries between on-screen and literal space are disrupted. Through its reference to the political potential of the art exhibition as a shared ‘here and now’, Mik’s strategy seems intended to create the possibility for the kind of ‘criticality’ that has been theorized by Irit Rogoff. In a contribution to the catalogue accompanying the exhibition I Promise it’s Political: Performativity in Art (2002), Rogoff has suggested that the art exhibition can be understood through reference to Jean-Luc Nancy’s exploration of ‘being-with’: If being-with is the sharing of a simultaneous space-time, then it involves a presentation of this space-time as such. In order to say ‘we’ one must present the ‘here and now’ of this ‘we’. Or rather saying ‘we’ brings about the presentation of the ‘here and now’, however it is determined; as a room, a region, a group of friends, an association, a ‘people’. We can never simply be ‘the we’ understood as a unique subject. … ‘We’ always expresses a plurality, expresses ‘our’ being divided and entangled; ‘one’ is not ‘with’ in some general sort of way, but each time according to determined modes that are themselves multiple and simultaneous (people, culture, language, lineage, network, group, couple, band and so on). What is presented in this way, each time, is a stage (scène) on which several can say ‘I’, each on his own account, each in turn.61 This is a very expansive understanding of shared space and time, clearly extending beyond the domain of the art exhibition. Yet Rogoff’s analysis of collectivity seems particularly pertinent to the work of Mik because it is informed by Nancy’s theorization of ‘spectacle’. Noting a tendency for critiques of ‘spectacular alienation’ to distinguish between ‘good’ spectacle and ‘bad’ spectacle, Nancy rejects this distinction because it attempts to differentiate between presentation and representation, between expression and the image, ignoring the fact that these are intertwined. Instead, he emphasizes that ‘being-social’ is essentially a matter of ‘being-exposed; that is, it does not follow from the immanent consistency of a being-in-itself … That is why every society gives itself its spectacle and gives itself as spectacle, in one form or another’.62 From this perspective, it is possible to read Citizens and Subjects not necessarily as any kind of ‘alternative’ (affirmative or otherwise) but rather as a necessary part of the spectacle of society to itself. Reflections of State and Subject: [in,the] visible state (Bea McMahon, 2008) Forming part of an exhibition curated by Mike Nelson, Bea McMahon’s [in,the] visible state is a two-channel video work, featuring images projected onto two mirrored screens of different sizes.63 Although physically separated, the projections are synchronized, creating a dialogue between images, sounds and texts so that a sentence that appears on one screen is completed on the other. The screens are coated with buttermilk so that their surfaces become clouded 198

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:43 Page 199

Above: Bea McMahon [in,the] visible state, 2008 2 channel dv projection on milk coated mirrors with sound duration 7 mins 25 secs screen sizes 120cm x 90cm and 240cm x 180cm Installation, Void Gallery, 2008 Courtesy the artist and Green on Red Gallery, Dublin Photo: Bea McMahon

Next page: Bea McMahon [in,the] visible state, 2008 2 channel dv projection on milk coated mirrors with sound duration 7 mins 25 secs screen sizes 120cm x 90cm and 240cm x 180cm Installation, Douglas Hyde Gallery, 2008 Courtesy the artist and Green on Red Gallery, Dublin Photo: Bea McMahon

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:43 Page 200

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:43 Page 201

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:43 Page 202

The Place of Artists’ Cinema and opaque, and the projected image is very slightly blurred. This strategy draws attention to the materiality of the installation and to the role of reflection in the creation of a video projection. When exhibited in the Douglas Hyde Gallery (located on the campus of Trinity College in Dublin city centre) the screens were placed at either side of a cast concrete column supporting one of the gallery floors, leaning at slight angles against two different walls. The ceiling height was particularly noticeable in relation to the smaller screen because the sound emanated not from speakers but from a projector hanging directly overhead. This created a deliberately claustrophobic sense of space and also distorted the soundtrack, which included a monologue delivered by a middle-aged man. Identified in the credits as Derek Hutch, the man in the video paces backwards and forwards on a deserted beach on an overcast day and his words are often difficult to follow, even though they are subtitled. As the subtitles spill out into the space in the form of distorted reflections on the polished concrete floor, Hutch’s words seem to hover in the space between the screen and the gallery. He looks at the ground as he criticizes the expansion of Dublin (a ‘city built for horses’), the greed of property speculators, and the Catholic Church. The narrative then moves seamlessly from public to private matters as he discloses the personal loss and trauma associated with his experience of religion, referring ambiguously to some form of abuse. The audio associated with the second video, projected on a larger screen, is less distorted and the sound (of crashing waves and distant machines) seems to fill the space at various moments before it recedes into relative silence. On the larger screen the action opens with a textual statement, which explains that in 1968 a new ‘complex’ was built near Dublin city ‘at a time when demonstrations occurred regularly in public places’, and the camera moves slowly across black and white photographs of an artificial lake located on a yet another university campus (University College Dublin). Without precisely identifying this location, the text goes on to explain that the central plaza, ‘where crowds of people might normally gather’, was instead filled with water ‘reflecting images of the buildings and sky’. At this point, the focus of the narrative shifts to the concrete water tower that supplied the lake: a distinctive and vaguely futuristic landmark located at the edge of the ‘complex’. Many different strategies are used to represent this structure, from simple animation and compositing techniques to archival photographs, and McMahon also explores this form in two mixed-media works displayed in relatively close proximity to the video installation and identified as Illustration i (Folded In) and Illustration ii (Folded Out). The inclusion of these works, which incorporate photographic images, collage and sculptural elements, amplifies the juxtaposition of production techniques in the video, suggesting a blurring of boundaries between two and three dimensional forms. In addition to the fugitive words of Derek Hutch and the more explanatory statement about the ‘complex’, [in,the] visible state is punctuated by fragments of a text attributed to an ‘Encyclical Letter’ by Pope Benedict XVI, a circular issued in November 2007 and entitled ‘Spe Salvi’. Appearing first on the larger screen, the text reads: ‘Sin is understood by the Fathers as the destruction of the unity of the human and as fragmentation and division’. Later, on the small screen, the statement continues: ‘Hence redemption appears as the re-establishment of unity’. At a key moment, the red light that illuminates the moving surface of a pool of water on the 202

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:43 Page 203

Cine-material Structures and Screens larger screen, possibly within the tower itself, seems to be reflected on the milky surface of an eye that is framed in extreme close up on the other screen. On closer inspection, it becomes apparent that this red light is in fact a reflection of an object in the field of the subject’s vision, possibly a scrolling LED display. The reflection seems to emerge from the centre of the eye as it fills with tears, and the words ‘This is my right’ are repeated three times, appearing in red letters that recall the colour coding used elsewhere in the work. The fact that this reflected text is legible indicates that the video image has been reversed, or that some form of post-production technology has been used to alter the source. [in,the] visible state is obviously concerned with the dynamics of spectatorship and various questions of identity, trauma and repression, which would seem to invoke Lacanian theorizations of the ‘mirror stage’.64 But through the staging of the installation, McMahon gestures beyond this relatively familiar theoretical terrain. The material qualities of reflection provide the point of connection between the milky screens, the polished concrete of the gallery floor, the still surface of the lake and, finally, the eye itself, so that it becomes impossible to disentangle the ‘work’ from the reflections that surround it. Perhaps, more importantly, with respect to my own argument, [in,the] visible state offers an exploration of spectatorship that seems attuned not only to the architecture, the physical location and the institutional setting of the gallery, but also to the anxieties that are generated by the emptiness of public space. Materialities of Post-production: Dark Mirror (Carlos Amorales, 2005) Carlos Amorales’ Dark Mirror (2005) is a two-channel video projection on a floating screen, with animation by André Pahl and an original score and piano performance by José Maria Serralde. These detailed production credits are not incidental to the work but rather integral to Amorales’ practice. Pahl’s animation, predominantly monochrome but with streaks of blood red, is visible from one side of the suspended screen while the reverse of the screen presents footage of Serralde performing his own composition on a baby grand piano. This means that the two projections can never be viewed together. It is impossible to determine whether the images are unfolding as illustrations of the music (in the manner of a classical animation such as Disney’s Fantasia) or whether Serralde’s composition has been devised as a soundtrack to Pahl’s images. In fact, both Pahl and Serralde were invited to respond to Liquid Archive, a collection of digital vector drawings developed by Amorales. The drawings in the archive, which was established in 1999, are made using a technique that is similar to rotoscoping (in which live action footage serves as source material for animation). The drawings are based on photographs of objects or on appropriated images and graphics and once completed they are then archived and categorized for later use. Since 2005, much of this work has been undertaken by an animation collective, working under the name Broken Animals, and described by Amorales as a ‘conscious pauperization of the Walt Disney Model’.65 Amorales’ involvement in these collaborations seems entirely compatible with the art market; Dark Mirror circulates as an edition of five, one of which was exhibited as a ‘new acquisition’ at the Irish Museum of Modern Art in 2008. But although it is conventional for artists to establish 203

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:43 Page 204

Carlos Amorales Dark Mirror, 2005 Two channel projection on floating screen André Pahl (animation) and José María Serralde (original score and piano performance) Edition 2 of 5 6 min. 14 sec. Dimensions variable Collection Irish Museum of Modern Art Photo by Denis Mortell

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:43 Page 205

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:43 Page 206

The Place of Artists’ Cinema studios and hire assistants to work on production projects,66 the members of Broken Animals also participate in regular seminars and discussions, which emphasize a formal and thematic analysis of their project as well as visual production. Their work, which is focused on the creation of the Liquid Archive, forms part of an ongoing inquiry directed by Amorales and defined by him as a ‘contemporary effort to redirect the understanding of fantasy toward obscurity, where the fantastic can stimulate questions (as well as emotion) without giving answers’.67 This project of ‘redirection’ is necessarily collective, and suggests an extension of Amorales’ interest in economic systems evident in earlier projects. In the late 1990s, he developed a series of performative projects exploring aspects of Mexican wrestling (Lucha Libre) through the character of the wrestler ‘Amorales’, modelled after his own identity. He subsequently offered ‘Amorales’ to the official Mexican wrestling federation in 2001 so that the character could be performed by other athletes, indicating the extent to which his work is concerned not only with significatory systems but also their associated economies.68 More recently, Amorales has continually to develop this aspect of his practice through Nuevos Ricos, a hybrid art project and record label established in 2003 with Pahl and the musician Julián Lede. In addition to managing and promoting a number of Mexican and European bands, Nuevos Ricos also produces and exhibits art works exploring aspects of the relationship between rock music and Mexican youth culture, sometimes focusing specifically on the unauthorized circulation of images and music through piracy and boot-legging. While Dark Mirror seems somewhat removed from this territory, it is possible to discern continuity through reference to the processes of translation at work in the animation and in Amorales’ focus on ‘reflection’. Although images derived from the archive often defy interpretation, much of the animation in Dark Mirror is marked by a recurrent formal conflict between figure and ground and the literal fracturing or fragmentation of symbols. Repeatedly, silhouettes of birds, airplanes and other objects hover in the air, fall slowly to the ground and then splinter. Most of these images are two dimensional but as they splinter, they seem to undergo a process of transformation, briefly acquiring weight and solidity. At other moments, multiple images of cartoon-like monkeys populate the screen, all facing in the same direction as though to emphasize their origins as ‘cut-outs’. Here, two-dimensional forms are confronted by a flow of dark viscous paint, which slides from the upper part of the screen to the bottom and gradually covers the monkeys. These sequences seem to stage a kind of mock battle between different media or, perhaps, different orders of visual production and circulation, suggesting a tension between materiality (in the form of paint) and the liquidity of the digital archive. These formal gestures acquire further meaning when considered alongside Amorales’ exploration of reflection in the design of the installation and the recording of the live action sequence featuring Serraldes. The surface of the video image is marked by a slight distortion, which becomes particularly pronounced when the pianist moves. On closer inspection it become clear that the image is a reflection on the highly polished surface of another grand piano, which has been digitally reversed (or ‘flipped’) so that the lettering on the piano remains legible. This use of post-production technology complicates the straightforward opposition between ‘animation’ and ‘live action’ that is suggested by the installation design. Perhaps more importantly, it lends certain ghostliness to the image of Serraldes, whose labour is on display. Jennifer Allen reads this thematic concern 206

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:43 Page 207

Cine-material Structures and Screens with reflection in terms of Amorales’ fascination with the gothic, the fantastic and the obscure, noting that it serves to link Dark Mirror with other works exploring clairvoyancy.69 When considered from a different perspective, however, the theme of reflection points towards a connection with the investigation of the commodity form suggested by Demand’s Trick. Although Serralde’s baby grand piano does not quite constitute a ‘séance table’, it seems wholly appropriate that an ‘abnormal play of mirrors’ should occur in a practice that is so intimately and consistently concerned with economic systems and the value of artistic labour. Theatres of Memory: Théâtre de Poche (Aurélien Froment, 2007) Théâtre de Poche is the title of a high definition (HD) video and a publication by Aurélien Froment, both of which form part of an exhibition that also includes a projected 16mm film, to which I will return at later stage. Presented as the first volume of a journal, but also evoking the form of a theatrical script, the publication offers a circuitous journey through a range of activities (including architectural visualization, handcrafted puzzle production and manual photographic re-touching) associated with processes of translation between two and three dimensions and between page and screen.70 One segment, an interview with architect Benjamin Colboc, is particularly intriguing as it focuses on forms of graphic design and visualization that are widely used in contemporary architecture, particularly in the production of proposals for public competitions. Colboc describes the process of assembling composite images, incorporating material derived from the site and the client as well as stock sources such as digital picture libraries. Working within the constraints specified in the brief, Colboc uses various types of software to create the structure and the surface before ‘rendering’ the composite image to ‘simulate an authentic atmosphere’. Froment’s inclusion of this interview in the publication seems to frame his inquiry within a critique of spectacle. It also foregrounds certain strategies at work within the exhibition, such as the establishment of distinct ‘points of view’ through the use of various props, including a prompter’s box and projection booth. The video, filmed on HD and presented on a plasma screen within the gallery, depicts a darkened space – a void in which a magician assembles a mysterious selection of images, presenting them to the viewer in a manner that evokes the frontal staging of early cinema. Emerging from darkness in the opening shot, a hand discloses a selection of small photographs to the camera, one by one. Occasionally two or three images cling together, disrupting the smooth process, and with each little stumble the soundtrack music seems to glitch, as though looping back on itself. All of the photographs initially look like film stills, many featuring well known actors (such as Harrison Ford in Witness and Regarding Henry) but sometimes the scenes are hard to place even if the film is familiar, and many are not recognizable. Some may not be production stills at all, but rather candid shots taken on Hollywood sets. The principle that guides the selection and the link between the images is elusive and just beyond reach, like the eerie, almost recognizable music. As though acknowledging this mystery, the camera slides from left to right, accompanied by a dramatic drum roll. When it slides back to the centre, a card trick is presented, but it is played with cards that suggest a colour chart. 207

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:43 Page 208

Aurélien Froment Théâtre de poche, 2007 vidéo, 12 min Video still Courtesy the artist, Store and Motive Gallery

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:43 Page 209

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:43 Page 210

The Place of Artists’ Cinema The magician responsible for these dexterous gestures is soon revealed, smartly dressed with a slightly camp moustache. He snaps his fingers and waits expectantly: at the second snap two playing cards (the Jack of Spades and the Jack of Hearts) appear in the upper right hand corner of the screen. But this is a theatrical, rather than specifically optical, effect and when the magician retreats into the background, the cards are revealed as doors in the distance. They seem to be suspended in a space that is somewhere between that of the classical film studio (the stage-like setting of a musical or ‘dance number’) and the more self-consciously two-dimensional graphic space of a credit sequence, such as those created by Saul Bass. Like Alice in Wonderland, the magician suddenly disappears through the doors, emerging disoriented until he conjures up the two Jacks in miniature form, placing them into his pocket. Now the magician is again in control, presenting yet another set of images. These photographs are double-sided, depicting profiles and frontal views of a series of sculptures, variously resembling masks or possibly even fetishes. He compares the photographs, emphasizing their limited capacity to represent three-dimensional objects. Then suddenly the images acquire a new (illusory) solidity, hovering in mid air and illuminated from above as the music strikes an ominous, threatening note. Finally, an expanded series of images are carefully placed by the magician on a glass screen that acts as a barrier between him and the camera, echoing both the lens of the camera and the screen of the monitor. The selection of images seems logical at first, relating somehow to the human body: extending from anatomical models to a fragment of a human foot carved in stone and a painted eye that might be a detail from an Egyptian artefact. This exploration of screens and barriers comes ever more self-reflexive as images of brick and stone walls are positioned and repositioned along with an array of architectural fragments. The music continues to change register, precisely synchronized with the action as a succession of images appear, variously linked by function, form and material. The camera continues to slide from left to right and back again, suggesting a process of reading before, finally, the magician begins to make a new selection guided by elusive criteria, assembling another set of images in his hand as though in preparation for a different trick. The figure of the magician in Théâtre de Poche is obviously intended to recall Georges Méliès and the formation of the ‘cinema of attractions’,71 but it also recalls earlier points of convergence between theatrical performance and the architecture of memory. Froment has cited Frances Yates’s Art of Memory as a key point of reference and the gestures of the magician obliquely evoke those of the various figures that appear in her account of mnemonic techniques and performances.72 The forms of concealment and display at work in Théâtre de Poche also generate other interpretations, more specific to the contemporary context of film and television production, alongside the other works in the exhibition. At first glance, the architecture of the cinema seems entirely absent from the gallery, not least because of the fact that the video is presented on a flat screen monitor. In place of raked seating, or the fixed benches that have become commonplace in ‘black box’ presentations, a few small folding chairs are provided. The monitor is not the only object within the space: two panels of glass (similar in size to the flat screen) lean against one wall while a small wooden object, entitled The Prompter’s Work, sits on the gallery floor. Perhaps the most significant inclusion, however, is a partition wall, behind which a 16mm projector runs continuously, projecting a blank reel of film. This work, entitled 210

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:43 Page 211

Cine-material Structures and Screens White Balance (2007), subsumes the entire gallery into an illuminated auditorium, as the beam invades the whole space. The phrase ‘white balance’ could be read as a comment on the relationship between ‘black box’ and ‘white cube’, but it also alludes to the processes whereby lighting is typically checked against a material referent (such as a grey card), or on a monitor screen, in order to avoid colour casts. The portable versions of these grey cards are not dissimilar to those displayed by the magician in Théâtre de Poche, and it is possible to read White Balance as a meditation on the complex, and historically specific, technological and cultural processes through which ‘realistic’ representations are produced. As Brian Winston has demonstrated, the history of colour film technology is marked by a convergence of ideological and commercial imperatives, centred on the representation of ‘white’ flesh tones according to cultural norms. Highlighting the strategies of concealment that are integral to the overt display of colour technology as a latter-day cinematic ‘attraction’, Winston also makes the point that the supposed naturalism of Technicolor could only be achieved through the careful management of all stages of the production process, including the selection of colours to be used in sets and costumes.73 From this perspective Theatre de Poche, shot on HD video, could be said to dramatize a specific moment of technological transition, analogous to the coming of sound, colour or the arrival of 16mm film (processes of industrial innovation and standardization that are also theorized by Winston). Like earlier technologies, HD is inscribed within the familiar discourse of realism, promising to deliver an experience that both replicates and exceeds the ‘real’. As is widely known, the arrival of HD technology has also necessitated changes to the established craft practices within the film industry (particularly in make-up), while contributing to the elevation of certain technical skills to the level of craft or indeed ‘art’. The transition from 35mm film to HD also has economic implications within the realm of theatrical distribution and exhibition, creating new possibilities for collective viewing, but potentially creating difficulties for smaller distributors within the European context.74 Finally, the use of a HD monitor to display the video within the gallery hints at yet another transformation within both the art economy and the broader realm of visual culture. Lacking the reflections that were a feature of many earlier glass-fronted display technologies such as video and television, the monitor now presents an image that can be viewed from almost any vantage point, confirming the recuperation of the screen itself as an art object. Conclusion In a discussion of curatorial practice, Claire Doherty notes a recurrent emphasis on various forms of social or political ‘engagement’ and wonders whether ‘process-based or participatory projects’ have somehow been privileged at the expense of an exploration of ‘materiality’.75 In this chapter, I have focused on many different forms of what I term ‘cine-material’ practice, extending from the construction of cinema structures and environments to more ambiguous explorations of the screen as a reflective surface, as a barrier, or as the component of an absent film installation. Many of the works I have highlighted involve strategies of dematerialization 211

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:43 Page 212

The Place of Artists’ Cinema and it is worth noting that none are exclusively or even predominantly concerned with the materiality of celluloid. White Balance, by Aurélien Froment, is the only work mentioned that actually incorporates film in its presentation and even then only in the form of a blank reel of 16mm running through a projector. It is possible to read some of these works in terms of a commentary on the significant changes in the technology and institution of cinema as an industry. Yet most of the works discussed here are more directly informed by debates and concerns of particular significance in the domain of contemporary art, concerning participatory practice, collectivity or, in some instances, national cultural politics. Although I have identified a number of works that seem to evoke the cultural memory of cinema with a degree of affection, my discussion also highlights several that articulate a more dystopian understanding of collectivity, both in terms of cinema spectatorship and broader social and political structures. It is not always possible to distinguish between these impulses, however, and in the case of Mik’s Citizens and Subjects, a sense of alienation and disjunction is provoked precisely in order to counterbalance a public sphere perceived to be in need of some form of corrective. When considered together, these works point towards a redefinition of materiality, informed not only by an understanding of the history of cinema as a cultural form but also, in some instances, by a renewed engagement with the politics of artistic production.

212

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:43 Page 213

Conclusion: Materials, Places and Social Relations Artists’ cinema is not aligned with any one mode of production or exhibition and many of the works I have discussed are not specifically concerned with the materiality of film. Nonetheless, it is possible to discern a recovery of materiality, or perhaps a kind of ‘re-materialization’, in the relatively small number of works that assert the specificity of place by emphasizing the evidential and indexical qualities of film. These qualities are integral to the recent work of Christine Molloy and Joe Lawlor, which was shot on 35mm film precisely in order to create a sense of ‘event’. But this strategy also enables films such as Daydream and Joy to be shown in commercial multiplex cinemas, potentially situating them in relation to the history and contemporary context of theatrical film exhibition. Significantly, this mode of production is subject to change and it seems likely that Molloy and Lawlor will embrace newer formats, indexing the shifts that occur within commercial filmmaking. Tacita Dean’s fascination with the material of celluloid (in Kodak) also has the potential to illuminate the industrial context and history of film production. In practice, however, her work tends to direct attention away from these issues and towards the aesthetic qualities of film. Commenting upon the exhibition of artists’ cinema in museums, Lars Henrik Gass recently noted that the latter are often complicit in the ‘re-auratisation of the technical image in the art world’ while at the same time demonstrating a ‘careless, cavalier approach to context and presentation’ of film works.1 While the notion of ‘re-auratisation’ is compelling, any exploration of aura in relation to artists’ cinema requires consideration of the many different ways in which the artists’ body or presence is inscribed (or perhaps re-inscribed) into processes of production and exhibition. In my view this issue cannot be understood solely through an analysis of the ‘technical image’, or the indexical qualities of film. It is also necessary to consider the forms of rematerialization that emphasize translations and exchanges between the material and immaterial, such as those highlighted in Chapter 5. Some recent works, most obviously Aurélien Froment’s White Balance, refer directly to the ‘paracinema’ of Anthony McCall. Yet Froment’s work is also attuned to the institutional and technological shifts that have taken place since the 1970s, which have shaped the relationship between contemporary artists’ cinema, the art market and the museum.

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:43 Page 214

The Place of Artists’ Cinema In the closing section of Chapter 1, I considered the possibility that the prevalence of the projected image in contemporary art practice might, by virtue of its very immateriality, somehow index the ‘unrepresentability’ of contemporary experience. This position is partly dependent upon an imagined connection between the projected image and the social and economic developments associated with the rise of a post-productive free-floating capitalism. Amongst the many attempts to theorize the prevalence of the ‘projected image’ within contemporary art contexts over the past decade, I have found George Baker’s comments on the possible connections between artists’ cinema and the peripheral contexts of film production particularly interesting.2 Many of the artists I have discussed happen to originate from (or work in) cities on the geographical periphery of the film industry, which at times ‘stand-in’ for those located closer to the supposed centre of the industry. It seems reasonable to assume that artists working within these ‘peripheral’ places, such as Carlos Amorales (Mexico City), Gerard Byrne (Dublin), Willie Doherty (Derry) and Stan Douglas (Vancouver), to name a few, would be sensitive to the cycles of technological innovation and obsolescence associated with post-industrial production. But I have not proposed a corpus or body of works that are defined by exclusive association with industrial peripheries. Instead my research suggests that the logic of substitution that informs location shooting in commercial film and television actually operates in many different ways within the production and exhibition of artists’ cinema. Before proceeding further with this exploration of issues of materiality and immateriality, it maybe useful to briefly look back on the key issues I have identified in artists’ cinema over the past decade. In Chapter 1, I considered various approaches to the theorization of artists’ cinema and identified a shift in focus towards the interstitial or ‘in-between’, noting the emergence of the contemporary art gallery or museum as a possible substitute or ‘stand-in’ for other forms of public space. While many commentators have bemoaned the privatization of the media and decline of the public sphere, others note that publicly-funded museums and galleries offer some respite (however illusory) from commercialization, constituting a kind of ‘sacred space’ or a space for public scrutiny and even self-scrutiny. These developments should be understood in relation to the curatorial and artistic strategies addressed in the later part of the book, involving the staging of cinema as social space within the gallery. In Chapter 2, I examined the status of the marketplace as public space, noting the growing interdependencies between ‘public’ and ‘private’ art economies, particularly within the domain of the art fair. In addition to highlighting the overtly public character of ostensibly private commercial exchanges, I focused on an exemplar of privatization (the V22 investment initiative) in which profit is partly dependent upon the public exhibition of a collection. Although I have delineated certain parallels between this ‘for-profit’ initiative and the co-operative movements that emerged in the 1960s to protect the interests of producers, the artist-investor in V22 is distinctly cast as shareholder and the scheme is dependent upon the circulation of commodities in and out of the collection, between public and private contexts. V22 provides evidence of the flexible qualities of the contemporary art economy, which situate it at the forefront of globalized capitalism. But, as remains apparent in the public subvention of art fairs and biennials, this flexibility does not operate in isolation from the economic and political structures associated with territorial identities (whether city, region, nation or supranational formation). 214

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:43 Page 215

Conclusion: Materials, Places and Social Relations In Chapter 3, I argued that the rise of the multi-screen video projection during the 1990s was informed by a broader staging of ‘publicness’ within contemporary art museums, particularly those associated with urban regeneration programmes. I suggested that the multi-screen video projection is uniquely suited to an institutional context that privileges reinvention and mobility (of art works, individuals and even social groups). I also found persistent references to supernatural forces and ghostly figures in a range of otherwise disparate multi-screen installations, suggesting an oblique acknowledgement of the ‘phantom’ quality of the public sphere. This concern with the spectral is most obvious in works by Doug Aitken (eraser), Isaac Julien (Baltimore) and Jane and Louise Wilson (Stasi City) that respond to a specific place. It is also apparent in Jaki Irvine’s exploration of the geography of nineteenth-century Dublin in The Silver Bridge. My discussion of ‘originating’ and ‘displaced’ contexts in Chapter 4 drew upon the analysis of tensions between the specific and generic, introduced in Chapter 3 in relation to Willie Doherty’s Re-Run. Doherty’s work is marked not only by an engagement with film structure and form but also by a self-reflexive exploration of site and setting within artists’ cinema. Chapter 4 also included an analysis of the production location within public art commissions. The development of Tacita Dean’s Presentation Sisters, where the research process seems to have involved the exploration of various sites of historical, cultural or architectural interest within the city of Cork, suggests a possible parallel with location scouting in commercial filmmaking. In The Battle of Orgreave, the significance of the production location as a source of meaning and authenticity is both emphasized and (to some degree) interrogated through the overt convergence of document and event in the staging of the re-enactment. It is clear that notions of witnessing or indexing are integral to many of the works discussed in Chapter 3 and 4, even when film does not figure as medium. Doug Aitken’s eraser traces a path through the aftermath of a volcanic eruption, combining subjective camera and spectral effects to suggest a ghostly, solitary presence. Laura Horelli adopts a different stance, taking up the role of investigator within the shipyards and cruise ships of Helsinki and Port San Juan, and emphasizing face-to-face interactions through her camerawork, editing and interview techniques. Melik Ohanian’s investigation of political filmmaking in the 1970s highlights both the power and vulnerability of the filmmaker (or cameraperson) as witness. But by returning to the (apparently calm) scene of the original events Ohanian also seems to emphasize the limits of ‘bearing witness’ as a critical strategy. In the course of my discussion, I have also identified several works where the relationship between event and document is complicated by a deliberate intertwining of the temporalities of production and exhibition, in which the ‘replay’ becomes folded into the event, most obviously in various works by Pierre Huyghe. In addition, I examined various (re)combinations of the functional and the literal site (as theorized by James Meyer) in the selection and treatment of shooting locations. The work of Gerard Byrne is particularly significant in this regard because it draws upon both the specific and generic associations of architectural forms and structures in order to investigate the unfolding of places as events in progress. Finally, in Chapter 5, I shifted my attention towards the exploration of materiality in works that refer to the architecture of cinema or (like Bea McMahon’s [in the] visible state) to the physical properties of the screen as 215

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:43 Page 216

The Place of Artists’ Cinema a reflective surface or barrier. As I have already pointed out, few of the works discussed are exclusively or even predominantly concerned with the materiality of celluloid. Instead, they point towards a redefinition of materiality, informed both by an understanding of the history of cinema as a cultural form and by a renewed engagement with the politics of artistic production. Several exploit the ‘spectacular architecture’ of the pavilion, as a privileged site of display in which audiences are visible to each other. This dynamic is apparent in Francesco Vezzoli’s appropriation of the theatrical trailer and temporary reinvention of the installation space as a luxurious screening room. It acquires a more critical edge, however, in Aernout Mik’s Citizens and Subjects, which choreographs intersections between mobile spectators, and in Andreas Fogarasi’s Kultur und Freizeit, which examines the history of labour relations, and processes of gentrification, through the lens of the urban cultural centre. Throughout my analysis I have repeatedly highlighted critical approaches to the economic context of artistic production, often focusing on artists who have articulated an interest in the issue of labour. Both Anne Tallentire and Carlos Amorales have developed practices that are particularly attuned to the complex relationship between material and immaterial labour, authorship and collaboration. Despite the obvious differences between their works, they have both evolved strategies that highlight practices of selection, recombination and substitution, often dissociating sound from image or exploring tensions between stasis and motion. While Amorales works with numerous collaborators, taking on the roles of curator and animation studio executive as well as artist, Tallentire operates with relatively modest resources, evolving a rationale for shooting, editing and installation that is attuned to the material constraints that shape many contexts of exhibition as well as production. It also seems significant that, while Amorales has occasionally made 16mm films, his practice (like that of Tallentire) belongs to a distinctively post-productive context, in which digital technologies facilitate flows of information and labour. Yet there is no inherent or necessary connection between digital media and the exploration of immaterial or ‘post-productive’ labour. In order to demonstrate this point, it is useful to turn to a final work, which seems to engage critically with recent tendencies towards rematerialization. Monument of Sugar: How to Use Artistic Means to Elude Trade Barriers (2007), a 16mm film by Lonnie van Brummelen and Siebren de Haan, focuses on the global trade in sugar, primarily as a means of exploring broader issues relating to the flow of labour, goods and services.3 The title alludes to a ‘minimal intervention’ into the global sugar economy in which van Brummelen and de Haan attempt to circumvent trade barriers by importing sugar from Lagos into the EU in the form of white cubes defined as an art work. The physical form of the sugar cubes refers directly to the history of minimalism, but the act of renaming and smuggling is also intended to invoke an earlier precedent: Duchamp’s transportation of his own works across borders, disguised as food. The film, which is silent, opens with an on-screen text that refers to the artists as producers with protected status in Europe; because they are shielded from the market by public subvention they have achieved a kind of ‘relative autonomy’. This exploration of site and context is extended in scenes depicting the cultivation of sugar beet in the Netherlands. Scrolling on-screen titles also highlight the historical relationship between colonization, labour and trade, noting that the country’s traditional units of land measurement were derived from association with 216

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:43 Page 217

Conclusion: Materials, Places and Social Relations agricultural processes. Much of the film focuses on the difficulty of actually making the cubes and implementing the plan. The artists are overwhelmed by bureaucracy on their arrival in Lagos but eventually establish a makeshift assembly line to begin production. They struggle to achieve the desired ‘whiteness’ and solidity of the cubes, however, because of the damp conditions in the factory. The narrative proceeds at a stately pace, just like the processes of negotiation, labour and shipping that it describes, but it is interrupted by fleeting shots of pristine white blocks, carefully arranged in a ‘white cube’ exhibition space. These shots, which might refer to a prototype or to the completed product, emphasize the status of the film as a temporal construct. It is not unusual for artists to introduce and then disrupt the conventions of the documentary investigation in order to comment upon their doubled status as filmmakers and subjects.4 But through the incorporation of lengthy scrolling intertitles, van Brummelen and de Haan seem to cast celluloid itself as a type of measure, establishing a connection between the practice of filmmaking and the forms of quantification employed in agriculture, land use and the global trade in commodities.5 While Monument of Sugar does not assert a specific concern with the ‘cine-material’, it is nonetheless attuned to broader debates surrounding immaterial and material labour, which may in turn shape forms of ‘rematerialization’ at work in contemporary art practice. Some of these issues are addressed in John Roberts’ recent account of skill and deskilling in art practice. Roberts argues that the rise of immaterial labour at the expense of manual labour has been somewhat overstated in relation to both contemporary art and post-industrial production. He also contests Hardt and Negri’s account of the forms of resistance and critique that are potentially enabled by post-Fordist production processes.6 In Empire, Hardt and Negri emphasize the co-operative, interactive and communicative qualities of immaterial labour and, according to Roberts, they identify ‘a qualitative transformation’ in workers’ struggles because ‘socialized labour is able to appropriate the new technologies [of production] for subversive and constructive ends both inside the outside the workplace’.7 Roberts, however, points out that immaterial labour represents only an ‘emergent fraction of labour on a global scale’. In addition, he argues that Hardt and Negri fail to address the realities of deskilling, through which even overtly ‘immaterial’ informational and communicative skills become routinized and are subjected to the same processes of ‘technical division’ as manual labour.8 The supposed shift from material to immaterial labour has also structured much of the discourse surrounding Nicolas Bourriaud’s account of ‘post-production’. Roberts contends that Bourriaud’s thinking is directly indebted to a ‘bio-computational’ model of authorship. In this model, artists no longer compose their works but rather ‘programme’ them and the artwork functions as ‘a temporary nodal point in a larger flow or network of art’s productive relations’.9 In addition, previous works are no longer things to be cited or surpassed but instead constitute ‘congeries of signs to be inhabited and manipulated’.10 In parallel with this move from citation to ‘flow’ in art practice, Roberts emphasizes that contemporary art museums have shifted their focus away from display and towards forms of cultural production that are characterized by a low artistic visibility. He seems to read this development in terms of an institutional strategy to redefine (or perhaps rebrand) the museum as a site of ‘cultural flow’ rather than ‘a site of cultural domination’.11 217

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:43 Page 218

The Place of Artists’ Cinema But even though museums may seek to disavow their historical associations with cultural domination, they are still engaged in forms of display. Furthermore, these forms of display are often intended to render the social visible. As a concluding point, it is instructive to turn to Bourriaud’s own emphasis on the aura of sociality in relational art practices. Citing the work of Liam Gillick, Philippe Parreno and Rirkrit Tiravanija in particular, Bourriaud emphasizes that relational practices often involve the constitution of ‘temporary subject-groups, or microcommunities, the modelling of alternative modes of sociality’.12 In Relational Aesthetics, he specifically frames this development as a recovery of aura and sacredness: Sacredness is making a comeback here, there and everywhere. In a muddled way we are hoping for the return of the traditional aura … A phase in the modern project is being wound up. Today, after two centuries of struggle for singularity and against group impulses, we must bring in a new synthesis which, alone, will be able to save us from the regressive fantasy that is abroad. Reintroducing the idea of plurality, for contemporary culture hailing from modernity, means inventing ways of being together, forms of interaction that go beyond the inevitability of the families, ghettos of technological user-friendliness, and collective institutions on offer.13 According to Bourriaud, the public, in the form of the ‘micro-community’ gathering in front of the image, is the source of the aura: ‘the aura of art no longer lies in the hinter-world represented by the work, nor in form itself, but in front of it, within the temporary collective form that it produces by being put on show’.14 Some of the claims that are made for and upon cinema within the spaces and sites of contemporary art suggest a narrowly technological process of ‘re-auratisation’, or even a blatantly nostalgic recovery of cinema as public cultural form perceived to be in decline. But even if the limits of the temporary collectivity or microcommunity described by Bourriaud are all too apparent, the staging of the cinematic, whether through technologies of projection or architectures of display, can involve some form of reflection upon the structures and processes through which experiences of collectivity are constituted. My research into the place of artists’ cinema responds directly to the pronounced visibility of certain forms of artists’ film and video over the past decade, across multiple contexts of contemporary art production and exhibition. There is some evidence to suggest that this era of high visibility may now be coming to an end. This does not mean that artists are no longer animated by or engaged with cinema; rather, it may be that the tendency to overtly and visibly stage the cinematic through projection, site or setting might be waning. Many of the works discussed towards the close of my study are marked by an awareness of the screen as a physical structure, and the cinema as setting for a collective experience. Yet in some recent examples, the display of the projected image is deliberately frustrated, as in the case of Bea McMahon’s [in,the] visible state or Aurélien Froment’s White Balance. Several works in Chapter 5 are also concerned with modes of production and exhibition that are more closely aligned to television. Aernout Mik’s Citizens and Subjects, in particular, can be read as a commentary upon the shifting aesthetics and ethics of television in the age of ‘reality’ programming, defined by the convergence 218

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:43 Page 219

Conclusion: Materials, Places and Social Relations of online and broadcast contexts as well as the increased privatization of public service broadcasting. Although the notion of ‘artists’ cinema’ seems destined (like television) to become increasingly anachronistic, the works discussed should continue to merit attention beyond the context of contemporary art practice. Ultimately, even when artists’ claims upon cinema are open to contestation, they still have the potential to inform an understanding of its history, its present and, perhaps most importantly, its future.

219

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:43 Page 220

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:43 Page 221

Notes to pages 9–10

Notes Introduction: The Place of Artists’ Cinema 1. White in fact conceptualizes a ‘particular kind of cinema as a unique kind of museum’, emphasizing that film’s association with reproduction poses important questions for the museum. See Ian White, ‘Introduction’, Kinomuseum: Towards an Artists’ Cinema edited by Mike Sperlinger and Ian White (Cologne: Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König, 2008) 14. For a discussion of The Artists Cinema at Frieze see Chapter 2. 2. See various contributions to The Cinematic: Documents of Contemporary Art, ed. David Campany (Cambridge, Mass. And London: MIT Press and Whitechapel, 2007). For an insightful, specifically Deleuzian, exploration of the cinematic see John Rajchman, ‘Deleuze’s Time, or How the Cinematic Changes Our Idea of Art’, Art and the Moving Image: A Critical Reader, ed. Tanya Leighton (London: Tate Publishing and Afterall, 2008) 307–327. 3. Chrissie Iles in Ian White et al, ‘Does the museum fail? Podium Discussion at the 53rd International Short Film Festival Oberhausen’, Kinomuseum: Towards an Artists’ Cinema., eds. Mike Sperlinger and Ian White (Cologne: Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König, 2008) 128. 4. Jane Connarty and Josephine Lanyon, (eds.) Ghosting: The Role of the Archive within Contemporary Artist’s Film and Video (Bristol: Picture This, 2006). As though reciprocating this interest, theorists of documentary have turned their attention towards the contexts of contemporary art production and exhibition. See Michael Renov, ‘Away from Copying: The Art of Documentary Practice’, Truth or Dare: Art and Documentary, eds. Gail Pearce and Cahal McLaughlin (Bristol: Intellect Books, 2007) 13–24. 5. See for example the contributions by Malcolm Le Grice and Michael O’Pray in the ‘Avant-garde Theory’ section of The Undercut Reader: Critical Writings on Artists’ Film and Video, eds. Nina Danino and Michael Mazière (London and New York: Wallflower Press, 2003). 6. See Miriam Hansen, Babel and Babylon: Spectatorship in American Silent Film (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1991) 90–125. 7. Tanya Leighton, ‘Introduction’, Art and the Moving Image: A Critical Reader, ed. Tanya Leighton (London: Tate Publishing and Afterall, 2008) 7. See also George Baker, Matthew Buckingham, Hal Foster, Chrissie Iles, Anthony McCall, Malcolm Turvey, ‘Round Table: The Projected Image in Contemporary Art, October 104 (Spring 2003): 71–96. See also the emphasis on the Venice Biennale

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:43 Page 222

Notes to pages 11–18

8.

9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15.

16.

17.

(discussed further in Chapter 5) in Raymond Bellour, ‘Of An Other Cinema’, Art and the Moving Image: A Critical Reader, ed. Tanya Leighton, (London: Tate Publishing and Afterall, 2008) 406–421. Claire Doherty, ‘In Search of a Situation’, Art in the Life World: Breaking Ground Research Papers, (February 2008). Unpaginated. See also Doreen Massey, ‘A Global Sense of Place’, Marxism Today, (June 1991): 24–30. Lucy Lippard, The Lure of the Local: Senses of Place in a Multicentered Society (New York: The New Press, 1997) 5. Lippard, 8. Scott MacDonald, The Garden in the Machine: A Field Guide to Independent Films About Place, (California: University of California Press, 2001) xx. Tacita Dean and Jeremy Millar, Place (Art Works) (London: Thames and Hudson, 2005) 14–16. Luc Boltanski and Eve Chiapello, The New Spirit of Capitalism, Trans. Gregory Elliott (London: Verso, 2007). Andreas Huyssen, Twilight Memories: Marking Time in a Culture of Amnesia (New York and London: Routledge, 1995). Dudley Andrew, ‘A Preface to Disputation’, The Image in Dispute: Art and Cinema in the Age of Photography, ed. Dudley Andrew (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1997) 3–8; Angela Dalle Vacche, ‘Introduction: Unexplored Connections in a New Territory’, The Visual Turn: Classical Film Theory and Art History, ed. Angela Dalle Vacche (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2003) 1–32. Although I did not attend any screenings of Joy (Christine Molloy and Joe Lawlor, 2008) organized for participants, I did attend the Dublin screening of Helen (2008), which incorporates elements of the earlier film. The Battle of Orgreave (Mike Figgis, 2001) was broadcast on Channel 4 on Sunday 20 October 2002. I did not witness the event devised by Jeremy Deller, or the broadcast, but I saw both Figgis’ film and Deller’s 2004 work The Battle of Orgreave Archive (An Injury to One is an Injury to All) in ‘The World as a Stage’, Tate Modern, October 24, 2007–January 1, 2008. Although Trick (2004) is not particularly representative of Thomas Demand’s work, I argue that it extends some of the conceptual concerns running through his practice.

Chapter 1: Between Space, Site and Screen 1. Jean-Luc Nancy, Being Singular Plural, Trans. Robert D. Richardson and Anne E. O’Byrne (Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 2000) 5. 2. Prominent exhibitions include ‘Cinéma Cinéma: Contemporary Art and the Cinematic Experience’, Stedelijk Van Abbemuseum, (Feb–May 1999), ‘Into the Light: The Projected Image in American Art 1964–1977’, at the Whitney Museum (2001–2002), and ‘Le Mouvement des Images’ at Centre Georges Pompidou (April 2006–January 2007). See also Kinomuseum: Towards an Artists’ Cinema edited by Mike Sperlinger and Ian White (Cologne: Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König, 2008) which documents a special programme at the Oberhausen Film Festival in 2007. 3. Stefanie Schulte Strathaus, ‘“Showing Different Films Differently”: Cinema as a Result of Cinematic Thinking’, The Moving Image 4.1 (Spring 2004): 2. 4. See Jane Rendell, Art and Architecture: A Place Between (London: I.B. Tauris, 2006) 2. 5. For an exploration of mediation as a feature of the ‘projective city’ see Luc Boltanski and Eve Chiapello, The New Spirit of Capitalism, Trans. Gregory Elliott (London: Verso, 2007) 108. On

222

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:43 Page 223

Notes to pages 19–22

6.

7.

8. 9.

10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17.

18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24.

mediation in art practice see Søren Andreasen and Lars Bang Larsen, ‘The Middleman: Beginning to Talk About Mediation’, Curating Subjects, ed. Paul O’Neill (London: Open Editions, 2007) 20–30. See Thomas Zummer, ‘Projection and Dis/embodiment: Genealogies of the Virtual’, Into the Light: The Projected Image in American Art 1964–1977, ed. Chrissie Iles (New York: Whitney Museum, 2001) 70–83. For an alternative genealogy see the ongoing exhibition series ‘A Short History of Performance’ at the Whitechapel Gallery, Part IV of which (in April 2006) focused specifically on artists working with the moving image. Catherine Fowler, ‘Room for Experiment: Gallery Films and Vertical Time from Maya Deren to Eija Liisa Ahtila’, Screen 45.4 (Winter 2004): 324. See also Chris Dercon, ‘Gleaning the Future – From the Gallery Floor’, Vertigo 2.2 (2002): 3–5. Chris Darke, Light Readings: Film Criticism and Screen Arts (London: Wallflower, 2000) 162. Chrissie Iles, ‘Video and Film Space’, Space, Site, Intervention: Situating Installation Art, ed. Erika Suderburg (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2000) 253. Iles also locates a prehistory to this exploration of display within proto-cinematic cultural forms, highlighting the relationship between panoramic painting and cinema. Chrissie Iles, ‘Between the Still and Moving Image’, Into the Light: The Projected Image in American Art 1964-1977, ed. Chrissie Iles (New York: Whitney Museum, 2001) 33. Iles, ‘Video and Film Space’, 262. Catherine Elwes, Video Art, A Guided Tour (London: I.B. Tauris, 2004) 153. Elwes, 174. Tony Bennett, ‘The Exhibitionary Complex’, Thinking About Exhibitions, eds. Reesa Greenberg, Bruce W. Ferguson, Sandy Nairne, (London and New York: Routledge, 1996) 81–112. Jonathan Walley, ‘The Material of Film and the Idea of Cinema: Contrasting Practices in Sixties and Seventies Avant-Garde Film’, October 103 (Winter 2003): 18. Walley, ‘The Material of Film and the Idea of Cinema’, 20. This talk was subsequently published in several versions. References here are to Anthony McCall ‘Line Describing a Cone and Related Films’, Experimental Film and Video, ed. Jackie Hatfield (Eastleigh: John Libbey Publishing, 2006) 72. See Lucy Lippard, Six Years: The Dematerialization of the Art Object from 1966 to 1972. (Berkeley, Los Angeles and London: University of California Press, 1997). Walley, ‘The Material of Film and the Idea of Cinema’, 26. Walley, The Material of Film and the Idea of Cinema’, 28. David E. James, cited by Walley, ‘The Material of Film and the Idea of Cinema’, 26. Jonathan Walley, ‘Modes of Film Practice in the Avant-Garde’, Art and the Moving Image: A Critical Reader, ed. Tanya Leighton, (London: Tate Publishing and Afterall, 2008) 187. McCall, 63. See also Walley, ‘Modes of Film Practice in the Avant-Garde’, 182-183. Long Film for Ambient Light was shown in 1975 and 1976, in two different galleries outside the US. See McCall , 73 n.6. Since then, a version of the work has also been staged within the context of a research project at the Performance Space, Sydney, March 16-17, 2007, but this version is not presented as an art work by McCall. For details see Teaching and Learning Cinema. [http://www. teachingandlearningcinema.org/long-film-for-ambient-light/] (Accessed March 2008).

223

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:43 Page 224

Notes to pages 22–26 25. Margaret Morse, ‘The Body, the Image, and the Space-in-Between: Video Installation Art’ in Virtualities: Television, Media Art, and Cyberculture, (Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1998) 157–158. 26. Morse, 171. 27. Morse, 161. See also Morse’s ‘An Ontology of Everyday Distraction: The Freeway, the Mall, and Television’, in Virtualities: Television, Media Art, and Cyberculture, 99–124. Her analysis constitutes a response to Michael Fried’s infamous critique of ‘theatricality’ in ‘Art and Objecthood’, Artforum (Summer 1967): 12–22. 28. Fowler, 329. 29. Fowler, 326. 30. Fowler, 331. 31. Rather than noting specific developments inside (or outside) the gallery, Fowler refers generally to Brian O’Doherty’s account of modernist art. See Brian O’Doherty ‘Context as Content’, Inside the White Cube: The Ideology of the Gallery Space, Expanded Edition, (Berkeley, Los Angeles and London: University of California Press, 1999) 65–86. 32. Fowler cites Andre Bazin ‘Painting and Cinema’, The Visual Turn: Classical Film Theory and Art History, ed. Angela Dalle Vacche (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2003) 221–225, and also Angela Dalle Vacche’s discussion in these same volume, ‘Introduction: Unexplored Connections in a New Territory’ 1–32. 33. Jeffrey Skoller, Shadows, Specters, Shards: Making History in Avant-garde Film, (Minneapolis: Minnesota University Press, 2005) 177. 34. Skoller, 177. 35. Skoller does offer a fairly forceful critique of Jane and Louise Wilson’s Stasi City (1997) and this is discussed in Chapter 3. 36. Peter Osborne, ‘Distracted Reception: Time, Art and Technology’, Time Zones: Recent Film and Video, eds. Jessica Morgan and Gregor Muir (London: Tate, 2004) 72. Emphasis in original. 37. Osborne, 67. 38. Osborne, 72. 39. Claire Bishop, Installation Art: A Critical History (London: Tate Publishing, 2005) 76. 40. Bishop, Installation Art, 95–96. See Roland Barthes, ‘Leaving the Movie Theatre’, The Rustle of Language (Berkeley, California: University of California Press, 1989) 345–349. On the cinematic apparatus see the ‘Apparatus’ section in Narrative, Apparatus, Ideology: A Film Theory Reader, ed. Philip Rosen (New York: Columbia University Press, 1986). 41. Bishop, Installation Art, 133. Emphasis in original. 42. Claire Bishop, ‘Antagonism and Relational Aesthetics’, October 110 (Fall 2004): 51–79. 43. This edition is differentiated from the general DVD release through the incorporation of bonus material in the form of raw or ‘rush’ footage. See Tim Griffin, ‘The Job Changes You’, Artforum 45.1 (September 2006): 338. 44. Griffin, 336. 45. Michael Fried, ‘Absorbed in the Action’, Artforum 45.1 (September 2006): 333. 46. Griffin, 336. Emphasis added.

224

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:43 Page 225

Notes to pages 27–32 47. Mark Nash, ‘Art and Cinema: Some Critical Reflections’, Art and the Moving Image: A Critical Reader, ed. Tanya Leighton, (London: Tate Publishing and Afterall, 2008) 446–447. 48. Paul Willemen’s ‘An Avant Garde for the Eighties’, was published in Framework 24 (1984): 53–73. My references here are to the expanded and updated version, entitled ‘An Avant-Garde for the 90s’, is included in Looks and Frictions: Essays in Cultural Studies and Film Theory (London and Bloomington: BFI and Indiana University Press, 1994) 141. 49. Willemen, Looks and Frictions, 156. 50. Willemen, Looks and Frictions, 157. 51. Mikhail Bakhtin, cited by Paul Willemen in ‘The Third Cinema Question: Notes and Reflections’, Questions of Third Cinema, eds. Jim Pines and Paul Willemen (London: BFI Publishing, 1989) 23. 52. Hamid Naficy, An Accented Cinema: Exilic and Diasporic Filmmaking (Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2001) 46. For an overview of transnationalism in cinema studies see Annette Kuhn and Catherine Grant, ‘Screening World Cinema’ in Screening World Cinema: The Screen Reader, eds. Catherine Grant and Annette Kuhn (London and New York: Routledge, 2006) 1–14. 53. Naficy, Accented Cinema, 12. 54. Hamid Naficy, ‘Parallel Worlds: Shirin Neshat’s Video Works’, Shirin Neshat, exhibition catalogue (Wien, London: Kuntshalle Wien and Serpentine Gallery, 2000) 45. 55. Ruth Noack, ‘Productive Dualisms’, Shirin Neshat, exhibition catalogue (Wien, London: Kuntshalle Wien and Serpentine Gallery, 2000) 31. 56. Thomas Elsaesser, ‘Double Occupancy: Space, Place and Identity in European Cinema of the 1990s’, Third Text 20.6 (November 2006): 647. 57. Maria Walsh, ‘Cinema in the Gallery – Discontinuity and Potential Space in Salla Tykkä’s Trilogy’, Senses of Cinema (August 2003). Accessed November 2007. http://www.sensesofcinema.com/contents/ 03/28/salla_tykka_trilogy.html 58. Thomas Elsaesser, ‘Wenders and the US: “The American Friend”‘, Hollywood and Europe: Economics, Culture, National Identity 1945-95, eds. Geoffrey Nowell-Smith and Steven Ricci (London: BFI, 1998) 150. 59. Elsaesser, ‘Wenders and the US’, 151. 60. James Meyer, ‘The Functional Site’, Space, Site, Intervention: Situating Installation Art, ed. Erika Suderberg (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2000) 25. See also James Meyer, ‘Nomads: Figures of Travel in Contemporary Art’, Site-Specificity: The Ethnographic Turn (de-, dis-, ex-, Volume 4), ed. Alex Coles (London: Black Dog Publishing, 2000) 10–29. 61. Meyer, ‘The Functional Site’, 27. 62. Meyer, ‘The Functional Site’, 30. See Craig Owens, ‘Earthwords’, Beyond Recognition: Representation, Power and Culture, Craig Owens, eds. Scott Bryson et al (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994) 40. Also see the discussion of site, non-site and off-site in Rendell, 23–40. 63. Pierre Huyghe in George Baker, ‘An Interview with Pierre Huyghe’, October 110 (Fall 2004): 82. Emphasis in original. 64. Anna Sanders Films, The In-Between (Newcastle and Dijon: Forma and Les Presses du Réel, 2003). 65. Huyghe, 83. 66. Huyghe, 89.

225

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:43 Page 226

Notes to pages 32–39 67. Huyghe, 100. See Nicolas Bourriaud, Relational Aesthetics [1998], Trans. Simon Pleasance and Fronza Woods (Dijon: Les Presses du Réel, 2002) and Nicolas Bourriaud, Postproduction (New York: Lukas & Sternberg, 2001). 68. Tom McDonough has analysed the model of post-production that is articulated in both Huyghe’s practice and the writings of Bourriaud and he takes issue with the latter’s analysis of the art work and his reading of Marx and Michel de Certeau. He notes that, in Postproduction, Bourriaud draws upon Marx’s Grundrisse but shifts the focus of Marx’s critique away from production and towards consumption. This move echoes de Certeau’s interest in consumption as a potential site of resistance but, as McDonough points out, Bourriaud’s concern lies specifically with the art work rather than with the more general practices of everyday life. See Tom McDonough, ‘No Ghost*’, October 110 (Fall 2004): 107–130. 69. Miwon Kwon, One Place After Another: Site-Specific Art and Locational Identity (Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, 2004) 51. 70. Kwon, 51. 71. Jeremy Valentine, ‘Art and Empire: Aesthetic Autonomy, Organisational Mediation and Contextualising Practices’, Art, Money, Parties: New Institutions in the Political Economy of Contemporary Art, ed. Jonathan Harris (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press and Tate Liverpool, 2004) 203. 72. Valentine, 211. 73. George Baker, ‘The Storyteller: Notes on the Work of Gerard Byrne’, in Gerard Byrne, Books, Magazines, and Newspapers (New York: Lukas & Sternberg, 2003) 40. See also Tanya Leighton’s discussion of the ‘unrepresentable’ in ‘Introduction’, Art and the Moving Image: A Critical Reader, ed. Tanya Leighton, (London: Tate Publishing and Afterall, 2008) 29. 74. Caption by Gerard Byrne, cited by Baker, 52. 75. Brecht, cited by Baker , ‘The Storyteller’, 5. 76. Baker, ‘The Storyteller’, 53. 77. Baker, ‘The Storyteller’, 77–78. Emphasis in original. For an alternative perspective on unrepresentability and its relation to the work of Byrne, see Maria Muhle, ‘Why It’s Time for Realism, Again’, Afterall 17 (2008): 86. 78. George Baker, in Baker, Matthew Buckingham, Hal Foster, Chrissie Iles, Anthony McCall, Malcolm Turvey, ‘Round Table: The Projected Image in Contemporary Art, October 104 (Spring 2003): 85. 79. Mike Gasher, Hollywood North: The Feature Film Industry in British Columbia, (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2002). 80. Baker, ‘The Storyteller’, 39. Emphasis added. Chapter 2: The Place of the Market 1. Louisa Buck, Market Matters (London: Arts Council England, October 2004) 11. 2. For a discussion of this aspect of Ahtila’s practice see Alexander Alberro, ‘The Gap Between Film and Installation Art’, Art and the Moving Image: A Critical Reader, ed. Tanya Leighton, (London: Tate Publishing and Afterall, 2008) 423–429. 3. Peter Thomas explains the differences between these models in ‘The Co-Operative Spirit: Development and Variance in the Distribution Policies of the NYFC, Canyon Cinema, LFMC/Lux

226

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:43 Page 227

Notes to pages 39–42

4.

5.

6. 7. 8. 9. 10.

11. 12. 13. 14.

15.

16.

17. 18.

and Circles/Cinenova’, unpublished paper presented at Society for Cinema and Media Studies Conference, Atlanta, March 7th, 2004. Even though the term ‘non-profit’ is widely used in UK contexts, I will use the term ‘not-for-profit’ here instead. Chrissie Iles in Ian White et al, ‘Does the Museum Fail?: Podium Discussion at the 53rd International Short Film Festival Oberhausen’, Kinomuseum: Towards an Artists’ Cinema, eds. Mike Sperlinger and Ian White (Cologne: Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König, 2008) 152. Luc Boltanski and Eve Chiapello, The New Spirit of Capitalism, trans. Gregory Elliott (London and New York: Verso, 2007) 419. For a further exploration of the ‘artistic critique’ and its appropriation within management discourse, see Eve Chiapello, ‘Evolution and Co-optation: The “Artist Critique” of Management and Capitalism’, Third Text 18.6 (2004): 585–594. Boltanski and Chiapello, 38. Boltanski and Chiapello, 419. Boltanski and Chiapello, 431. Boltanski and Chiapello, 111. Emphasis in original. Boltanski and Chiapello, 105. For an overview of the ‘logic of the project’ in film production see Ben Goldsmith and Tom O’Regan, The Film Studio: Film Production in the Global Economy (Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2005) 13–18. Miwon Kwon, One Place After Another: Site-Specific Art and Locational Identity, (Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, 2004) 166. Boltanski and Chiapello, 111. Nicolas Bourriaud, ‘Berlin Letter about Relational Aesthetics’, Contemporary Art: From Studio to Situation, ed. Claire Doherty (London: Black Dog Publishing, 2004), 45. Emphasis added. Brian Holmes, interviewed by Marion von Osten, ‘The Spaces of a Cultural Question: an Email Interview with Brian Holmes’, Republicart.net, 2004. Accessed May 2008. [http://www.republicart.net/ disc/precariat/holmes-osten01_en.htm]. For further discussion of the ‘French Intermittents’ and a critique of the analysis offered by Boltanski and Chiapello see Maurizio Lazzarato, ‘The Misfortunes of the “Artistic Critique” and of Cultural Employment’, Trans, Mary O’Neill, Transversal webjournal, January 2007 http://eipcp.net/transversal/0207/lazzarato/en. Accessed September 2008. Raimund Minichbauer, ‘Pure Policy: EU Cultural Support in the Next 10 Years’, European Cultural Policies 2015: A Report with Scenarios on the Future of Public Funding for Contemporary Art in Europe, eds. Maria Lind and Raimund Minichbauer, (Stockholm and Wien: IASPIS and European Institute for Progressive Cultural Policies, 2005) 104. Gerald Raunig, ‘2015’ , European Cultural Policies 2015: A Report with Scenarios on the Future of Public Funding for Contemporary Art in Europe, eds. Maria Lind and Raimund Minichbauer, (Stockholm and Wien: IASPIS and European Institute for Progressive Cultural Policies, 2005)16. Irit Rogoff, ‘WE. Collectivities, Mutualities, Participations’, I Promise it’s Political: Performativity in Art, Exhibition Catalogue (Cologne: Theater der Welt and Museum Ludwig, 2002) 128. New Institutionalism is related to, but not synonymous with, the ‘educational turn’ in contemporary art, which forms the focus of Pierce’s discussion. But there are many points of connection, particularly in curatorial projects by Maria Lind, Catherine David and Ute Meta Bauer. See Sarah Pierce, ‘We Spoke About Hippies’, Institute of Contemporary Arts, 2008. http://www.ica.org.uk/We%20spoke%20

227

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:43 Page 228

Notes to pages 42–44

19.

20. 21.

22.

23.

24.

25.

26. 27. 28. 29.

about%20hippies%2C%20by%20Sarah%20Pierce+17747.twl Accessed September 2008. Emphasis in original. Claire Doherty, ‘The Institution is Dead! Long Live the Institution! Contemporary Art and New Institutionalism’, Art of Encounter: Engage 15, (Summer 2004): 1. Doherty also differentiates between European and UK approaches to ‘New Institutionalism’; she points out that while programmes developed by European institutions, such as Rooseum or KIASMA, typically unfolded within the space of the museum itself, UK organizations like the Whitechapel, FACT or INIVA often developed projects for off-site and online contexts. Bourriaud, ‘Berlin Letter...’ 45–46. Maria Lind, ‘Introduction’, European Cultural Policies 2015: A Report with Scenarios on the Future of Public Funding for Contemporary Art in Europe, eds. Maria Lind and Raimund Minichbauer, (Stockholm and Wien: IASPIS and European Institute for Progressive Cultural Policies, 2005) 4–13. Saskia Sassen, Cities in a World Economy (Thousand Oaks, California: Pine Forge Press, 1994) 122. See also Sassen, The Global City: New York, London, Tokyo, Second Edition, (Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2001). Obviously, not all ‘knowledge workers’ are equally valorized; those in the cultural sector are unlikely to enjoy the same financial remuneration as those in the financial sector. See various contributions on the ‘precariat’ theme in Republicart webjournal, a transnational research project (2002–2005) by the European Institute for Progressive Cultural Policies http://www.republicart.net/disc/ precariat/index.htm Sassen emphasizes that she uses this term in its most straightforward, descriptive (‘dictionary’) sense, in contrast to the more theoretical approach offered by Deleuze and Guattari, for whom ‘assemblage’ refers to a ‘contingent ensemble of practices and things that can be differentiated … along the axes of territoriality and deterritorialization’. See Saskia Sassen, Territory, Authority, Rights: From Medieval to Global Assemblages (Princeton and London: Princeton University Press, 2006) 5. See also Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia, (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1987). My own analysis of territoriality has also been informed by Nikos Papastergiadis, ‘The Deterritorialization of Culture’, The Turbulence of Migration: Globalization, Deterritorialization and Hybridity, (Oxford: Polity Press and Blackwell, 2000) 100–121. Frédérique Jacquemin, ‘Belgian Barbarians’, European Cultural Policies 2015: A Report with Scenarios on the Future of Public Funding for Contemporary Art in Europe, eds. Maria Lind and Raimund Minichbauer, (Stockholm and Wien: IASPIS and European Institute for Progressive Cultural Policies, 2005) 58. Jacquemin, 57–58. For details on Culture 2000 see http://europa.eu/scadplus/leg/en/lvb/l29006.htm and on Culture 2007 see http://europa.eu/scadplus/leg/en/lvb/l29016.htm (both accessed August 2008). See Philip R. Schlesinger, ‘Europe’s Contradictory Communicative Space’, Daedalus 123.2 (Spring 1994): 25–49. Here I am referring specifically to the role of agencies such as the Dublin Docklands Development Authority (DDDA), which has co-funded the production of feature film Helen (Christine Molloy and Joe Lawlor, 2008), along with various UK national and local agencies. This film is discussed in more detail in Chapter 4. For further details on funding see the DDDA press release, ‘Dublin

228

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:43 Page 229

Notes to pages 44–46

30.

31.

32.

33. 34. 35.

36. 37. 38.

39. 40. 41. 42.

Docklands Plays Key Role in New Film’ (April 30, 2008). http://www.dublindocklands.ie/index.jsp? 1nID=94&nID=105&aID=688 Accessed August 2008. See also Goldsmith and O’Regan, 41–75. Doherty cites Tyne International in the UK, Skulptur Projekte Munster and the public art projects of Mary Jane Jacob in Charleston, Chicago and Atlanta as specific examples of ‘scattered site’ exhibitions. See Claire Doherty, ‘Curating Wrong Places … Or Where Have All the Penguins Gone’ Curating Subjects, ed. Paul O’Neill (London: Open Editions, 2007) 102. Artangel was founded in 1985, under the direction of Roger Took and John Carson. For details of projects realized from 1985 to 2002 see James Lingwood and Michael Morris, Off Limits: 40 Artangel Projects, ed. Gerrie Van Noord (London: Merrell Publishers, 2002) 220–247. For information on projects since 2002 see http://www.artangel.org.uk/ and for a brief critical overview of Artangel and other UK public art organizations see Peter Fink, ‘The Professionals’, Art Monthly 264, (March 2003): 37–38. James Lingwood, ‘A Conversation between Michael Craig-Martin, Lisa Jardine, James Lingwood and Michael Morris’, Off Limits: 40 Artangel Projects, James Lingwood and Michael Morris, ed. Gerrie Van Noord (London: Merrell Publishers, 2002) 19. Giuliana Bruno, Public Intimacy: Architecture and the Visual Arts (Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, 2007) 3–42. Chris Darke, Light Readings: Film Criticism and Screen Arts (London: Wallflower, 2000) 159. See filmmaker and curator Sherry Milner’s comments in Ian White et al, ‘Does the Museum Fail?: Podium Discussion at the 53rd International Short Film Festival Oberhausen’, eds. Mike Sperlinger and Ian White, Kinomuseum: Towards an Artists’ Cinema, (Cologne: Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König, 2008) 148–149. Martha Rosler in James Meyer et al, ‘Global Tendencies: Globalism and the Large-Scale Exhibition: The Global Exhibition’, Artforum (November 2003): 159. Sam Keller, ‘Interview: I Offered to Resign if 9/11 Strategy Backfired’, The Art Newspaper 187 (January 2008): 32. For an analysis of co-productions that focuses on the 1950s and 60s but also references developments in the 1920s see Tim Bergfelder, ‘The Nation Vanishes’, Cinema and Nation, eds. Mette Hjort and Scott MacKenzie (London: Routledge, 2000) 139–152. For an overview of European co-production in the post-war era see Geoffrey Nowell-Smith, ‘Introduction’, Hollywood and Europe: Economics, Culture, National Identity 1945–95, eds. Geoffrey Nowell-Smith and Steven Ricci (London: BFI, 1998) 1–16. On more recent developments see Tino Balio, ‘Adjusting to the New Global Economy: Hollywood in the 1990s’, Film Policy, ed. Albert Moran, (London and New York: Routledge, 1996) 23–37. Haidee Wasson, Museum Movies: The Museum of Modern Art and the Birth of Art Cinema (Berkeley and Los Angeles, California: University of California Press, 2005) 61. Peter Thomas, ‘The Co-Operative Spirit: Development and Variance in the Distribution Policies of the NYFC, Canyon Cinema, LFMC/Lux and Circles/Cinenova’, (unpublished conference paper). This is still the case with some organizations, including the LUX in London. Thanks to Lucy Reynolds and Benjamin Cook for providing details on the history and operations of LUX. Peter Thomas notes that Canyon Cinema ‘rescinded open access’ in the 1990s, ‘The Co-Operative Spirit: Development and Variance in the Distribution Policies of the NYFC, Canyon Cinema,

229

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:43 Page 230

Notes to pages 46–50

43.

44.

45.

46.

47.

48. 49.

50. 51. 52. 53. 54. 55.

56. 57. 58. 59. 60.

LFMC/Lux and Circles/Cinenova’ (unpublished paper). For further information on Canyon see http://www.canyoncinema.com/ See Peter Thomas, ‘The Struggle for Funding: Sponsorship, Competition and Pacification’, Screen 47.2 (winter 2006): 461–467 and Julia Knight, ‘Agency vs. Archive: London Film-Makers’ Co-op and LVA vs. Film and Video Umbrella’, Screen 47.2 (Winter 2006): 469–475. For further information see Marita Sturken, ‘TV as a Creative Medium: Howard Wise and Video Art,’ Afterimage (May 1984): 5–9. On the British context see Julia Knight, ‘In Search of an Identity: Distribution, Exhibition and the ‘Process’ of British Video Art’, Diverse Practices: A Critical Reader on British Video Art, ed. Julia Knight (Luton: University of Luton Press, 1996) 217–237. See Margaret Dickinson, Rogue Reels: Oppositional Film in Britain, 1945-90 (London: BFI Publishing, 1999) 58. See also Sylvia Harvey, ‘The Other Cinema – A History: Part I 1970-77’, Screen 26.6, (November/December 1985): 40–57 and ‘The Other Cinema – A History: Part II’, Screen 27.2 (March/April 1986): 80–96. See Eddie Chambers, ‘Handsworth Songs and the Archival Image’, eds. Ghosting: The Role of the Archive within Contemporary Artist’s Film and Video, eds. Connarty, Jane and Josephine Lanyon, (Bristol: Picture This, 2006) 24–33. KUNSTMARKT ‘67 even provoked counter-events and protests from artists, including an event in 1968 by the not-for-profit organization Labor, focusing specifically on the exclusion of new media from the fair. See Christine Mehring, ‘Emerging Market’, Artforum (April 2008): 322. Simon Sheikh, ‘Constitutive Effects: The Techniques of the Curator’, Curating Subjects, ed. Paul O’Neill (London: Open Editions, 2007) 177. Emphasis in original. Robert Pincus-Witten in Tim Griffin et al, ‘Art and its Markets: A Roundtable Discussion’, Artforum (April 2008): 298. For a detailed account of this aspect of the contemporary art market, focusing on a specific auction at Christie’s in New York, see Sarah Thornton, Seven Days in the Art World (London: Granta, 2008) 3–39. Thomas Crow, in Tim Griffin et al, ‘Art and its Markets: A Roundtable Discussion’, Artforum (April 2008): 299. Amy Capellazzo, in Tim Griffin et al, ‘Art and its Markets: A Roundtable Discussion’, Artforum (April 2008): 294. Isabel Graw, in Tim Griffin et al, ‘Art and its Markets: A Roundtable Discussion’, Artforum (April 2008): 297. Art Basel literature, cited by Caoimhín Mac Giolla Leith, ‘Some of the Fun of the Fair’, The New Art, ed. Maggie Smith (London: Rachmaninoff’s and Zoo Art Fair, 2006), 62. Mac Giolla Leith, 62. Jerry Saltz, ‘What are Art Fairs For?’, Modern Painters, (March 2005): 23. Saltz notes that there were 530 applications for 190 spaces at Art Basel Miami Beach in December 2004, with booths costing between $20,000 and $50,000. Keller, 32. Keller, 33. Pryle Behrman, ‘Fair or Foul’, Art Monthly 311 (November 2007): 12. Pryle Behrman, ‘InternationalArt plc’, Art Monthly 308 (July–August, 2007): 5–8. Lind, ‘Introduction’, European Cultural Policies ..., 5. The partners, which included IASPIS,

230

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:43 Page 231

Notes to pages 50–52

61.

62.

63. 64.

65. 66. 67.

68. 69.

70.

71.

Stockholm; Project Arts Centre, Dublin; Portikus, Frankfurt and Stedelijk Museum Bureau, Amsterdam, were entitled to submit proposals to the Foundation but Lind explains that IASPIS’s first proposal was declined because it involved an artist already involved in the fair, underlining the emphasis on novelty in this initiative. Each partner was required to invest around 15,000 euro per project, and in exchange the fair provided space for the material manifestation of the project, some production, construction and distribution support, as well as accomodation and invitations to participate in various hosting and networking events. Lind also provides a very interesting statistic in relation to attendance, noting that Frieze 2004 attracted 30,822 visitors, ‘about the same’ as the audience for an average exhibition at the Whitechapel Gallery. This parity is somewhat surprising, particularly given the volume of media coverage usually devoted to the fair. See Lind, ‘Introduction’, European Cultural Policies ..., 7. Ian White, ‘Art and Film Get Spliced’, Art Review 57 (October 2005): 62. The 2006 Artist’s Cinema commissions were also funded by the Arts Council but they were produced by LUX and Frieze Projects and toured by the Independent Cinema Office (ICO), reaching audiences of over 60,000. Further commissions in collaboration with the ICO are planned for 2008/2009. These will again tour the UK, with funding from the Arts Council England but will not be premiered at Frieze. This information was provided by Benjamin Cook at LUX. Ilya Kabakov, cited by Claire Bishop, Installation Art: A Critical History (London: Tate Publishing, 2005) 17. Buck, 11. Emphasis added. Lingwood in Michael Craig-Martin et al, ‘A Conversation between Michael Craig-Martin, Lisa Jardine, James Lingwood and Michael Morris’, Off Limits: 40 Artangel Projects, James Lingwood and Michael Morris, ed. Gerrie Van Noord (London: Merrell Publishers, 2002) 20. See Donna de Salvo in Tim Griffin et al, ‘Art and its Markets: A Roundtable Discussion’, Artforum (April 2008): 299. UK examples would include the various DVDs of commissioned works distributed free with Vertigo magazine, such as Made in London: Selections from 5 Years of the London Artists’ Film and Video Awards 2000-2005 (2006) and Time Unfolding: A Selection of Artists’ Film and Video Work Commissioned and Produced by Picture This, curated by Lucy Reynolds (2008). The broader issues concerning the place of artists’ cinema within online collections, archives and galleries clearly merit attention in their own right. For an exploration of policies and practices in the area of archiving see various papers delivered at the conference ‘Future Histories of the Moving Image’, University of Sunderland, November 16–18, 2007. http://myblogs.sunderland.ac.uk/blogs/ futurehistories/ Ian White, ‘Introduction’, Kinomuseum: Towards an Artists’ Cinema, eds. Mike Sperlinger and Ian White (Cologne: Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König, 2008) 16–17. For an art historical analysis of placement and the museum see Victoria Newhouse, Art and the Power of Placement, (New York: Monacelli Press, 2005). White, ‘Introduction’, 20. Historically, of course, there are many examples of famous paintings ‘touring’ from one location to another.

231

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:43 Page 232

Notes to pages 53–56 72. Kenneth Anger apparently presented a film to the curators of the Whitney Museum as a ‘gift’, circumventing any problems associated with purchasing. See Iles, in White et al, ‘Does the Museum Fail?’, 139. 73. Wasson, 46. 74. Wasson, 48. 75. Linda Yablonsky, ‘Hollywood’s New Wave’, ARTNews (December 2006): 116. 76. Developed alongside the trilogy of films, The Lord of the Rings exhibition features costumes, props as well as the models and storyboards used to bring fantastical creatures and places ‘to life’ on screen. This type of event differs from the various fairs and conventions at which artefacts such as animation cells and models are traded, and is closer to a museum exhibition in that it features mediating texts and commentaries as well as souvenirs. For an insightful exploration of the relationship between Barney’s work, performance art and the ‘blockbuster’ films and museum exhibitions of the late 1970s see Alexandra Keller and Frazer Ward, ‘Matthew Barney and the Paradox of the Neo-AvantGarde Blockbuster’, Cinema Journal 45.2 (Winter 2006): 3–16. 77. For a discussion of the exhibition context for Sastre’s work see Maeve Connolly, ‘Emporium of the Senses: Spectatorship and Aesthetics at the 26th São Paulo Bienal’, Third Text 19.4 (July 2005): 399–409. 78. Maria Lind, ‘When Water is Gushing in’, Printed Project 6 (February 2007): 18. The economy of the ruin or relic also extends to the film and television production, as Thomas Elsaesser has demonstrated in an analysis of the logic of serialization found in the television show Fantasy Island (1978–1984), which was apparently filmed amongst the disused sets of Burbank Studios. See Elsaesser, ‘Fantasy Island: Dream Logic as Production Logic’, Cinema Futures: Cain, Abel or Cable? The Screen Arts in the Digital Age, eds. Thomas Elsaesser and Kay Hoffmann, (Amsterdam University Press, 1998) 143–159. 79. Since the release of the film, however, the ship has acquired other associations because it has emerged as the focus and the scene of violent anti-whaling protests by environmental campaign groups. See Justin McCurry, ‘Anti-Whaling Group ends Pursuit of Japanese Fleet’, The Guardian, 29 January, 2008. 80. These issues are explored further in my conclusion, in the context of a discussion of material and immaterial labour that is informed by John Roberts’ The Intangibilities of Form: Skill and Deskilling in Art After the Readymade (London and New York: Verso, 2008). 81. See Maeve Connolly, ‘Nomads, Tourists and Territories: Manifesta and the Basque Country’, Afterimage: Journal of Media and Cultural Criticism, 32.3 (November/December 2004): 8–9. 82. Francesco Bonami in James Meyer et al, ‘Global Tendencies: Globalism and Large-scale Exhibition’ Artforum (Nov 2003): 162. Emphasis in original. It is worth noting that even if artists only attract the ‘good’ galleries through participation in these events, their existing dealers may still be expected to assist with production costs. 83. Martha Rosler in James Meyer et al, ‘Global Tendencies: Globalism and Large-scale Exhibition’ Artforum (Nov 2003): 154. 84. See Behrman, ‘InternationalArt plc’, 308. 85. Sheikh, 181. 86. Sheikh, 184–185. 87. Boltanski and Chiapello, 468.

232

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:43 Page 233

Notes to pages 57–64 88. For a review of this presentation see Anna Colford, ‘Nothing & Everything to do with Democracy’, The Visual Artists’ News Sheet (May/June 2008): 26. 89. The main business of e-flux is its email ‘announcements’, sent on behalf of its clients to the 50,000 ‘art professionals’ that have subscribed to its various lists (general announcements list, art-agenda list of commercial gallery exhibitions and art & education list). A full list of clients can be found at http://www.e-flux.com/clients 90. Daniel Birnbaum, ‘Temporal Spasms or, See You Tomorrow in Kiribati!’), The Best Surprise is No Surprise, ed. Anton Vidokle (Zurich: JRPRingier/e-flux 2006) 11. Emphasis added. 91. Interestingly, e-flux Video Rental does not seem to have a dedicated website, but rather exists as a trail of e-flux announcements. For example, the project took place at the Centre Culturel Suisse de Paris, from April 15th–July 15, 2007 and the related announcement can be found at http://www.eflux.com/shows/view/4147 92. Julieta Aranda and Anton Vidokle, interviewed in Hans Ulrich Obrist, ‘Ever. Ever. Ever.’, The Best Surprise is No Surprise, ed. Anton Vidokle (Zurich: JRPRingier/e-flux 2006) 18. 93. See V22 plc, Contemporary Art Collection: Plus Markets Admission Document (London: V22, 2006) 9. [http://www.v22plc.com] Accessed May 2008. This report seems to be Market Matters by Louisa Buck, published in 2004. 94. Graw, in Tim Griffin et al, 298. For a more expansive exploration of use value and exchange value, in relation to museum and marketplace, see Daniel J. Sherman, ‘Quatremère/Benjamin/Marx: Art Museums, Aura, and Commodity Fetishism’ Museum Culture: Histories, Discourses, Spectacles, eds. Daniel Sherman and Irit Rogoff (London and New York: Routledge, 1994) 132. 95. V22 plc, 12. 96. Thomas Crow, ‘Historical Returns’, Artforum (April 2008): 288. 97. Crow, ‘Historical Returns’, 289. 98. Hal Foster, The Return of the Real: The Avant-garde at the End of the Century (Cambridge, Mass. and London: MIT Press, 1996) 62. 99. Jean Baudrillard, cited by Foster, 62–63. Emphasis added. 100. Kwon, 166. Chapter 3: Multi-screen Projections and Museum Spaces 1. Rosalyn Deutsche, ‘Agoraphobia’, Evictions: Art and Spatial Politics (Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, 1996) 269. 2. See Catherine Fowler, ‘Room for Experiment: Gallery Films and Vertical Time from Maya Deren to Eija-Liisa Ahtila’, Screen 45. 4 (Winter 2004) 324–343. Jeffrey Skoller, Shadows, Specters, Shards: Making History in Avant-garde Film, (Minneapolis: Minnesota University Press, 2005) 176–179; Giuliana Bruno, Public Intimacy: Architecture and the Visual Arts, (Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, 2007) 43–82. 3. See Chrissie Iles in Ian White et al, ‘Does the Museum Fail?: Podium Discussion at the 53rd International Short Film Festival Oberhausen’, Kinomuseum: Towards an Artists’ Cinema, eds. Mike Sperlinger and Ian White (Cologne: Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther Konig, 2008) 153. 4. Peter Schjeldahl, ‘V.I.: Jane & Louise Wilson’, in Jane & Louise Wilson, Stasi City, Gamma, Parliament, Las Vegas, Graveyard Time, Exhibition Catalogue (London: Serpentine Gallery, 1999) 5.

233

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:43 Page 234

Notes to pages 64–67

5. Haidee Wasson, Museum Movies: The Museum of Modern Art and the Birth of Art Cinema, (Berkeley and Los Angeles, California: University of California Press, 2005) 5. Emphasis added. 6. Wasson’s use of this term seems to bear no relation to the ‘paracinematic’ practices theorized by Jonathan Walley, discussed in chapter one. Instead Wasson is referring to a very broad, and amorphous, set of activities by diverse institutions and groups (with no particular connection to film-making) in the general area of film education. See Wasson, 12–13. 7. Wasson, 17. Here, Wasson is referring to the self-regulating activities of the film industry, specifically the enforcement of the Production Code (or ‘Hays Code’), introduced in 1927. See Wasson, 11–12. 8. Bruno, 9. 9. Bruno, 12. 10. Bruno, 13. 11. Bruno, 22–24, focuses on the architectural memory systems, or memory theatres of both Giulio Camillo (1480–1544) and Giordano Bruno (1548–1600). In her history of art of memory, Frances Yates notes that Camillo’s Memory Theatre may have existed only as a plan or model, and provides a description based on various accounts. Instead of an audience, the theatre was devised for one spectator who would stand where the stage would be and look towards an auditorium, gazing upon a series of ‘gates’ that function as ‘memory places, stocked with images’. See Frances Yates, The Art of Memory (London: Pimlico, 1992) 141. 12. Bruno, 16–17. 13. Bruno, 38. See also Bruno’s earlier work, Atlas of Emotion: Journeys in Art, Architecture, and Film (New York: Verso, 2002). 14. Bruno, 15. Here Bruno is referring specifically to the work of the Catalan mystic Ramon Lull (1235– 1316), described in detail by Yates, 175–196. Lull introduced movement into the art of memory through the use of figures set out on concentric circles or wheels. As the wheels revolve, new combinations of concepts are produced and additional meanings generated. 15. Sean Cubitt, ‘Projection: Vanishing and Becoming’, MediaArtHistories, ed. Oliver Grau (Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, 2007) 412. 16. Cubitt, 416. 17. Andreas Huyssen, Twilight Memories: Marking Time in a Culture of Amnesia (New York and London: Routledge, 1995) 3. 18. Huyssen, 6. 19. Huyssen, 14. It should also be noted that museums are also implicated in acts of forgetting. See Cornelia Sollfrank’s discussion of the Flick Collection and its relationship to the Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin in ‘The Future of Cultural Production in the “Cultural Nation” of Germany’ , European Cultural Policies 2015: A Report with Scenarios on the Future of Public Funding for Contemporary Art in Europe, eds. Maria Lind and Raimund Minichbauer, (Stockholm and Wien: IASPIS and European Institute for Progressive Cultural Policies, 2005) 62. 20. Huyssen, 33. 21. Huyssen, 22. 22. Huyssen, 34.

234

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:43 Page 235

Notes to pages 68–76 23. 24. 25. 26. 27.

28. 29.

30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38.

39. 40.

41.

42.

Huyssen, 14. Hal Foster, ‘Archives of Modern Art’, October 99 (Winter 2002): 95. Hal Foster, Design and Crime and Other Diatribes (London: Verso, 2002) 35. Bruno, 45. This work also incorporates images of an oil rig and the ‘clean rooms’ of a digital engineering plant, alluding to a shift from heavy to ‘clean’ industry. Lisa Corrin, ‘In Stereoscopic Vision: A Dialogue Between Jane & Louise Wilson and Lisa Corrin’, in Jane & Louise Wilson, Stasi City, Gamma, Parliament, Las Vegas, Graveyard Time, Exhibition Catalogue (London: Serpentine Gallery, 1999) 6. Stasi City was first exhibited at Kunstverein Hannover in 1997, touring to Kunstraum Munich; Centre d’art Contemporain, Geneva and Kunstwerke, Berlin in the same year. It is worth noting that this work was shot on 16mm film, and this choice of medium is partly circumscribed by the need to produce photographs. See Jane Wilson, in Stella Bruzzi et al, ‘Collaborations and Technologies: Stella Bruzzi (interlocutor), Gideon Koppel, Jane and Louise Wilson in Conversation’, Truth or Dare: Art and Documentary, eds. Gail Pearce and Cahal McLaughlin (Bristol: Intellect Books, 2007) 72. Claire Bishop, Installation Art: A Critical History (London: Tate Publishing, 2005) 137 n. 62. The Stasi Museum, based in the former Stasi Headquarters, was established in 1990 and Hohenschönhausen Prison has been preserved as a memorial since 1994. Both are open to the public. Uriel Orlow, ‘Latent Archives, Roving Lens’, Ghosting: The Role of the Archive within Contemporary Artists’ Film and Video, eds. Jane Connarty and Josephine Lanyon, (Bristol: Picture This, 2006) 46. Jane Wilson, in Bruzzi et al, 68. Wilson, 77. Chrissie Iles, ‘Between the Still and Moving Image’, Into the Light: The Projected Image in American Art 1964-1977, eds. Chrissie Iles (New York: Whitney Museum, 2001) 48. Skoller’s short description is not entirely accurate, however, in that he refers to this four-channel work as ‘a five-minute double-screen loop’, 179. Schjeldahl, 4. Schjeldahl, 5. Schjeldahl, 5. Joachin Jäger, ‘Caught Between Images: The Heightened Perception of the Filmic’, Beyond Cinema: The Art of Projection: Films, Videos and Installations from 1963 to 2005, eds. Joachim Jäger, Gabriel Knapstein and Anette Husche (Ostfilern: Hatje Cantz Verlag, 2006) 29. See Doug Aitken, ‘A Thousand Words’, Artforum (May 2000): 161. For a discussion of the relationship between West Indian ports and harbours in the European colonial economy see Peter Linebaugh and Marcus Rediker, The Many-Headed Hydra: The Hidden History of the Revolutionary Atlantic (London: Verso, 2000) 46. This aspect of the work recalls Benedict Anderson’s analysis of ‘Census, Map, Museum’ in Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origins and Spread of Nationalism, Revised Edition (London and New York: Verso, 1991) 163–186 On the relationship between the monument and public memory see Pierre Nora, ‘Between Memory and History: Les Lieux de Mémoire’, Representations 26 (Spring 1989): 7–24 and Huyssen, Twilight Memories, 249–460. See also Chapter 4.

235

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:43 Page 236

Notes to pages 76–86 43. Linebaugh and Rediker, 46. 44. See Stephen Heath, ‘Narrative Space’, Screen 17.3 (Autumn 1976): 68–112. See also Kaja Silverman, ‘Suture (excerpts)’, Narrative, Apparatus, Ideology: A Film Theory Reader, ed. Philip Rosen (New York: Columbia University Press, 1986) 219–235. 45. Caoimhín Mac Giolla Léith, ‘Troubled Memories’, in Willie Doherty, Willie Doherty: False Memory, (London and Dublin: Merrell, in association with Irish Museum of Modern Art, 2002) 23. 46. Willie Doherty, interviewed by Aidan Dunne, ‘Exposing Memory’s Limitations’, Irish Times, (Weekend Review) November 9, 2002. Re-Run was included in ‘Willie Doherty: False Memory’, Irish Museum of Modern Art, October 31, 2002 – March 2, 2003. 47. Willie Doherty, 9. 48. Claire Doherty, ‘Curating Wrong Places… Or Where Have All the Penguins Gone’, ed. Paul O’Neill (Curating Subjects, London: Open Editions, 2007) 103. See Chapter 4 for a more extensive discussion of place as event. 49. Fowler, 330, 50. Paul Willemen, Looks and Frictions: Essays in Cultural Studies and Film Theory (Bloomington and London: Indiana University Press and BFI, 1994) 156 51. Martin McLoone in ‘The Commitments’, Same Old Story, Exhibition Catalogue, (London/Derry/ Colchester: Matt’s Gallery/Orchard Gallery/Firstsite, 1997) 15. 52. Fredric Jameson, ‘Spatial Systems in North by Northwest’, Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Lacan (But Were Afraid to Ask Hitchcock, ed. Slavoj Žižek (London: Verso, 1992) 62. 53. Jameson, 54. Emphasis added. 54. Jameson, 67. 55. Jameson, 70. Emphasis added. 56. Elvan Zabunyan, ‘Encounter with the Fantôme Créole’, Trans. Natasha Edwards, Isaac Julien: Livre Numero 8: Espace 315 Nouveaux Medias, Exhibition Catalogue (Paris: Éditions du Centre Pompidou, 2005) 11. 57. In addition to editing and composing music for Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song, Van Peebles also played the lead character, a hustler who defends a member of the Black Panthers against police brutality. 58. Paul Gilroy, The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness, (London and New York: Verso, 1993). 59. Donald Preziosi, ‘The Astrolabe of the Enlightenment’, Brain of the Earth’s Body: Art, Museums and the Phantasms of Modernity (Minneapolis and London: Minnesota University Press, 2003) 84. 60. Preziosi, 89. 61. In fact mirroring effects are quite commonplace in multi-screen installation during the 1990s. They are widely used by the Wilsons, for example. For a different use of reversed or ‘flipped’ images see my discussion of Carlos Amorales’ Dark Mirror (2005) in Chapter 5. 62. It is interesting to compare Julien’s highly compressed exploration of these themes with The Wire (2002–2007), which employs the genre of the television detective show to investigate the city of Baltimore and, by extension, wider issues of urban crime and development. 63. On ‘bullet-time’ see Michelle Pierson, Special Effects: Still in Search of Wonder, (New York: Columbia University Press, 2002) 162–163.

236

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:43 Page 237

Notes to pages 86–100 64. See Preziosi’s exploration of museum objects as ‘doubles’, 21. 65. Michael Newman discusses Irvine’s video works Sweet Tooth, Margaret Again, and Star (all 1994) in ‘Au-delà de l’Object Perdu: de la Sculpture au Film et à la Vidéo/Beyond the Lost Object: from Sculpture to Film & Video’, Art Press 202 (1995): 47. 66. See Maeve Connolly, ‘Of Other Worlds: Nature and the Supernatural in the Moving Image Installations of Jaki Irvine’, Screen 49.2 (Summer 2008): 203–208. 67. Fredric Jameson, ‘Historicism in The Shining (1981)’, Signatures of the Visible, (London: Routledge, 1990) 90. 68. Jameson, Signatures of the Visible, 90. 69. See W.J. McCormack, ‘Irish Gothic and After (1820-1945)’, The Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing Volume 2, ed. Seamus Deane (Derry: Field Day Publications: 1991) 832. 70. See J. Sheridan Le Fanu, In a Glass Darkly [1872] (Hertfordshire: Wordsworth Editions, 1995) 36. 71. See Niamh Ann Kelly, ‘Looking Over its Shoulder: Ten Years at the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Circa 95 (2001): 16–17. 72. Consolation Service was first shown (as a double screen work) at the Venice Biennale in 1999. See Jane Philbrick’s comparative analysis of the single- and double-screen versions in ‘Subcutaneous Melodrama: The Work of Eija-Liisa Ahtila’, PAJ 74, (2003): 32–47. 73. Although both Anni and J-P also contribute voiceover narration at other points, it is the ‘writer’ who outlines the overall structure of the narrative. 74. One of the shots actually lingers on a bookshelf that prominently displays a book with the title ‘Fantasy’. For further discussion of films by Mulvey and Wollen, Potter and other feminist filmmakers see Patricia Mellencamp, Indiscretions: Avant-Garde Film, Video & Feminism (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1990). See also Laura Mulvey, Visual and Other Pleasures, (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1989) and Peter Wollen, Readings and Writings: Semiotic Counter-Strategies, (London and New York: Verso 1982). 75. Deutsche, 273. 76. Deutsche, 303. 77. Deutsche 304. 78. See Thomas Keenan, ‘Windows: Of Vulnerability’, The Phantom Public Sphere, ed. Bruce Robbins (Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press, 1993)135. 79. Deutsche, 326. Deutsche’s text seems to pre-empt the ‘relational’ turn in curatorial discourse but there are obvious continuities here with more recent debates concerning relational art and the significance of antagonism within democracy. See Claire Bishop, ‘Antagonism and Relational Aesthetics’, October 110 (Fall 2004): 51–79 80. Shirin Neshat, ‘Passage to Iran: Shirin Neshat Interviewed by Babak Ebrahimian’, PAJ 72, (2000): 48. 81. Ruth Noack, ‘Productive Dualisms’, Shirin Neshat, Exhibition Catalogue, (Wien, London: Kuntshalle Wien and Serpentine Gallery, 2000) 35. 82. Hamid Naficy, ‘Parallel Worlds: Shirin Neshat’s Video Works’, Shirin Neshat, Exhibition Catalogue (Wien, London: Kuntshalle Wien and Serpentine Gallery, 2000) 47. 83. Neshat, 45. 84. Deyhim was also involved in curating music at venues such as Thread Waxing Space in the early 1990s, according to Lia Gangitano, interviewed by Joseph R. Wolin, ‘I Have Never Wanted to be

237

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:43 Page 238

Notes to pages 105–114 MoMA When I Grow Up’, The Lab Gallery: 40 Exhibitions, ed. Gemma Tipton (Dublin: Dublin City Council, 2008) 131. 85. It is worth noting that these subjects have given permission for their image to be used in an art work. See Caoimhín Mac Giolla Léith, ‘Drift’ in Drift: Anne Tallentire, (Derry: Void, 2005). Unpaginated. 86. Uriel Orlow, ‘trailer…on work/seth-tallentire’, 1999. Emphasis in original. Originally published on the Project Arts Centre website, this text is now available on Orlow’s own website. http://www.urielorlow.net/ publications/essays/trailer.html Accessed June 2008. 87. Mac Giolla Léith, unpaginated. Chapter 4: Event-sites and Documentary Dislocations 1. Claire Doherty, ‘Curating Wrong Places … Or Where Have All the Penguins Gone’ Curating Subjects, ed. Paul O’Neill (London: Open Editions, 2007) 103. 2. Irit Rogoff, ‘The Where of Now’, Time Zones: Recent Film and Video, eds. Jessica Morgan and Gregor Muir (London: Tate, 2004) 88. 3. Doherty, ‘Curating Wrong Places’, 108. 4. Claire Doherty, ‘The New Situationists’ Contemporary Art: From Studio to Situation, ed. Claire Doherty (London: Black Dog Publishing, 2004) 8–9. 5. Pierre Huyghe in George Baker, ‘An Interview with Pierre Huyghe’, October 110 (Fall 2004): 83. 6. Miwon Kwon, One Place After Another: Site-Specific Art and Locational Identity, (Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, 2004) 51. 7. Claire Bishop, Installation Art: A Critical History (London: Tate Publishing, 2005) 42. 8. Bishop, Installation Art, 45. 9. Jonathan Jones, ‘Mike Nelson: ICA, London’, The Guardian, October 5, 2001. 10. Bishop, Installation Art, 130. Emphasis added 11. Michael Morris in Michael Craig-Martin et al, ‘A Conversation between Michael Craig-Martin, Lisa Jardine, James Lingwood and Michael Morris’, Off Limits: 40 Artangel Projects, James Lingwood and Michael Morris, ed. Gerrie Van Noord (London: Merrell Publishers, 2002) 11. 12. Claire Bishop, ‘As if I was lost and someone suddenly came to give me news about myself’, Off Limits: 40 Artangel Projects, James Lingwood, Michael Morris, ed. Gerrie Van Noord (London: Merrell Publishers, 2002) 25. Emphasis added. 13. Tim Bergfelder, ‘The Nation Vanishes’, Cinema and Nation, eds. Mette Hjort and Scott MacKenzie (London: Routledge, 2000) 149. 14. Tom Gunning, ‘The Cinema of Attractions: Early Film, Its Spectator and the Avant-Garde’ Early Cinema: Space, Frame, Narrative, eds. Thomas Elsaesser with Adam Barker (London: BFI, 1990) 56–62. On science fiction see Scott Bukatman, ‘The Artificial Infinite: On Special Effects and the Sublime’, Visual Display: Culture Beyond Appearances, eds. Lynne Cooke and Peter Wollen (Seattle: Bay Press, 1995) 261–262. 15. Michael Renov, ‘Towards a Poetics of Documentary’, Theorizing Documentary, ed. Michael Renov (New York: Routledge, 1999) 20. Emphasis in original. 16. Michael Renov, ‘Away from Copying: The Art of Documentary Practice’ Truth or Dare: Art and Documentary, eds. Gail Pearce and Cahal McLaughlin (Bristol: Intellect Books, 2007) 15.

238

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:43 Page 239

Notes to pages 114–128 17. See Mark Nash, ‘Art and Cinema: Some Critical Reflections’, Art and the Moving Image: A Critical Reader, ed. Tanya Leighton, (London: Tate Publishing and Afterall, 2008) 457. 18. See John Hess and Patricia R. Zimmermann, ‘Transnational Documentaries: A Manifesto’, Afterimage (January/February 1997): 10–14. See also Scott MacDonald, Avant-Garde Film: Motion Studies (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993) 123–188. 19. Rogoff, ‘The Where of Now’, 85. Emphasis in original. 20. See Brian Winston, Claiming the Real (London: BFI, 1995). 21. Rogoff, ‘The Where of Now’, 95. 22. Renov, ‘Towards a Poetics of Documentary’, 22. Emphasis added. 23. Lucy Reynolds, ‘Outside the Archive: The World in Fragments’, Ghosting: The Role of the Archive within Contemporary Artist’s Film and Video, eds. Jane Connarty and Josephine Lanyon, (Bristol: Picture This, 2006) 22. 24. Reynolds, 22–23. 25. Uriel Orlow, ‘Latent Archives, Roving Lens’, Ghosting: The Role of the Archive within Contemporary Artist’s Film and Video, eds. Jane Connarty and Josephine Lanyon, (Bristol: Picture This, 2006) 41. 26. Orlow, ‘Latent Archives …’, 43. 27. Pierre Nora, ‘Between Memory and History: Les Lieux de Mémoire’, trans. Marc Roudebush, Representations 26, (Spring 1989): 7–8 28. Nora, 7. 29. Nora, 22. The Hôtel or Palais Mazarin was the home of Cardinal Mazarin, chief minister to Louis XIV during the seventeenth-century, and the former site of the royal library. 30. Maeve Connolly, ‘Nomads, Tourists and Territories: Manifesta and the Basque Country’, Afterimage 32.3 (November/December 2004): 8–9. 31. This editing process is represented in graphic form in Laura Horelli, Laura Horelli: Interviews, Diaries and Reports, ed. Jacob Fabricius (Berlin: Pork Salad Press, 2006) 36-51 32. Rogoff, ‘The Where of Now’, 92–94. See also Noël Burch and Allan Sekula, ‘Notes for a Film*’ in George Baker (ed.), ‘Artist Questionnaire: 21 Responses’, October 100 (Spring 2002): 83–87. 33. Laura Horelli, ‘Personal Stories Addressing Structures in Society: Interview by Marius Babius’ Laura Horelli: Interviews, Diaries and Reports, ed. Jacob Fabricius (Berlin: Pork Salad Press, 2006) 79. 34. ‘Tacita Dean – Presentation Sisters & Presentation Convent’, South Presentation Convent, December 9–31, 2005, curated by Sarah Glennie, was one of a number of commissioned public art projects to form part of Cork 2005. 35. See Tacita Dean, ‘Presentation Sisters, 2005’, Tacita Dean, (London: Phaidon, 2006) 136. 36. For a brief overview of the Penal Laws see Tom Inglis, Moral Monopoly: The Rise and Fall of the Catholic Church in Modern Ireland, Second Edition (Dublin: University College Dublin Press, 1998) 103–107. 37. Information on the work of the order and the collaboration with Tacita Dean was provided by Sr. Carmel Hartnett in a personal interview at the Presentation Centre, Cork, 5 May, 2008. Sarah Glennie also provided further details via email correspondence, in December 2008, noting that the crew did not encounter these other users of the Centre during the production process. 38. See Paul Willemen, ‘Towards an Analysis of the Sirkian System’, Screen 13.4 (Winter 1972): 128–134, and Laura Mulvey, ‘Notes on Sirk and Melodrama’, Visual and Other Pleasures, (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1989) 39–44.

239

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:43 Page 240

Notes to pages 128–137 39. Renov, ‘Towards a Poetics of Documentary’, 25. 40. Tacita Dean, ‘Analogue’ in Tacita Dean, Exhibition Catalogue, eds. Christina Kennedy and Georgina Jackson, (Dublin: Dublin City Gallery The Hugh Lane, Dublin) 42. 41. Adam E. Mendelsohn, ‘Be Here Now’, Art Monthly 300 (October 2006):13. 42. Luc Boltanski and Eve Chiapello, The New Spirit of Capitalism, Trans. Gregory Elliott, (London: Verso, 2007) xvii. 43. Chris Darke, Light Readings: Film Criticism and Screen Arts (London: Wallflower, 2000) 164. 44. Ben Slater, ‘Light on the City: The Cinema of desperate optimists’, Stephen Loughman, Dennis McNulty, desperate optimists: Representing Ireland at the 26th Bienal de São Paulo, Brazil, ed. Valerie Connor (Dublin: Department of Arts, Sport and Tourism, 2004) 60. 45. The commission actually came about through an open call for proposals, unlike the majority of Artangel projects. See James Lingwood, in Michael Craig-Martin et al, ‘A Conversation between Michael Craig-Martin, Lisa Jardine, James Lingwood and Michael Morris’, 17. 46. Jeremy Deller, ‘In Conversation: Jeremy Deller and Claire Doherty’ Contemporary Art: From Studio to Situation, ed. Claire Doherty, (London: Black Dog Publishing, 2004) 94. 47. Deller, ‘In Coversation …’, 95. 48. ‘The World as a Stage’, curated by Jessica Morgan and Catherine Wood at the Tate Modern October 24, 2007–January 1, 2008, featured The Battle of Orgreave Archive (An Injury to One is an Injury to All) (2004) as well as the film. 49. Alison Griffiths notes that battles were a popular subject for spectacular panoramas and dioramas in the eighteenth and nineteenth-century in ‘Shivers Down Your Spine; Panoramas and the Origins of the Cinematic Reenactment’, Screen 44.1 (Spring 2003): 8. There are significant differences between Deller’s exploration of history and that offered by Ridley Scott. For a useful critique of Republican political ideology in Gladiator see Emily Albu, ‘Gladiator at the Millennium’, Arethusa 41.1 (2008): 185–204. 50. David Douglass, Mac McLoughlin and Stephanie Gregory are among the contributors to The English Civil War Part II: Personal Accounts of the 1984–85 Miners’ Strike, ed. Jeremy Deller (London: Artangel, 2002). 51. For an analysis of the museumization of the industrial past during the 1980s see John Corner and Sylvia Harvey, ‘Mediating Tradition and Modernity: The Enterprise/Heritage Couplet, Enterprise and Heritage: Crosscurrents of National Culture, eds. John Corner and Sylvia Harvey, (London: Routledge, 1991) 53–56. For a more recent overview of re-enactment culture see Neil Bell, ‘History and Recreation: Re-enactment and Living History in Britain 2002’, History Today, (April 2002): 56–59. 52. For an exploration of Deller’s broader interest in archiving popular art and culture see Jeremy Millar, ‘Poets of their Own Affairs: A Brief Introduction to the Folk Archive’ in Jeremy Deller and Alan Kane Folk Archive: Contemporary Popular Art from the UK, (London: Book Works, 2005) 149–152. 53. See Claire Bishop, ‘The Social Turn’ Artforum (February 2007): 182. For a more extensive exploration of conflict and antagonism in art practice see Bishop’s ‘Antagonism and Relational Aesthetics’, October 110, (Fall 2004): 51–79. 54. See Michael Morris (Artangel co-director), ‘The re-enactment – an introduction’, The English Civil War Part II: Personal Accounts of the 1984–85 Miners’ Strike, ed. Jeremy Deller (London: Artangel, 2002) 122.

240

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:43 Page 241

Notes to pages 139–160 55. The Third Memory was first exhibited at the Renaissance Society at the University of Chicago (April 07–April 30, 2000) and at the Centre Pompidou, Paris (Jun 8 – Oct 16, 2000), then subsequently shown at the Marian Goodman Gallery, New York. 56. Fredric Jameson, ‘Class and Allegory in Contemporary Mass Culture: Dog Day Afternoon as a Political Film (1977)’, Signatures of the Visible (London and New York: Routledge, 1992) 41. 57. Jameson, ‘Class and Allegory …’, 48. 58. Jameson, ‘Class and Allegory …’, 53. 59. Jean-Christophe Royoux, ‘Free-Time Workers and the Reconfiguration of Public Space: Several Hypotheses on the Work of Pierre Huyghe’, Saving the Image: Art after Film, eds. Tanya Leighton and Pavel Buchler (Glasgow and Manchester: Centre for Contemporary Arts and Manchester Metropolitan University, 2003) 188. 60. Royoux, citing Godard, 191–92. For an alternative perspective on this ideal see Timothy Corrigan, ‘Immediate History: Videotape Interventions and Narrative Film’, The Image in Dispute: Art and Cinema in the Age of Photography, ed. Dudley Andrew (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1997) 315–319. 61. Royoux, 194. 62. See Thomas Miller Klubock, ‘History and Memory in Neoliberal Chile: Patricio Guzman’s Obstinate Memory and The Battle of Chile’, Radical History Review 85 (Winter 2003): 272–281. 63. See Allison Arnold Helminski, Memories of a Revolutionary Cinema’, Senses of Cinema 2, January 2000 [http://www.sensesofcinema.com/contents/00/2/memories.html] Accessed May 2008. See also Victor Burgin, The Remembered Film (London: Reaktion Books, 2004). 64. Katrin Mundt, ‘Inconsolable Memories’, in Stan Douglas, Stan Douglas – Past Imperfect –Works 1986–2007, Exhibition Catalogue (Ostfildern: Hatje Cantz Verlag, 2007) 209–210. 65. Alea’s film also includes a section somewhat sarcastically titled ‘A Tropical Adventure’, a visit to the former home of Ernest Hemingway, now a tourist attraction. 66. These images were included in a retrospective of Douglas’ work at the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart and Württembergischer Kuntsverein Stuttgart entitled ‘Stan Douglas – Past Imperfect – Works 1986– 2007’ (September 15, 2007 – January 6, 2008), but they did not form part of the first presentation of the work, at the Venice Biennale in 2005. 67. Douglas’ Monodramas (1991), a series of ten short videos made for Canadian television, utilize anonymous locations in Vancouver as the settings for ambiguous and open-ended narratives evoking film and television drama. 68. Byrne staged a live presentation of the discussion at Den Bosch in 2006, as part of If I Can’t Dance I Don’t Want to Be Part of Your Revolution, curated by Frederique Bergholtz, Tanja Elstgeest and Annie Fletcher. See Catherine Wood, ‘Two-Way Theatre’, The Present Tense Through the Ages: On the Recent Work of Gerard Byrne, ed. Vanessa Joan Müller (London: Koenig Books, 2007) 74. 69. George Baker, ‘The Storyteller: Notes on the Work of Gerard Byrne’, in Gerard Byrne, Books, Magazines, and Newspapers (New York: Lukas & Sternberg, 2003) 68. 70. Renov, ‘Towards a Poetics...’, 31. 71. See T.J. Demos, ‘Openings: Gerard Byrne’, Artforum (Summer 2007): 478–480. 72. Mark Godfrey suggests that the costumes evoke the aspirational figure of the ‘organizational man’, a figure promoted and solicited in the features and advertisements of Playboy in ‘History Pictures’,

241

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:43 Page 242

Notes to pages 160–169 The Present Tense Through the Ages: On the Recent Work of Gerard Byrne, ed. Vanessa Joan Müller (London: Koenig Books, 2007) 24. 73. See the interview with Gerard Byrne in Jessica Lack, ‘Hommes à Femmes’, Untitled Magazine 32, (September 2004): 36. 74. Lytle Shaw, ‘The Utopian Past’, The Present Tense Through the Ages: On the Recent Work of Gerard Byrne ed. Vanessa Joan Müller (London: Koenig Books, 2007) 127. 75. Shaw, 127. Chapter 5: Cine-material Screens and Structures 1. Giuliana Bruno, Public Intimacy: Architecture and the Visual Arts (Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, 2007) 56. 2. Linda Yablonsky, ‘Hollywood’s New Wave’, ARTNews, (December 2006): 112–117. One might also add works that use well-known film actors such as James Coleman’s Retake with Evidence (2007), featuring a monologue by Harvey Keitel. 3. In 2008 Hunger won the Camera d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival and the Sydney Film Prize at the Sydney Film Festival and has been nominated for various other awards. For an analysis of the film in relation to McQueen’s art practice see Caoimhín Mac Giolla Léith, ‘Flesh Becomes Words’, Frieze (September 2008): 124–131. Sam Taylor-Wood is scheduled to direct her first feature film, entitled Nowhere Boy, in 2009. 4. Chrissie Iles, in White et al, ‘Does the Museum Fail?: Podium Discussion at the 53rd International Short Film Festival Oberhausen’, Kinomuseum: Towards an Artists’ Cinema, eds. Mike Sperlinger and Ian White (Cologne: Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther Konig, 2008) 148. 5. Raymond Bellour, ‘D’un Autre Cinéma’, Trafic 34 (2000): 5–21. For an English translation of this text (by Robert Vallier) see Raymond Bellour, ‘Of An Other Cinema’, Art and the Moving Image: A Critical Reader, ed. Tanya Leighton, (London: Tate Publishing and Afterall, 2008) 406–421. 6. Shane Murray and Nigel Bertram, Australian representatives at the 10th Venice Architecture Biennale in 2006, explore a range of themes extending well beyond architectural form in ‘Micro Macro City: Excerpts from the Australian Pavilion’, Architecture Australia (September/October 2006): 97–111. 7. Bruno, Public Intimacy, 57. 8. Alex Coles, ‘Pavilions’, Art Monthly 308, (July–August 2007): 3. 9. See Dan Graham, ‘Cinema’, Two-Way Mirror Power: Selected Writings by Dan Graham on His Art, ed. Alexander Alberro (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1999) 95. 10. Iles, in White et al, ‘Does the museum fail?’, 123–132. For more expansive discussion of several of these works see Iles, ‘Between the Still and Moving Image’, Into the Light: The Projected Image in American Art 1964–1977, ed. Chrissie Iles (New York: Whitney Museum, 2001) 32–69. 11. Iles, in White et al, ‘Does the museum fail?’, 128. 12. For a bibliography on House see James Lingwood and Michael Morris in Michael Craig-Martin et al, ‘A Conversation between Michael Craig-Martin, Lisa Jardine, James Lingwood and Michael Morris’, Off Limits: 40 Artangel Projects, James Lingwood and Michael Morris, ed. Gerrie Van Noord (London: Merrell Publishers, 2002) 233. 13. Antony Vidler, Warped Space: Art, Architecture and Anxiety in Modern Culture (London; Cambridge, Mass: The MIT Press, 2000) 236.

242

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:43 Page 243

Notes to pages 169–175 14. See Rosalyn Deustche, Evictions: Art and Spatial Politics (Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, 1996) 273. 15. Liisa Roberts (untitled) in George Baker, ‘Artist Questionnaire: 21 Responses’, October 100 (Spring 2002): 47. 16. Liisa Roberts, 50. 17. Liisa Roberts, 51. 18. See Maeve Connolly, ‘Imaginary Spaces: Activist Practices’ in Jesse Jones, 12 Angry Films (Dublin: Fire Station Artists’ Studios, 2007) 17–23. 19. This term is associated with the work of Raymond Williams. See Margaret Morse’s ‘An Ontology of Everyday Distraction: The Freeway, the Mall, and Television’, in Virtualities: Television, Media Art, and Cyberculture (Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1998)100. 20. Unlike cinema, radio and television are characterized by an everyday quality, partly because broadcasting schedules have evolved to echo (and lend meaning to) the rituals and routines of everyday life. For further discussion of this aspect of broadcasting see Shaun Moores, ‘The Doubling of Place’ in Mediaspace: Place, Space and Culture in a Media Age, eds. Nick Couldry and Anna McCarthy (London and New York: Routledge, 2004) 21–36. 21. For a discussion of this work and its reception see Claire Bishop, Installation Art: A Critical History (London: Tate Publishing, 2005) 99–101. 22. A sensitivity to reflected sound and the acoustic properties of installation spaces is a feature of many works mentioned in this chapter and headphones are not used in any of the examples I have chosen to discuss in detail. 23. Annette Kuhn, ‘Heterotopia, Heterochronia; Place and Time in Cinema Memory’, Screen 45. 2 (Summer 2004): 110. 24. Kuhn, 113. 25. ‘Atopia’ was included in the official selection of Collateral Events, which also encompassed ‘And So it Goes: Artists from Wales’, ‘Scotland and Venice 2007’ and ‘Out of Position: The Video Installations of Willie Doherty’ (organized by British Council Northern Ireland and the Arts Council of Northern Ireland). 26. In 2005 the ‘Venice Pavilion’ housed the work of the artists representing Italy, with the Italian Pavilion and the Arsenale (curated by Rosa Martinez) reserved for international selections. In 2007, the Italian Pavilion (featuring work by Vezzoli) was relocated to a section of the Arsenale. 27. Andrea Tarsia, ‘Like Black Holes in a Bright White Space’, A Short History of Performance 1–14 April 2006, Exhibition Catalogue, ed. Andrea Tarsia (London: Whitechapel, 2006) 27. 28. Tarsia, 41. For a discussion of the Biennale as art world event, focusing on the vernissage in June 2007, see Sarah Thornton, Seven Days in the Art World (London: Granta, 2008) 221–253. 29. The concept of reanimation, as theorized by George Baker through reference to Deleuze, Pasolini and the work of James Coleman, seems relevant here. Baker emphasizes that the arrival of new (digital media) does not lead to the ‘death’ of the mechanical technologies of cinema and photography. Instead, these earlier technologies mutate, transform and so are ‘reanimated’. See George Baker, ‘Reanimations (I)’, October 104 (Spring 2003): 44–48. 30. Tom Gunning, ‘The Cinema of Attractions: Early Film, Its Spectator and the Avant-Garde’ Early Cinema: Space, Frame, Narrative, eds. Thomas Elsaesser with Adam Barker (London: BFI, 1990) 56–62.

243

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:43 Page 244

Notes to pages 175–189 31. Bart Lootsma, ‘Suspense’ in Thomas Demand, Thomas Demand, b&k+, Exhibition Catalogue to accompany the German contribution to the 26th Bienal de São Paulo, ed. Suzanne Böller (Cologne: Walther König, 2004) 61. 32. Lootsma, 63. 33. See Andrew Darley’s discussion of early and post-classical cinemas in relation to other forms of ‘spectacular entertainment’ in Visual Digital Culture: Surface Play and Spectacle in New Media Genres (London and New York: Routledge, 2000) 37–57. 34. See Maeve Connolly, ‘Emporium of the Senses: Spectatorship and Aesthetics at the 26th São Paulo Bienal’, Third Text 19.4 (July 2005): 399–409. 35. Lootsma, 61. 36. Lootsma, 68. 37. See Jacques Derrida, Specters of Marx: The State of the Debt, the Work of Mourning and the New International, Trans. Peggy Kamuf, (London and New York: Routledge, 1994) 196. 38. Derrida, 202. 39. Barbara Steiner, ‘Cultural Amnesia’, Andreas Fogarasi: Kultur und Freizeit, Hungarian Pavilion, Giardini di Castello, Venice 52nd International Art Exhibition La Biennale di Venezia, ed. Katalin Timár (Köln: Walther König, 2007) 74. Subsequent references to this publication are abbreviated to Andreas Fogarasi. 40. Steiner, 70. 41. Steiner, 69. 42. Recalling an incident of censorship, the former director of the Kassák Klub explains that she refused to offer a euphemistic explanation for the cancellation of a film screening, even though this was expected by the authorities. 43. Zsolt K Horváth, ‘Emptying Out: The Reshaping of Old Cultural Spaces in Budapest’, Andreas Fogarasi, 31. 44. Sergio Bologna, ‘Freeing Time from Work’, Andreas Fogarasi, 19. 45. Jochen Becker, ‘Free Palace, Temporary Use: The Culture and Palaces of the Socialists’, Andreas Fogarasi, 37. 46. Francesco Manacorda, ‘Cinematic Psycho-Functionalism’, Tobias Putrih, Venetian, Atmospheric, 52nd International Art Exhibition La Biennale di Venezia, Slovenian Pavilion, Exhibition Catalogue (Ljubljana, 2007), 13. 47. Tobias Putrih, interviewed by Nataša Petrešin, ‘On Quasi-scientific Experiments, Collectively Built Objects and Random Structures’, in Tobias Putrih, Venetian, Atmospheric, 52nd International Art Exhibition La Biennale di Venezia, Slovenian Pavilion, Exhibition Catalogue (Ljubljana, 2007) 5. 48. Manacorda, 13. 49. Manacorda, 12. 50. Manacorda, 13 51. Putrih, 7. 52. Interestingly, the film programme that accompanied this presentation prominently referenced the history of site-specific art through the inclusion of an excerpt from Jane Crawford and Robert Fiore’s documentary Sheds (2004), focusing on Robert Smithson’s Partially Buried Woodshed (1970). ‘Psycho

244

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:43 Page 245

Notes to pages 189–206

53. 54. 55.

56.

57. 58. 59. 60. 61.

62. 63.

64.

65.

66.

Buildings: Artists Take On Architecture’, was curated by Ralph Rugoff, May 28–August 25, 2008. For full details of the screenings see http://www.southbankcentre.co.uk/visual-arts/hayward-exhibitions/ psycho-buildings/film Manacorda, 13. Putrih, 8. Maria Hlavajova, ‘Introduction: Citizens and Subjects’, Citizens and Subjects: The Netherlands, For Example, eds. Rosi Braidotti, Charles Esche and Maria Hlavajova (Utrecht: BAK, basis voor actuel kunst and JRP Ringier, 2007) 11. Hlavajova also produced two pervious video works by Mik, exploring somewhat similar territory, entitled Raw Footage (2006) and Scapegoats (2006). Aernout Mik, ‘Of Training, Imitation and Fiction: A Conversation with Aernout Mik’, Citizens and Subjects: The Netherlands, For Example, eds. Rosi Braidotti, Charles Esche and Maria Hlavajova (Utrecht: BAK, basis voor actuel kunst and JRP Ringier, 2007) 40. Marc Augé, Non-Places: Introduction to an Anthropology of Supermodernity, Trans. John Howe (London: Verso, 1995). See Giorgio Agamben, Means Without End: Notes on Politics, trans. Vincenzo Binetti and Cesare Casarino (Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press, 2000). Mik, 41. Mik, 40. Jean-Luc Nancy, cited by Irit Rogoff in ‘WE. Collectivities, Mutualities, Participations’, I Promise it’s Political: Performativity in Art, Exhibition Catalogue (Cologne: Theater der Welt and Museum Ludwig, 2002) 130–131. Rogoff’s text also explores the relationship between Naficy’s ideas, Hannah Arendt’s concept of the ‘space of appearance’ and Giorgio Agamben’s notion of ‘means without end’. Jean-Luc Nancy, Being Singular Plural, Trans. Robert D. Richardson and Anne E. O’Byrne (Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 2000) 69. McMahon’s work developed within the context of the Curated Visual Arts Award, which is an initiative of the Joint North/South Committee of the Arts Council of Ireland/An Chomhairle Ealaíon and the Arts Council of Northern Ireland, in partnership with the Douglas Hyde Gallery in Dublin and Void gallery in Derry. Mike Nelson selected the four recipients of the award, Bea McMahon, Brendan Earley, Factotum and Conor McFeely, and also curated the exhibitions at both venues. My discussion refers to ‘Part 2’ of the Curated Visual Arts Award exhibition at the Douglas Hyde Gallery, featuring McMahon and Earley, March 14–April 10, 2008. For an overview of related theoretical debates see Martin Jay, Downcast Eyes: The Denigration of Vision in Twentieth Century (Berkeley, Los Angeles and London: University of California Press, 1994) 329–380. Carlos Amorales, ‘Broken Animals’, Escultura Social: A New Generation of Art from Mexico City, ed. Julie Rodriques Widholm (New Haven and London: Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago in association with Yale University Press, 2007) 61. Emphasis added. See also Georgie Thompson, Carlos Amorales: Dark Mirror, Irish Museum of Modern Art, 27 February – 11 May 2008 (Dublin: Irish Museum of Modern Art: 2008), unpaginated. See the discussion of Takashi Murakami’s studio for an alternative (but perhaps not entirely unrelated) model in Sarah Thornton, Seven Days in the Art World (London: Granta, 2008) 7.

245

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:43 Page 246

Notes to pages 206–217 67. 68. 69. 70.

71.

72. 73. 74.

75.

Amorales, 61. See Christian Rattemeyer, ‘Method Masking’, Parkett 63 (2001): 181–183. Jennifer Allen, ‘Madrid: Carlos Amorales, Casa de America’, Artforum (Summer 2005): 333. Both formed part of Froment’s solo exhibition ‘Calling the Elephant’, Gallery, Project Arts Centre, 15 December, 2007–26 January, 2008. The text has in fact formed the basis for a subsequent ‘live’ film work, performed in 2008 and entitled For Argument’s Sake (A companion film to Théâtre de Poche). For an overview of Froment’s work see Jessica Morgan, ‘Aurélien Froment’, Artforum (October 2008): 362–365. Tom Gunning, ‘The Cinema of Attractions: Early Film, Its Spectator and the Avant-Garde’ Early Cinema: Space, Frame, Narrative, eds. Thomas Elsaesser with Adam Barker (London: BFI, 1990) 56–62. Gallery Dialogue between Project Arts Centre curator Tessa Giblin and Aurélien Froment, Project Arts Centre, Dublin, December 15, 2007. See Frances Yates, The Art of Memory (London: Pimlico, 1992). Brian Winston, Technologies of Seeing: Photography, Cinematography and Television, (London: BFI, 1996) 49. The European Digital Cinema Forum has been established to promote the introduction of digital projection across European cinemas, and has focused on the development of economic models appropriate to the European contexts. See various publications archived at http://www.edcf.net/ articles.html (Accessed August 2008). For an overview of developments in theatrical exhibition associated with new technologies see Thorsten Hennig-Thurau et al., ‘The Last Picture Show? Timing and Order of Movie Distribution Channels’, Journal of Marketing 71 (October 2007): 63–83. Claire Doherty, ‘Curating Wrong Places … Or Where Have All the Penguins Gone’, Curating Subjects, ed. Paul O’Neill (London: Open Editions, 2007) 103.

Conclusion: Materials, Places and Social Relations 1. Lars Henrik Gass, ‘Afterword: After the Cinema’, Kinomuseum: Towards an Artists’ Cinema, eds. Mike Sperlinger and Ian White (Cologne: Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König, 2008) 158. 2. See George Baker, ‘Roundtable on the Projected Image in Contemporary Art’, October 104 (Spring 2003): 85. 3. Monument of Sugar was screened within the context of ‘Sugar, Sugar’ an exploration of research as art practice, curated by Tessa Giblin. The event formed part of State of Play, Graduate School of Creative Arts and Media, (Gradcam), Project Arts Centre, Dublin, May 9, 2008. For a discussion of this work see Christophe Gallois, ‘The Politics of Landscape’, Redrawing the Boundaries, ed. Lonnie van Brummelen & Siebren de Haan (Amsterdam: Valiz, 2009) 161–170. 4. Examples include various works by Pierre Huyghe, discussed above, Hito Steyerl’s Lovely Andrea (2008), Declan Clarke’s Mine Are of Trouble (2006) and several works by Michelle Deignan, including Il Cittadino (2007). 5. In this respect the film recalls elements of an earlier work by Sharon Lockhart, entitled NO (2003), which depicts a Japanese couple engaged in repetitive but highly systematic agricultural labour. 6. John Roberts, The Intangibilities of Form: Skill and Deskilling in Art After the Readymade (London and New York: Verso, 2008) 210–215. See also Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, Empire (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2000).

246

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:43 Page 247

Notes to pages 217–219 7. John Roberts, 212. 8. John Roberts, 213. Technical division creates new sub-categories of labour to minimise costs associated with the change-over between tasks and often results in a loss of control for the worker. The experience of the ‘call centre operative’ comes to mind as an illustration of routinized labour within the knowledge economy. 9. Roberts notes that this model is particularly indebted to the ideas of the Critical Art Ensemble, as articulated in The Electronic Disturbance, (Brooklyn: Automedia, 1994). 10. John Roberts, 181. 11. John Roberts, 187. Although he does not use the term ‘new institutionalism’ or focus specifically on associated curatorial practices, Roberts does describe the emergence of a form of ‘New Constructivism’ within art practice. See p. 216. 12. Nicolas Bourriaud, ‘Berlin Letter about Relational Aesthetics’, Contemporary Art: From Studio to Situation, ed. Claire Doherty (London: Black Dog Publishing, 2004) 49. 13. Nicolas Bourriaud, Relational Aesthetics, (Dijon: Les Presses du Reel, 2002) 60. Emphasis added. 14. Bourriaud, Relational Aesthetics, 61.

247

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:43 Page 248

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:43 Page 249

References Agamben, Giorgio, Means Without End: Notes on Politics, Trans. Vincenzo Binetti and Cesare Casarino (Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press, 2000). Aitken, Doug, ‘A Thousand Words’, Artforum (May 2000), p. 161. Alberro, Alexander, ‘The Gap Between Film and Installation Art’, in Tanya Leighton, ed., Art and the Moving Image: A Critical Reader, (London: Tate Publishing and Afterall, 2008), pp. 423–429. Albu, Emily, ‘Gladiator at the Millennium’, Arethusa 41.1 (2008), pp. 185–204. Allen, Jennifer, ‘Madrid: Carlos Amorales, Casa de America’, Artforum (Summer 2005), p. 333. Amorales, Carlos, ‘Broken Animals’, in Julie Rodriques Widholm, ed., Escultura Social: A New Generation of Art from Mexico City, (New Haven and London: Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago in association with Yale University Press, 2007), p. 61. Anderson, Benedict, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origins and Spread of Nationalism, Revised Edition (London and New York: Verso, 1991). Andreasen, Søren and Lars Bang Larsen, ‘The Middleman: Beginning to Talk About Mediation’, in Paul O’Neill, ed., Curating Subjects, (London: Open Editions, 2007), pp. 20–30. Anna Sanders Films, The In-Between (Newcastle and Dijon: Forma and Les Presses du Réel, 2003). Andrew, Dudley, ‘A Preface to Disputation’, in Dudley Andrew, ed., The Image in Dispute: Art and Cinema in the Age of Photography, (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1997), pp. 3–8. Aranda, Julieta and Anton Vidokle, interviewed in Hans Ulrich Obrist, ‘Ever. Ever. Ever.’, The Best Surprise is No Surprise, ed. Anton Vidokle (Zurich: JRPRingier/e-flux 2006), pp. 16–24. Arnold Helminski, Allison, ‘Memories of a Revolutionary Cinema’, Senses of Cinema 2, January 2000 [http://www.sensesofcinema.com/contents/00/2/memories.html] Accessed May 2008. Augé, Marc, Non-Places: Introduction to an Anthropology of Supermodernity, Trans. John Howe (London: Verso, 1995). Baker, George, ‘The Storyteller: Notes on the Work of Gerard Byrne’, in Gerard Byrne, Books, Magazines, and Newspapers (New York: Lukas & Sternberg, 2003), pp. 7–96. Baker, George, ‘Reanimations (I)’, October 104 (Spring 2003), pp. 44–48 Baker, George, ‘An Interview with Pierre Huyghe’, October 110 (Fall 2004), p. 83. Baker, George, Matthew Buckingham, Hal Foster, Chrissie Iles, Anthony McCall, Malcolm Turvey, ‘Round Table: The Projected Image in Contemporary Art’, October 104 (Spring 2003), pp. 71–96.

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:43 Page 250

The Place of Artists’ Cinema Balio, Tino, ‘Adjusting to the New Global Economy: Hollywood in the 1990s’,in Albert Moran ed., Film Policy, (London and New York: Routledge, 1996), pp. 23–37. Barthes, Roland, ‘Leaving the Movie Theatre’, The Rustle of Language (Berkeley, California: University of California Press, 1989), pp. 345–349. Bazin, Andre, ‘Painting and Cinema’, in Angela Dalle Vacche ed., The Visual Turn: Classical Film Theory and Art History, (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2003), pp. 221–225. Becker, Jochen, ‘Free Palace, Temporary Use: The Culture and Palaces of the Socialists’, Andreas Fogarasi, 37. Kultur und Freizeit, Hungarian Pavilion, Giardini di Castello, Venice 52nd International Art Exhibition La Biennale di Venezia, ed. Katalin Timár (Köln: Walther König, 2007), pp. 33–62. Behrman, Pryle, ‘InternationalArt plc’, Art Monthly 308 (July–August, 2007), pp. 5–8. Behrman, Pryle, ‘Fair or Foul’, Art Monthly 311 (November 2007), pp. 11–14. Bell, Neil, ‘History and Recreation: Re-enactment and Living History in Britain 2002’, History Today, (April 2002), pp. 56–59. Bellour, Raymond, ‘D’un Autre Cinéma’, Trafic 34 (2000), pp. 5–21. Bellour, Raymond, ‘Of An Other Cinema’, ed. Tanya Leighton, Art and the Moving Image: A Critical Reader, (London: Tate Publishing and Afterall, 2008), pp. 406–421. Bennett, Tony, ‘The Exhibitionary Complex’, in Reesa Greenberg, Bruce W. Ferguson, Sandy Nairne, eds., Thinking About Exhibitions, (London and New York: Routledge, 1996), pp. 81–112. Bergfelder, Tim, ‘The Nation Vanishes’, in Mette Hjort and Scott MacKenzie, eds., Cinema and Nation, (London: Routledge, 2000), pp. 139–152. Birnbaum, Daniel, ‘Temporal Spasms or, See You Tomorrow in Kiribati!’, in Anton Vidokle, ed., The Best Surprise is No Surprise, (Zurich: JRPRingier/e-flux 2006), pp. 10–15. Bishop, Claire, ‘Antagonism and Relational Aesthetics’, October 110 (Fall 2004), pp. 51–79 Bishop, Claire, ‘As if I was lost and someone suddenly came to give me news about myself’, in Gerrie Van Noord, ed., Off Limits: 40 Artangel Projects, (London: Merrell Publishers, 2002), pp. 22–29. Bishop, Claire, ‘The Social Turn’ Artforum (February 2006), pp. 178–183. Bishop, Claire, Installation Art: A Critical History (London: Tate Publishing, 2005). Bologna, Sergio, ‘Freeing Time from Work’, in Katalin Timár, ed., Kultur und Freizeit, Hungarian Pavilion, Giardini di Castello, Venice 52nd International Art Exhibition La Biennale di Venezia, (Köln: Walther König, 2007), pp. 7–20. Boltanski, Luc and Eve Chiapello, The New Spirit of Capitalism, Trans. Gregory Elliott (London and New York: Verso, 2007). Bourriaud, Nicolas, ‘Berlin Letter about Relational Aesthetics’ in Claire Doherty, ed. Contemporary Art: From Studio to Situation, (London: Black Dog Publishing, 2004), pp. 43–49. Bourriaud, Nicolas, Postproduction (New York: Lukas & Sternberg, 2001). Bourriaud, Nicolas, Relational Aesthetics [1998], Trans. Simon Pleasance and Fronza Woods (Dijon: Les Presses du Réel, 2002). Brighton, Andrew, ‘The Managerial State: Culture Without Art’, Printed Project 8 (October 2007), pp. 75–89. Bruno, Giuliana, Atlas of Emotion: Journeys in Art, Architecture, and Film (New York: Verso, 2002). Bruno, Giuliana, Public Intimacy: Architecture and the Visual Arts, (Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, 2007). Bruzzi, Stella (interlocutor), Gideon Koppel, Jane and Louise Wilson, ‘Collaborations and Technologies’,

250

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:43 Page 251

References in Gail Pearce and Cahal McLaughlin, eds., Truth or Dare: Art and Documentary, (Bristol: Intellect Books, 2007), pp. 65–80. Buck, Louisa, Market Matters (London: Arts Council England, October 2004). Bukatman, Scott, ‘The Artificial Infinite: On Special Effects and the Sublime’, in Lynne Cooke and Peter Wollen, eds., Visual Display: Culture Beyond Appearances, (Seattle: Bay Press, 1995), pp. 261–262. Burch, Noël and Allan Sekula, ‘Notes for a Film*’ in George Baker, ‘Artist Questionnaire: 21 Responses’, October 100 (Spring 2002), pp. 83–87. Burgin, Victor, The Remembered Film (London: Reaktion Books, 2004). Campany, David, ‘Introduction: When to be Fast? When to be Slow?’, in David Campany, ed., The Cinematic: Documents of Contemporary Art, (Cambridge, Mass. And London: MIT Press and Whitechapel, 2007), pp. 10–17. Chambers, Eddie, ‘Handsworth Songs and the Archival Image’, in Jane Connarty and Josephine Lanyon, eds., Ghosting: The Role of the Archive within Contemporary Artist’s Film and Video, (Bristol: Picture This, 2006), pp. 24–33. Chiapello, Eve, ‘Evolution and Co-optation: The “Artist Critique” of Management and Capitalism’, Third Text 18.6 (2004), pp. 85–594. Coles, Alex, ‘Pavilions’, Art Monthly 308, (July–August 2007), pp. 1–3. Colford, Anna, ‘Nothing & Everything to do with Democracy’, The Visual Artists’ News Sheet (May/June 2008), p. 26. Connarty, Jane and Josephine Lanyon, (eds.) Ghosting: The Role of the Archive within Contemporary Artist’s Film and Video (Bristol: Picture This, 2006). Connolly, Maeve, ‘Nomads, Tourists and Territories: Manifesta and the Basque Country’, Afterimage: Journal of Media and Cultural Criticism, 32.3 (November/December 2004), pp. 8–9. Connolly, Maeve, ‘Emporium of the Senses: Spectatorship and Aesthetics at the 26th São Paulo Bienal’, Third Text 19.4 (July 2005), pp. 399–409. Connolly, Maeve, ‘Imaginary Spaces: Activist Practices’ in Jesse Jones, 12 Angry Films (Dublin: Fire Station Artists’ Studios, 2007), pp. 17–23. Connolly, Maeve, ‘Of Other Worlds: Nature and the Supernatural in the Moving Image Installations of Jaki Irvine’, Screen 49.2 (Summer 2008), pp. 203–208. Corner, John and Sylvia Harvey, ‘Mediating Tradition and Modernity: The Enterprise/Heritage Couplet’, in John Corner and Sylvia Harvey, eds., Enterprise and Heritage: Crosscurrents of National Culture, (London: Routledge, 1991), pp. 53–56. Corrigan, Timothy, ‘Immediate History: Videotape Interventions and Narrative Film’, in Dudley Andrew, ed., The Image in Dispute: Art and Cinema in the Age of Photography, (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1997), pp. 315–319. Corrin, Lisa, ‘In Stereoscopic Vision: A Dialogue Between Jane & Louise Wilson and Lisa Corrin’, in Jane & Louise Wilson, Stasi City, Gamma, Parliament, Las Vegas, Graveyard Time, Exhibition Catalogue (London: Serpentine Gallery, 1999), pp. 6–7. Craig-Martin, Michael, et al, ‘A Conversation between Michael Craig-Martin, Lisa Jardine, James Lingwood and Michael Morris’, in Gerrie Van Noord, ed., Off Limits: 40 Artangel Projects, (London: Merrell Publishers, 2002), pp. 10–21.

251

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:43 Page 252

The Place of Artists’ Cinema Critical Art Ensemble, The Electronic Disturbance, (Brooklyn: Automedia, 1994). Crow, Thomas, ‘Historical Returns’, Artforum (April 2008), pp. 284–291. Cubitt, Sean, ‘Projection: Vanishing and Becoming’, in Oliver Grau, ed., MediaArtHistories, (Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, 2007), pp. 407–422. Dalle Vacche, Angela, ‘Introduction: Unexplored Connections in a New Territory’, in Angela Dalle Vacche, ed., The Visual Turn: Classical Film Theory and Art History, (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2003), pp. 1–32. Darke, Chris, Light Readings: Film Criticism and Screen Arts, (London: Wallflower, 2000). Darley, Andrew, Visual Digital Culture: Surface Play and Spectacle in New Media Genres, (London and New York: Routledge, 2000). Dean, Tacita ‘Presentation Sisters, 2005’, Tacita Dean, (London: Phaidon, 2006), pp. 136–137. Dean, Tacita and Jeremy Millar, Place (Art Works) (London: Thames and Hudson, 2005). Dean, Tacita, ‘Analogue’ in Tacita Dean, Exhibition Catalogue, eds. Christina Kennedy and Georgina Jackson, (Dublin: Dublin City Gallery The Hugh Lane, Dublin), pp. 42–43. Deleuze, Gilles and Felix Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia, (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1987). Deller, Jeremy, ed. The English Civil War Part II: Personal Accounts of the 1984–85 Miners’ Strike, (London: Artangel, 2002). Deller, Jeremy, ‘In Conversation: Jeremy Deller and Claire Doherty’ in Claire Doherty, ed., Contemporary Art: From Studio to Situation, (London: Black Dog Publishing, 2004), pp. 91–97. Demos, T.J., ‘Openings: Gerard Byrne’, Artforum (summer 2007), pp. 478–480. Dercon, Chris, ‘Gleaning the Future – From the Gallery Floor’, Vertigo 2.2 (2002), pp. 3–5. Derrida, Jacques, Specters of Marx: The State of the Debt, the Work of Mourning and the New International, Trans. Peggy Kamuf, (London and New York: Routledge, 1994). Deutsche, Rosalyn, Evictions: Art and Spatial Politics (Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, 1996). Dickinson, Margaret, Rogue Reels: Oppositional Film in Britain, 1945–90, (London: BFI Publishing, 1999). Doherty, Claire, ‘Curating Wrong Places … Or Where Have All the Penguins Gone’ in Paul O’Neill, ed., Curating Subjects, (London: Open Editions, 2007), pp. 100–108. Doherty, Claire, ‘In Search of a Situation’, Art in the Life World: Breaking Ground Research Papers, February 2008. Unpaginated. Doherty, Claire, ‘The Institution is Dead! Long Live the Institution! Contemporary Art and New Institutionalism’, Art of Encounter: Engage 15, (Summer 2004), pp. 6–13. Doherty, Claire, ‘The New Situationists’, Contemporary Art: From Studio to Situation, ed. Claire Doherty (London: Black Dog Publishing, 2004), pp. 7–14. Doherty, Willie, interviewed by Aidan Dunne, ‘Exposing Memory’s Limitations’, Irish Times, (Weekend Review) November 9, 2002. Elsaesser, Thomas, ‘Double Occupancy: Space, Place and Identity in European Cinema of the 1990s’, Third Text 20.6 (November 2006), pp. 647–658. Elsaesser, Thomas, ‘Fantasy Island: Dream Logic as Production Logic’, in Thomas Elsaesser and Kay Hoffmann, eds., Cinema Futures: Cain, Abel or Cable? The Screen Arts in the Digital Age, Amsterdam University Press, 1998), pp. 143–159.

252

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:43 Page 253

References Elsaesser, Thomas, ‘Wenders and the US: “The American Friend”‘, in Geoffrey Nowell-Smith and Steven Ricci, eds., Hollywood and Europe: Economics, Culture, National Identity 1945–95, (London: BFI, 1998), pp. 142–155. Elwes, Catherine, Video Art, A Guided Tour, (London: I.B. Tauris, 2004). Fink, Peter, ‘The Professionals’, Art Monthly 264, (March 2003), pp. 37–38. Foster, Hal, ‘Archives of Modern Art’, October 99 (Winter 2002), pp. 81–95. Foster, Hal, Design and Crime and Other Diatribes, (London and New York: Verso, 2002). Foster, Hal, The Return of the Real: The Avant-garde at the End of the Century (Cambridge, Mass. and London: MIT Press, 1996). Fowler, Catherine, ‘Room for Experiment: Gallery Films and Vertical Time from Maya Deren to Eija Liisa Ahtila’, Screen 45.4 (Winter 2004), pp. 324–343. Fried, Michael, ‘Absorbed in the Action’, Artforum 45.1 (September 2006), pp. 332–335, 398. Fried, Michael, ‘Art and Objecthood’, Artforum (Summer 1967), pp. 12–22. Gallois, Christophe, ‘The Politics of Landscape’, in Lonnie van Brummelen & Siebren de Haan, eds., Redrawing the Boundaries, (Amsterdam: Valiz, 2009), pp. 161–170. Gasher, Mike, Hollywood North: The Feature Film Industry in British Columbia, (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2002). Gass, Lars Henrik, ‘Afterword: After the Cinema’, in Mike Sperlinger and Ian White, eds., Kinomuseum: Towards an Artists’ Cinema, (Cologne: Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König, 2008), pp. 157–160. Gilroy, Paul The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness, (London and New York: Verso, 1993). Godfrey, Mark, ‘History Pictures’, in Vanessa Joan Müller, ed., The Present Tense Through the Ages: On the Recent Work of Gerard Byrne, (London: Koenig Books, 2007), pp. 17–25. Goldsmith, Ben and Tom O’Regan, The Film Studio: Film Production in the Global Economy, (Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2005). Graham, Dan, ‘Cinema’, Two-Way Mirror Power: Selected Writings by Dan Graham on His Art, ed. Alexander Alberro, (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1999), pp. 94–95. Griffin, Tim and James Meyer (moderators), Ai Wei Wei, Amy Capellazzo, Thomas Crow, Donna De Salvo, Isabelle Graw, Dakis Joannou, Robert Pincus-Witten, ‘Art and its Markets: A Roundtable Discussion’, Artforum (April 2008), pp. 293–303. Griffin, Tim, ‘The Job Changes You’, Artforum 45.1 (September 2006), pp. 336–339. Griffiths, Alison, ‘Shivers Down Your Spine’; Panoramas and the Origins of the Cinematic Reenactment, Screen 44.1 (Spring 2003), pp. 1–37. Gunning, Tom, ‘The Cinema of Attractions: Early Film, Its Spectator and the Avant-Garde’ in Thomas Elsaesser with Adam Barker, eds., Early Cinema: Space, Frame, Narrative, (London: BFI, 1990), pp. 56–62. Hansen, Miriam, Babel and Babylon: Spectatorship in American Silent Film, (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1991). Hardt, Michael and Antonio Negri, Empire (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2000). Harvey, Sylvia, ‘The Other Cinema – A History: Part I 1970–77’, Screen 26.6, (November/December 1985), pp. 40–57. Harvey, Sylvia, ‘The Other Cinema – A History: Part II’, Screen 27.2 (March/April 1986), pp. 80–96. Heath, Stephen, ‘Narrative Space’, Screen 17.3 (Autumn 1976), pp. 68–112.

253

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:43 Page 254

The Place of Artists’ Cinema Hennig-Thurau, Thorsten, Victor Henning, Henrik Sattler, Felix Eggers, and Mark B. Houston, ‘The Last Picture Show? Timing and Order of Movie Distribution Channels’, Journal of Marketing 71 (October 2007), pp. 63–83. Hess, John and Patricia R. Zimmermann, ‘Transnational Documentaries: A Manifesto’, Afterimage (January/February 1997), pp. 10–14. Hlavajova, Maria, ‘Introduction: Citizens and Subjects’, in Rosi Braidotti, Charles Esche and Maria Hlavajova, eds., Citizens and Subjects: The Netherlands, For Example, (Utrecht: BAK, basis voor actuel kunst and JRP Ringier, 2007), pp. 10–16. Horelli, Laura, interviewed by Marius Babius, ‘Personal Stories Addressing Structures in Society: Interview by Marius Babius’, in Jacob Fabricius, ed., Laura Horelli: Interviews, Diaries and Reports, (Berlin: Pork Salad Press, 2006), pp. 79–83. Laura Horelli, in Jacob Fabricius, ed. Laura Horelli: Interviews, Diaries and Reports (Berlin: Pork Salad Press, 2006), pp. 36–51. Horváth, Zsolt K., ‘Emptying Out: The Reshaping of Old Cultural Spaces in Budapest’, in Katalin Timár, ed., Kultur und Freizeit, Hungarian Pavilion, Giardini di Castello, Venice 52nd International Art Exhibition La Biennale di Venezia, (Köln: Walther König, 2007), pp. 25–32. Huyssen, Andreas, Twilight Memories: Marking Time in a Culture of Amnesia (New York and London: Routledge, 1995). Iles, Chrissie, ‘Video and Film Space’, in Erika Suderburg, ed., Space, Site, Intervention: Situating Installation Art, (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2000), pp. 252–262. Iles, Chrissie, ‘Between the Still and Moving Image’, in Chrissie Iles, ed., Into the Light: The Projected Image in American Art 1964–1977, (New York: Whitney Museum, 2001), pp. 33–34. Inglis, Tom, Moral Monopoly: The Rise and Fall of the Catholic Church in Modern Ireland, Second Edition (Dublin: University College Dublin Press, 1998). Jacquemin, Frédérique, ‘Belgian Barbarians’ in Maria Lind and Raimund Minichbauer, eds., European Cultural Policies 2015: A Report with Scenarios on the Future of Public Funding for Contemporary Art in Europe, (Stockholm and Wien: IASPIS and European Institute for Progressive Cultural Policies, 2005), pp. 50–59. Lingwood, James and Michael Morris, ‘Chronology 1985–2002’, in Gerrie Van Noord, ed., Off Limits: 40 Artangel Projects, (London: Merrell Publishers, 2002), pp. 220–247. Jäger, Joachin, ‘Caught Between Images: The Heightened Perception of the Filmic’, in Joachim Jäger, Gabriel Knapstein and Anette Husche, eds., Beyond Cinema: The Art of Projection: Films, Videos and Installations from 1963 to 2005, (Ostfilern: Hatje Cantz Verlag, 2006), pp. 28–31. Jameson, Fredric, ‘Spatial Systems in North by Northwest’ in Slavoj Žižek, ed., Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Lacan (But Were Afraid to Ask Hitchcock), (London: Verso, 1992), pp. 47–72. Jameson, Fredric, ‘The End of Temporality’, Critical Inquiry 29 (2003), pp. 659–718. Jameson, Fredric, ‘Class and Allegory in Contemporary Mass Culture: Dog Day Afternoon as a Political Film (1977)’, Signatures of the Visible (London and New York: Routledge, 1992), pp. 35–54. Jameson, Fredric, ‘Historicism in The Shining (1981)’, Signatures of the Visible, (London: Routledge, 1990), pp. 82–98. Jay, Martin, Downcast Eyes: The Denigration of Vision in Twentieth Century French Thought, (Berkeley, Los Angeles and London: University of California Press, 1994).

254

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:43 Page 255

References Jones, Jonathan, ‘Mike Nelson: ICA, London’, The Guardian, (October 5, 2001). Joselit, David, ‘The Video Public Sphere’, Art Journal (Summer 2000), pp. 47–53. Keenan, Thomas ‘Windows: Of Vulnerability’, in Bruce Robbins, ed., The Phantom Public Sphere, (Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press, 1993), pp. 121–141. Keller, Alexandra and Frazer Ward, ‘Matthew Barney and the Paradox of the Neo-Avant-Garde Blockbuster’, Cinema Journal 45.2 (Winter 2006), pp. 3–16. Keller, Sam, ‘Interview: I Offered to Resign if 9/11 Strategy Backfired’, The Art Newspaper 187 (January 2008), pp. 32–33. Kelly, Niamh Ann, ‘Looking Over its Shoulder: Ten Years at the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Circa 95 (2001), pp. 16–17. Knight, Julia, ‘In Search of an Identity: Distribution, Exhibition and the ‘Process’ of British Video Art’, in Julia Knight, ed., Diverse Practices: A Critical Reader on British Video Art, (Luton: University of Luton Press, 1996), pp. 217–237. Knight, Julia, ‘Agency vs. Archive: London Film-Makers’ Co-op and LVA vs. Film and Video Umbrella’, Screen 47.2 (Winter 2006), pp. 469–475. Kuhn, Annette and Catherine Grant, ‘Screening World Cinema’ in Kuhn and Grant, eds., Screening World Cinema: The Screen Reader, (London and New York: Routledge, 2006), pp. 1–14. Kuhn, Annette, ‘Heterotopia, Heterochronia; Place and Time in Cinema Memory’, Screen 45. 2 (Summer 2004), pp. 106–114. Kwon, Miwon, One Place After Another: Site-Specific Art and Locational Identity (Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, 2004). Lack, Jessica, ‘Hommes à Femmes’, Untitled Magazine 32, (September 2004), pp. 34–37. Laclau, Ernesto and Chantal Mouffe, Hegemony and Socialist Strategy: Towards a Radical Democratic Politics (London: Verso, 1985). Lazzarato, Maurizio, ‘The Misfortunes of the “Artistic Critique” and of Cultural Employment’, Trans, Mary O’Neill, Transversal webjournal, January 2007. Accessed September 2008. http://eipcp.net/ transversal/0207/lazzarato/en. Le Fanu, J. Sheridan, In a Glass Darkly [1872] (Hertfordshire: Wordsworth Editions, 1995). Le Grice, Malcolm, ‘Problematising the Spectator Placement in Film’, in Nina Danino and Michael Mazière, eds., The Undercut Reader: Critical Writings on Artists’ Film and Video, (London and New York: Wallflower Press, 2003), pp. 22–23. Leighton, Tanya, ‘Introduction’, Art and the Moving Image: A Critical Reader, (London: Tate Publishing and Afterall, 2008), pp. 7–40. Lind, Maria, ‘Introduction’, in Maria Lind and Raimund Minichbauer, eds., European Cultural Policies 2015: A Report with Scenarios on the Future of Public Funding for Contemporary Art in Europe, (Stockholm and Wien: IASPIS and European Institute for Progressive Cultural Policies, 2005), pp. 4–13. [http://eipcp.net/publications/ecp2015] Lind, Maria, ‘When Water is Gushing in’, Printed Project 6 (February 2007), pp. 18–22. Linebaugh, Peter and Marcus Rediker, The Many-Headed Hydra: The Hidden History of the Revolutionary Atlantic (London and New York: Verso, 2000). Lingwood, James and Michael Morris, in Gerrie Van Noord, ed., Off Limits: 40 Artangel Projects, (London: Merrell Publishers, 2002), pp. 220–247.

255

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:43 Page 256

The Place of Artists’ Cinema Lippard, Lucy, Six Years: The Dematerialization of the Art Object from 1966 to 1972, (Berkeley, Los Angeles and London: University of California Press, 1997). Lippard, Lucy, The Lure of the Local: Senses of Place in a Multicentered Society (New York: The New Press, 1997). Lootsma, Bart, ‘Suspense’ in Thomas Demand, b&k+,(Exhibition Catalogue to accompany the German contribution to the 26th Biennial de São Paulo, ed. Suzanne Böller (Cologne: Walther König, 2004), pp. 61–83. Mac Giolla Léith, Caoimhín, ‘Troubled Memories’, in Willie Doherty, Willie Doherty: False Memory, (London and Dublin: Merrell, in association with Irish Museum of Modern Art, 2002), pp. 19–26. Mac Giolla Léith, Caoimhín, ‘Drift’, Drift: Anne Tallentire, (Derry: Void, 2005). Unpaginated. Mac Giolla Léith, Caoimhín, ‘Flesh Becomes Words’, Frieze (September 2008), pp. 124–131. Mac Giolla Léith, Caoimhín, ‘Some of the Fun of the Fair’, in Maggie Smith, ed., The New Art, (London: Rachmaninoff’s and Zoo Art Fair, 2006), pp. 58–64. MacDonald, Scott, Avant-Garde Film: Motion Studies (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993). Manacorda, Francesco, ‘Cinematic Psycho-Functionalism’, Tobias Putrih, Venetian, Atmospheric, 52nd International Art Exhibition La Biennale di Venezia, Slovenian Pavilion, Exhibition Catalogue (Ljubljana, 2007), pp. 12–15. Massey, Doreen, ‘A Global Sense of Place’, Marxism Today, (June 1991), pp. 24–30. McCall, Anthony, ‘Line Describing a Cone and Related Films’, in Jackie Hatfield, ed., Experimental Film and Video, (Eastleigh: John Libbey Publishing, 2006), pp. 61–73. McCormack, W.J., ‘Irish Gothic and After (1820–1945)’, in Seamus Deane, ed., The Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing Volume 2, (Derry: Field Day Publications: 1991), pp. 831–854. McCurry, Justin, ‘Anti-Whaling Group ends Pursuit of Japanese Fleet’, Guardian, 29 January, 2008. McDonough, Tom, ‘No Ghost*’, October 110 (Fall 2004), pp. 107–130. McLoone, Martin, ‘The Commitments’, Same Old Story, Exhibition Catalogue, (London/Derry/ Colchester: Matt’s Gallery/Orchard Gallery/Firstsite, 1997), pp. 8–22. MacDonald, Scott, The Garden in the Machine: A Field Guide to Independent Films About Place, (California: University of California Press, 2001). Mehring, Christine, ‘Emerging Market’, Artforum (April 2008), pp. 322–329. Mellencamp, Patricia, Indiscretions: Avant-Garde Film, Video & Feminism (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1990). Mendelsohn, Adam E., ‘Be Here Now’, Art Monthly 300 (October 2006), pp. 13–16. Meyer, James, ‘Nomads: Figures of Travel in Contemporary Art’, in Alex Coles, ed., Site-Specificity: The Ethnographic Turn (de-, dis-, ex-, Volume 4), (London: Black Dog Publishing, 2000), pp. 10–29. Meyer, James, (moderator), Francesco Bonami, Catherine David, Okwui Enwezor, Hans-Ulrich Obrist, Martha Rosler, Yinka Shonibare, ‘Global Tendencies: Globalism and the Large-Scale Exhibition: The Global Exhibition’, Artforum (November 2003), pp. 152–206, 212. Meyer, James, ‘The Functional Site’,.in Erika Suderberg, ed., Space, Site, Intervention: Situating Installation Art, (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2000), pp. 23–37. Mik, Aernout, ‘Of Training, Imitation and Fiction: A Conversation with Aernout Mik’, in Rosi Braidotti, Charles Esche and Maria Hlavajova, eds., Citizens and Subjects: The Netherlands, For Example, (Utrecht: BAK, basis voor actuel kunst and JRP Ringier, 2007), pp. 31–50.

256

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:43 Page 257

References Millar, Jeremy, ‘Poets of their Own Affairs: A Brief Introduction to the Folk Archive’ in Jeremy Deller and Alan Kane Folk Archive: Contemporary Popular Art from the UK, (London: Book Works, 2005), pp. 149–152. Miller Klubock, Thomas, ‘History and Memory in Neoliberal Chile: Patricio Guzman’s Obstinate Memory and The Battle of Chile’, Radical History Review 85 (Winter 2003), pp. 272–281. Minichbauer, Raimund, ‘Pure Policy: EU Cultural Support in the Next 10 Years’ in Maria Lind and Raimund Minichbauer, eds., European Cultural Policies 2015: A Report with Scenarios on the Future of Public Funding for Contemporary Art in Europe, (Stockholm and Wien: IASPIS and European Institute for Progressive Cultural Policies, 2005), pp. 91–109. Moores, Shaun, ‘The Doubling of Place’ in Nick Couldry and Anna McCarthy, eds., Mediaspace: Place, Space and Culture in a Media Age, (London and New York: Routledge, 2004), pp. 21–36. Morgan, Jessica, ‘Aurélien Froment’, Artforum (October 2008), pp. 362–365. Morris, Michael, ‘The re-enactment – an introduction’, in Jeremy Deller, ed., The English Civil War Part II: Personal Accounts of the 1984–85 Miners’ Strike, (London: Artangel, 2002) p. 122. Morse, Margaret, Virtualities: Television, Media Art, and Cyberculture (Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1998). Muhle, Maria, ‘Why It’s Time for Realism, Again’, Afterall 17 (2008), pp. 81–87. Mulvey, Laura, Visual and Other Pleasures,(Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1989). Mundt, Katrin, ‘Inconsolable Memories’, in Stan Douglas, Stan Douglas – Past Imperfect – Works 1986–2007, Exhibition Catalogue (Ostfildern: Hatje Cantz Verlag, 2007), pp. 209–210. Murray, Shane and Nigel Bertram, ‘Micro Macro City: Excerpts From the Australian Pavilion’, Architecture Australia (September/October 2006), pp. 97–111. Naficy, Hamid, ‘Parallel Worlds: Shirin Neshat’s Video Works’, Shirin Neshat, exhibition catalogue (Wien, London: Kuntshalle Wien and Serpentine Gallery, 2000), pp. 43–53. Naficy, Hamid, An Accented Cinema: Exilic and Diasporic Filmmaking (Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2001). Nancy, Jean-Luc, Being Singular Plural, Trans. Robert D. Richardson and Anne E. O’Byrne (Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 2000). Nash, Mark, ‘Art and Cinema: Some Critical Reflections’, in Tanya Leighton, ed., Art and the Moving Image: A Critical Reader, (London: Tate Publishing and Afterall, 2008), pp. 446–447. Neshat, Shirin, ‘Passage to Iran: Shirin Neshat Interviewed by Babak Ebrahimian’, PAJ 72, (2000), pp. 44–55. Newhouse, Victoria, Art and the Power of Placement, (New York: Monacelli Press, 2005). Newman, Michael, ‘Au-delà de l’Object Perdu: de la Sculpture au Film et à la Vidéo/Beyond the Lost Object: from Sculpture to Film & Video’, Art Press 202 (1995), pp. 45–50. Noack, Ruth, ‘Productive Dualisms’, Shirin Neshat, exhibition catalogue (Wien, London: Kuntshalle Wien and Serpentine Gallery, 2000), pp. 31–41. Nora, Pierre, ‘Between Memory and History: Les Lieux de Mémoire’, trans. Marc Roudebush, Representations 26, (Spring 1989), pp. 7–24. Nowell-Smith, Geoffrey, ‘Introduction’, in Geoffrey Nowell-Smith and Steven Ricci, eds., Hollywood and Europe: Economics, Culture, National Identity 1945–95, (London: BFI, 1998), pp. 1–16. O’Doherty, Brian, Inside the White Cube: The Ideology of the Gallery Space, Expanded Edition, (Berkeley, Los Angeles and London: University of California Press, 1999).

257

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:43 Page 258

The Place of Artists’ Cinema O’Pray, Michael, ‘Modernism, Phantasy and Avant-Garde Film’, in Nina Danino and Michael Mazière, eds., The Undercut Reader: Critical Writings on Artists’ Film and Video, (London and New York: Wallflower Press, 2003), pp. 31–33. Orlow, Uriel, ‘Latent Archives, Roving Lens’, in Jane Connarty and Josephine Lanyon, eds., Ghosting: The Role of the Archive within Contemporary Artists’ Film and Video, (Bristol: Picture This, 2006), pp. 34–47. Orlow, Uriel, ‘trailer … on work/seth-tallentire’, 1999. Republished on www.urielorlow.net http://www.urielorlow.net/publications/essays/trailer.html Accessed June 2008. Osborne, Peter, ‘Distracted Reception: Time, Art and Technology’, Time Zones: Recent Film and Video, eds. Jessica Morgan and Gregor Muir (London: Tate, 2004), pp. 66–83. Owens, Craig, ‘Earthwords’, in Craig Owens, Scott Bryson, Barbara Kruger, Lynne Tillman, Jane Weinstock, eds., Beyond Recognition: Representation, Power and Culture, (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994) pp. 40–51. Papastergiadis, Nikos, The Turbulence of Migration: Globalization, Deterritorialization and Hybridity, (Oxford: Polity Press and Blackwell, 2000). Paul, Christiane, ‘The Myth of Immateriality’, in Oliver Grau, ed., MediaArtHistories, (Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, 2007), pp. 251–274. Philbrick, Jane, ‘Subcutaneous Melodrama: The Work of Eija-Liisa Ahtila’, PAJ 74, (2003), pp. 32–47. Pierce, Sarah, ‘A Politics of Interpretation’, .Paul O’Neill, ed., Curating Subjects, (London: Open Editions, 2007), pp. 159–173. Pierce, Sarah, ‘We Spoke About Hippies’, Institute of Contemporary Arts, 2008. http://www.ica.org.uk/ We%20spoke%20about%20hippies%2C%20by%20Sarah%20Pierce+17747.twl Accessed September 2004. Pierson, Michelle, Special Effects: Still in Search of Wonder, (New York: Columbia University Press, 2002). Preziosi, Donald, Brain of the Earth’s Body: Art, Museums and the Phantasms of Modernity (Minneapolis and London: Minnesota University Press, 2003). Putrih, Tobias, interviewed by Nataša Petrešin, ‘On Quasi-scientific Experiments, Collectively Built Objects and Random Structures’, in Tobias Putrih, Venetian, Atmospheric, 52nd International Art Exhibition La Biennale di Venezia, Slovenian Pavilion Exhibition Catalogue (Ljubljana, 2007), pp. 5–11. Rajchman, John, ‘Deleuze’s Time, or How the Cinematic Changes Our Idea of Art’, in Tanya Leighton, ed., Art and the Moving Image: A Critical Reader, (London: Tate Publishing and Afterall, 2008), pp. 307–327. Rattemeyer, Christian, ‘Method Masking’, Parkett 63 (2001), pp. 181–183. Raunig, Gerald, ‘2015’, in Maria Lind and Raimund Minichbauer, eds., European Cultural Policies 2015: A Report with Scenarios on the Future of Public Funding for Contemporary Art in Europe, (Stockholm and Wien: IASPIS and European Institute for Progressive Cultural Policies, 2005), pp. 14–19. Rendell, Jane, Art and Architecture: A Place Between (London: I.B. Tauris, 2006). Renov, Michael, ‘Away from Copying: The Art of Documentary Practice’ in Gail Pearce and Cahal McLaughlin, eds., Truth or Dare: Art and Documentary, (Bristol: Intellect Books, 2007), pp. 13–24. Renov, Michael, ‘Towards a Poetics of Documentary’, in Michael Renov, ed., Theorizing Documentary, (New York: Routledge, 1999), pp. 12–36.

258

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:43 Page 259

References Reynolds, Lucy, ‘Outside the Archive: The World in Fragments’, in Jane Connarty and Josephine Lanyon, eds., Ghosting: The Role of the Archive within Contemporary Artist’s Film and Video, (Bristol: Picture This, 2006), pp. 14–23. Roberts, John, The Intangibilities of Form: Skill and Deskilling in Art After the Readymade (London and New York: Verso, 2008). Roberts, Liisa (untitled) in George Baker, ‘Artist Questionnaire: 21 Responses’, October 100 (Spring 2002), pp. 47–55. Rogoff, Irit ‘The Where of Now’, in Jessica Morgan and Gregor Muir, eds., Time Zones: Recent Film and Video, (London: Tate, 2004), pp. 84–98. Rogoff, Irit, ‘WE. Collectivities, Mutualities, Participations’, I Promise it’s Political: Performativity in Art, Exhibition Catalogue (Cologne: Theater der Welt and Museum Ludwig, 2002), pp. 126–134. Rosen, Philip, (ed.) Narrative, Apparatus, Ideology: A Film Theory Reader (New York: Columbia University Press, 1986). Royoux, Jean-Christophe, ‘Free-Time Workers and the Reconfiguration of Public Space: Several Hypotheses on the Work of Pierre Huyghe’, in Tanya Leighton and Pavel Buchler, eds., Saving the Image: Art After Film, (Glasgow and Manchester: Centre for Contemporary Arts and Manchester Metropolitan University, 2003), pp. 180–200. Saltz, Jerry, ‘What are Art Fairs For?’, Modern Painters, (March 2005), pp. 22–23. Sassen, Saskia Cities in a World Economy (Thousand Oaks, California: Pine Forge Press, 1994). Sassen, Saskia, Territory, Authority, Rights: From Medieval to Global Assemblages, (Princeton and London: Princeton University Press, 2006). Sassen, Saskia, The Global City: New York, London, Tokyo, Second Edition, (Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2001). Schjeldahl, Peter, ‘V.I.: Jane & Louise Wilson’, in Jane & Louise Wilson, Stasi City, Gamma, Parliament, Las Vegas, Graveyard Time, Exhibition Catalogue (London: Serpentine Gallery, 1999), pp. 4–5. Schlesinger, Philip R., ‘Europe’s Contradictory Communicative Space’, Daedalus 123.2 (Spring 1994), pp. 25–49. Schulte Strathaus, Stefanie, ‘“Showing Different Films Differently”: Cinema as a Result of Cinematic Thinking’, The Moving Image 4.1 (Spring 2004), pp. 1–17. Shaw, Lytle, ‘The Utopian Past’, in Vanessa Joan Müller, ed., The Present Tense Through the Ages: On the Recent Work of Gerard Byrne (London: Koenig Books, 2007), pp. 121–128. Sheikh, Simon, ‘Constitutive Effects: The Techniques of the Curator’, in Paul O’Neill, ed., Curating Subjects, (London: Open Editions, 2007), pp. 174–185. Sherman, Daniel J., ‘Quatremère/Benjamin/Marx: Art Museums, Aura, and Commodity Fetishism’ in Daniel Sherman and Irit Rogoff, eds., Museum Culture: Histories, Discourses, Spectacles, (London and New York: Routledge, 1994), pp. 123–143. Silverman, Kaja, ‘Suture (excerpts)’, in Philip Rosen, ed., Narrative, Apparatus, Ideology: A Film Theory Reader, (New York: Columbia University Press, 1986), pp. 219–235. Skoller, Jeffrey, Shadows, Specters, Shards: Making History in Avant-garde Film, (Minneapolis: Minnesota University Press, 2005).

259

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:43 Page 260

The Place of Artists’ Cinema Slater, Ben, ‘Light on the City: The Cinema of desperate optimists’, in Valerie Connor, ed., Stephen Loughman, Dennis McNulty, desperate optimists: Representing Ireland at the 26th Bienal de São Paulo, Brazil, (Dublin: Department of Arts, Sport and Tourism, 2004), pp. 58–65. Sollfrank, Cornelia, ‘The Future of Cultural Production in the “Cultural Nation” of Germany’ in Maria Lind and Raimud Minichbauer (eds), European Cultural Policies 2015: A Report with Scenarios on the Future of Public Funding for Contemporary Art in Europe,, (Stockholm and Wien: IASPIS and European Institute for Progressive Cultural Policies, 2005), pp. 60–69. Sperlinger, Mike and Ian White, (eds.) Kinomuseum: Towards an Artists’ Cinema edited by (Cologne: Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König, 2008). Steiner, Barbara, ‘Cultural Amnesia’, in Katalin Timár ed., Andreas Fogarasi: Kultur und Freizeit, Hungarian Pavilion, Giardini di Castello, Venice 52nd International Art Exhibition La Biennale di Venezia, (Köln: Walther König, 2007), pp. 67–74. Sturken, Marita ,’TV as a Creative Medium: Howard Wise and Video Art,’ Afterimage (May 1984), pp. 5–9. Tarsia, Andrea, ‘Like Black Holes in a Bright White Space’, in Andrea Tarsia, ed., A Short History of Performance 1–14 April 2006, Exhibition Catalogue, (London: Whitechapel, 2006), pp. 18–29. Thomas, Peter, ‘The Co-Operative Spirit: Development and Variance in the Distribution Policies of the NYFC, Canyon Cinema, LFMC/Lux and Circles/Cinenova’, paper presented at Society for Cinema and Media Studies Conference, Atlanta, March 7th, 2004. Thomas, Peter, ‘The Struggle for Funding: Sponsorship, Competition and Pacification’, Screen 47.2 (Winter 2006), pp. 461–467. Thompson, Georgie, Carlos Amorales: Dark Mirror, Irish Museum of Modern Art, 27 February–11 May 2008 (Dublin: Irish Museum of Modern Art: 2008) unpaginated. Thornton, Sarah, Seven Days in the Art World (London: Granta, 2008). Timár, Katalin, ‘Afterword’, Andreas Fogarasi: Kultur und Freizeit, Hungarian Pavilion, Giardini di Castello, Venice 52nd International Art Exhibition La Biennale di Venezia, ed. Katalin Timár (Köln: Walther König, 2007), pp. 75–78. V22 p.l.c., Contemporary Art Collection: Plus Markets Admission Document (London: V22, 2006) 9. [http://www.v22plc.com] Accessed May 2008. Valentine, Jeremy, ‘Art and Empire: Aesthetic Autonomy, Organizational Mediation and Contextualising Practices’ in Jonathan Harris, ed., Art, Money, Parties: New Institutions in the Political Economy of Contemporary Art, (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press and Tate Liverpool, 2004), pp. 187–214. Vidler, Antony, Warped Space: Art, Architecture and Anxiety in Modern Culture, (London; Cambridge, Mass: The MIT Press, 2000). Von Osten, Marion, ‘The Spaces of a Cultural Question: an Email Interview with Brian Holmes’, Republicart.net, 2004. Accessed May 2008. [http://www.republicart.net/disc/precariat/holmesosten01_en.htm]. Walsh, Maria, ‘Cinema in the Gallery – Discontinuity and Potential Space in Salla Tykkä’s Trilogy’, Senses of Cinema (August 2003). Accessed November 2007. http://www.sensesofcinema.com/contents/03/28/ salla_tykka_trilogy.html Wasson, Haidee, Museum Movies: The Museum of Modern Art and the Birth of Art Cinema (Berkeley and Los Angeles, California: University of California Press, 2005).

260

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:43 Page 261

References Walley, Jonathan, ‘Modes of Film Practice in the Avant-Garde’ in Tanya Leighton, ed., Art and the Moving Image: A Critical Reader, (London: Tate Publishing and Afterall, 2008), pp. 182–199. Walley, Jonathan, ‘The Material of Film and the Idea of Cinema: Contrasting Practices in Sixties and Seventies Avant-Garde Film’, October 103 (Winter 2003), pp. 15–30. White, Ian (moderator), Alexander Horwath, Chrissie Iles, Marysia Lewandowska, Vanessa Joan Müller, ‘Does the Museum Fail?: Podium Discussion at the 53rd International Short Film Festival Oberhausen’, in Mike Sperlinger and Ian White, eds. Kinomuseum: Towards an Artists’ Cinema, (Cologne: Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther Konig, 2008), pp. 115–155. White, Ian, ‘Art and Film Get Spliced’, Art Review 57 (October 2005), pp. 61–62. White, Ian, ‘Kinomuseum’, in Mike Sperlinger and Ian White, eds., Kinomuseum: Towards an Artists’ Cinema, (Cologne: Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König, 2008), pp. 13–28. Willemen, Paul, ‘An Avant Garde for the Eighties’, Framework 24 (1984), pp. 53–73. Willemen, Paul, ‘The Third Cinema Question: Notes and Reflections’, in Jim Pines and Paul Willemen, eds., Questions of Third Cinema, (London: BFI Publishing, 1989), pp. 1–29. Willemen, Paul, ‘Towards an Analysis of the Sirkian System’, Screen 13.4 (Winter 1972), pp. 128–134. Willemen, Paul, Looks and Frictions: Essays in Cultural Studies and Film Theory (London and Bloomington: BFI and Indiana University Press, 1994). Winston, Brian, Claiming the Real (London: BFI, 1995). Winston, Brian, Technologies of Seeing: Photography, Cinematography and Television, (London: BFI, 1996). Wolin, Joseph R. ‘I Have Never Wanted to be MoMA When I Grow Up’, in Gemma Tipton, ed., The Lab Gallery: 40 Exhibitions(Dublin: Dublin City Council, 2008), pp. 126–133. Wollen, Peter, Readings and Writings: Semiotic Counter-Strategies, (London: Verso 1982). Wood, Catherine, ‘Two-Way Theatre’, in Vanessa Joan Müller, ed., The Present Tense Through the Ages: On the Recent Work of Gerard Byrne, (London: Koenig Books, 2007), pp. 73–80. Yablonsky, Linda, ‘Hollywood’s New Wave’, ARTNews, (December 2006), pp. 112–117. Yates, Frances, The Art of Memory (London: Pimlico, 1992). Zabunyan, Elvan, ‘Encounter with the Fantôme Créole’, Trans. Natasha Edwards, Isaac Julien: Livre Numero 8: Espace 315 Nouveaux Medias, Exhibition Catalogue (Paris: Éditions du Centre Pompidou, 2005), pp. 8–16. Zummer, Thomas, ‘Projection and Dis/embodiment: Genealogies of the Virtual’, in Chrissie Iles, ed., Into the Light: The Projected Image in American Art 1964–1977, (New York: Whitney Museum, 2001), pp. 70–83.

261

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:43 Page 262

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:43 Page 263

Index NOTE: Page numbers in italics refer to illustrations, those followed by n to information in a note. Cinema release films are entered under title, artists’ works under the artist’s name. Abramovic, Marina 19 abstraction and ‘unrepresentable’ 34, 214 Acconci, Vito 19 Ahtila, Eija-Liisa 19, 23, 25, 35 Art Basel ‘Art Film’ works 39 Consolation Service 64, 92–7, 94–5, 166 Where is Where? 92 Aitken, Doug 166 eraser 63, 73–6, 74–5, 215 Akerman, Chantal 28, 93 D’est (From the East) 65 From the Other Side 114 Jeanne Dielman 128 Alea, Tomas Gutierrez: Memories of Underdevelopment 149, 152, 154 Allen, Jennifer 206–7 Alÿs, Francis 114 Seven Walks 44 When Faith Moves Mountains 110 American Friend, The (Wenders) 30–1 amnesia and artists’ cinema 19 ‘cultural amnesia’ 12, 67 Amorales, Carlos 166, 191, 214, 216 ‘Amorales’ wrestler character 206 Dark Mirror 203–7, 204–5 Liquid Archive 59, 203, 205 Lucha Libre 206 Nuevos Ricos project 206

analogue media and authenticity 128–9 Andrew, Dudley 12 Anger, Kenneth 19, 232n animation Amorales’ Dark Mirror 203, 204, 206 ‘reanimation’ in Demand’s Trick 175 Anna Sanders Film 32 antagonism and spectatorship 25 Apollo Pavilion, Newcastle 68 appropriation and Demand’s work 175 Aranda, Julieta 57 architecture cine-materiality and structure 163–91, 215–16 landmarks and Douglas’ Inconsolable Memories 155 and multi-screen projections 65–6, 72, 84, 86 and museums 68 and nostalgia for space 168–9 performative quality in Douglas’ work 161 as subject 123 visualization methods 207 see also pavilions archives and artists’ cinema 10, 49 Battle of Orgreave Archive 136, 137, 165 Broken Animals’ Liquid Archive 59, 203, 206 and documentary genre 114–15 MoMA Film Library and ‘publicness’ 64–5 temporality and ‘archival’ and digital mediums 169

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:43 Page 264

The Place of Artists’ Cinema Armory Show art fair 48 Art Basel art fair 48, 49, 50 ‘Art Film’ programme 39 art collectors V22 business model 57–8 and video installation art 51–2 art fairs and artists’ production methods 45 civic funding 48 commissioned works 50, 51, 56 and marketplace 47–8, 49–51, 214 art galleries see commercial galleries; museums and galleries art market 12, 21–2, 37–59, 214 Artangel agency 44–5, 51–2, 113, 134 ‘artistic avant-garde artists’ films 19 ‘artistic critique’ 40, 41, 56 artists’ cinema definitions 9–10, 19 filmmaking parallels 45 in museums and collections 51–4 typology of artists’ films 19 artists as filmmakers 45, 165 Arts Council England 50, 51, 58 Asimov, Isaac 155 ‘assemblages’ and nation states 43 Ataman, Kutlu : Kuba 44 ‘atmospheric’ cinemas 186, 189 ‘attractions’ in cinema 113, 175, 210 auction houses and marketplace 48–9 Augé, Marc 197 aura and ‘re-auratisation’ 67, 68, 213, 218 authenticity and analogue media 128–9 authorship/authorial role 29, 142, 149 ‘bio-computational’ model 217 avant-garde artists’ films 19 and art market 21–2 avant-garde cinema and place 28–9 BaadAssss Cinema (Julien) 81, 84 Baker, George 33–4, 35, 160, 214, 243n Bakhtin, Mikhail 28

BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Newcastle-Gateshead 68 Barney, Matthew 165 Cremaster 3 (The Order DVD) 54 Cremaster 4 44 Cremaster cycle 44, 45, 54 Drawing Restraint 9 38, 54–5 Bartana, Yael: Summer Camp 171 Barthes, Roland 25 Basel Art Fair 47 see also Art Basel art fair Battle of Chile: Part 2, The (Guzman) 143, 148, 149 Baudrillard, Jean 58–9 Bazin, André 21, 23–4 Becher, Bernd and Hilla 34 Becker, Jochen 186 Behrman, Pryle 50 ‘being-with’ and artists’ cinema 198 Benjamin, Walter 114, 115 Bergfelder, Tim 113 Berlin Biennial 171 ‘between-ness’ 18, 19–20, 214 biennial exhibitions and artists’ careers 56 commissioned works 55–6, 111, 116 and marketplace 45, 55–7 project spaces 50, 56 see also pavilions; Venice Biennale Bik Van der Pol: SunsetCinema (with Šušteršicˇ) 170 Billingham, Richard: Fish Tank 44, 45 ‘bio-computational’ authorship model 217 Birnbaum, Daniel 57 Bishop, Claire 25, 51, 70, 111–13, 137 Black Audio Film Collective Handsworth Songs 47, 114 and workshop initiative 47 ‘black box’ exhibition space 24, 50–1 and Froment’s White Balance 210–11 Bologna, Sergio 181 Boltanski, Luc 12, 18, 40–1, 47, 56, 58, 186 Bonami, Francis 55–6 Bourriaud, Nicolas 25, 32, 41, 42, 217, 218, 226n

264

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:43 Page 265

Index Bradbury, Ray 155 Brakhage, Stan 46, 53 Brass, Tinto: Caligula 174 Brecht, Bertolt 34 Breer, Robert 39 bridges as theme 77, 80, 90 broadcasting see television Broken Animals: Liquid Archive 59, 203, 206 Broodthaers, Marcel 31 Musée d’Art Moderne 168 Brummelen, Lonnie van: Monument of Sugar (with Haan) 216–17 Bruno, Giordano 234n Bruno, Giuliana 65–6, 165, 166–7 Buck, Louisa 39, 51, 52 Bukatman, Scott 113 Bures Miller, George: The Paradise Institute (with Cardiff ) 170 Byrne, Gerard 13, 33, 34, 35, 111, 170, 214, 215 1984 and Beyond 155–61, 156–9, 162 Why it’s Time for Imperial, Again 161 Caligula (Brass) 174 Camillo, Giulio: Memory Theatre 234n Campus, Peter 19, 23 Canyon Cinema 46 Capellazzo, Amy 49 capitalism 33–4, 40 see also commodity; marketplace and artists’ cinema Cardiff, Janet: The Paradise Institute (with Bures Miller) 170 Channel Four 47, 134 Chiapello, Eve 12, 18, 40–1, 47, 56, 58, 186 Child, Abigail 114 Chodorov, Pip 39 Chodzko, Adam 86 cinema ‘atmospheric’ cinemas 186, 189 cine-materiality and structure 20, 35, 163–91, 215–16, 218 filmmakers as artists 45

history and artists’ cinema 10, 65, 66 and multi-screen projections 66–7, 80, 81 nostalgia for 168, 171, 218 and place 28–9, 35, 218 ‘publicness’ and exhibition space 64–6 spectators and reception 22–5 see also film industry; theatrical exhibition ‘cinema of attractions’ 113, 175, 210 ‘cinematic’ 20, 218 definitions 9–10 circulation/distribution and art fair projects 51 distribution organizations 39, 46 event-site works 134, 136 and HD technology 211 internet issues 52 limited editions 26, 39, 52, 53, 203 and production methods 45–7, 213 and reproducibility of works 53 see also exhibition; rentals system; theatrical exhibition cities and Inconsolable Memories/Memories of Underdevelopment 149, 152, 154–5 in multiscreen projections 86, 100–7 ‘projective city’ 12, 40–1 spatialization processes and culture 42–4 civic initiatives 43, 48, 130, 134 Clarke, Arthur C. 155 Colboc, Benjamin 207 Coles, Alex 167 collective memory 28, 115 collectivity and cine-materiality 166, 170, 191, 197, 198, 212 and cinematic model 10, 14, 218 and multi-screen projections 65, 66–7 colour technology and film 211 commercial art world see commercial galleries; marketplace and artists’ cinema commercial distribution 39 commercial galleries 49, 50

265

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:43 Page 266

The Place of Artists’ Cinema commissioned works art fairs 50, 51, 56 biennial exhibitions 55–6, 111, 116 museums and galleries 111 public art projects 110–11, 130, 215 commodity art as 14, 58–9, 111–12, 214 ‘noncommodity’ status 22–3, 51 as theme 179, 207, 216–17 ‘complex seeing’ 28 complicity and embeddedness 41–2 co-operatives and distribution 39, 46, 53, 58 Corrin, Lisa 68, 70 Counsell, Melanie: Coronet Cinema 44 Crow, Thomas 48–9, 58, 59, 96 Cubitt, Sean 66 ‘cultural amnesia’ 12, 67 cultural policies 43–4 Culture 2000/Culture 2007 initiatives 43–4, 50 Curated Visual Arts Award 245n Dalle Vacche, Angela 12 Darke, Chris 19, 20, 34, 45, 130 de Certeau, Michel 206, 226n De Palma, Brian: Scarface 154 Dean, Tacita 11, 13, 110 The Green Ray 129 Kodak 53–4, 123, 168, 213 Palast 123 Presentation Sisters 122–9, 124–7, 161, 215 The Uncles 123 Deeds, Caroline: Waste Man 44 Deleuze, Gilles 179 Deller, Jeremy 13 The Battle of Orgreave 44, 110, 111, 113, 134–9, 135, 162 Demand, Thomas 172 Grotto 175, 177 Trick 175–80, 176 democracy and public space 96–7 Demos, T.J. 160 Dercon, Chris 19

Deren, Maya 19 Derrida, Jacques 179 deskilling of labour 217 Desnoes, Edmundo 149, 152 desperate optimists (Molloy and Lawlor) Daydream 134, 213 Helen 130, 228n Joy 108, 110, 130–4, 132–3, 162, 213 deterritorialization 28, 29, 34, 41 Deutsche, Rosalind 63, 96–7, 169 development policies and culture 43–4 see also urban regeneration Deyhim, Sussan 100 digital technology and media 100, 129, 166, 216 archive storage 49 Demand’s ‘reanimation’ 175 and temporality 64–5 transition to HD technology 211 and translation 169 dimmed lighting and exhibition 19–20, 25, 64 ‘displaced’ contexts 110, 161–2, 215 distribution see circulation/distribution distribution organizations 39, 46 Documenta exhibitions 114, 171 documentary genre 113–16, 136 documentary practice and event-sites 109–62, 215, 216–17 Dog Day Afternoon (Lumet) 139, 142 Doherty, Claire 11, 42, 44, 80, 110, 161, 211 Doherty, Willie 170, 214 The Bridge (Diptych) 77 Control Zone 77 Drive 77 Extracts From A File 80 Re-Run 63, 76–81, 78–9, 97, 107, 215 Same Old Story 77 The Only Good One is a Dead One 80 True Nature 80 ‘double occupancy’ 29 doubling as theme 29–30, 86, 139, 142, 172 Douglas Hyde Gallery, Dublin 202

266

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:43 Page 267

Index Douglas, Stan 13, 23, 25, 35, 111, 214 La Detroit 155 Inconsolable Memories 149–55, 150–1, 153, 162 Monodramas 241n New Sexual Lifestyles 160–1 drive-in screening venues 170–1 Dublin Docklands Development Authority (DDDA) 228n Duchamp, Marcel 216 DVD release of artworks 52, 54, 134, 136 see also rentals system e-flux 57, 59 Eberson, John 186, 189 editions of works 26, 39, 52, 53, 203 Egoyan, Atom 65 Steenbeckett 44, 45 Eisenstein, Sergei 21 Electronic Arts Intermix (EAI) 47 Eliasson, Olafur 167 Elsaesser, Thomas 29, 30, 232n Elwes, Catherine 20–1, 34 embeddedness and New Institutionalism 41–2 ephemeral art and collection 51–2 European Capital of Culture initiative 43–4, 129 European Culture 2000/Culture 2007 initiatives 43–4, 50 European Digital Cinema Forum 246n event-sites and documentary practice 109–62, 213, 215 exhibition dual exhibition sites 26, 27, 54 limitations for multi-screen projections 72 museums as exhibition spaces 61–107, 213 ‘publicness’ and exhibition space 64–6 and reception 22–7 simultaneous display of artists’ cinema 52 see also art fairs; biennial exhibitions; ‘black box’ exhibition space; circulation/distribution; museums and

galleries; pavilions as exhibition space; theatrical exhibition ‘exhibitionary complex’ 20 ‘exilic cinema’ 29 ‘expanded cinema’ 21 experimental film 19, 39 Farocki, Harun: Deep Play 26 feminist film and theory 93, 96 Figgis, Mike: The Battle of Orgreave 111, 134–9, 161 Film Gallery, The 39 film industry distribution and reproducibility of films 52, 53 and location 113 and place 35, 214 and studio production methods 45 see also cinema; theatrical exhibition Film London 44, 51 Film Noir and Doherty’s Re-Run 80, 81 film programming and ‘between-ness’ 18 film props and art objects 54–5 filmmakers as artists 45 artists as 45, 165 Fisher, Morgan 114 Fogarasi, Andreas Arbeiter verlassen das Kulturhaus 181 Fun Palace 186 Ikarus 181 Kultur und Freizeit 180–8, 184–5, 216 A Machine for 180, 181, 183 Periphery 181 Six Projection Spaces 180–6 Workers’ Club 180–1, 182 Foster, Hal 34, 58–9, 68 found footage 114–15, 192 Fowler, Catherine 19, 23–4, 80 fragments and archive inclusion 114–15, 202 frame: ‘in-frame and out-of-frame’ continuum 23–4, 80, 97 ‘free spaces’ 186

267

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:43 Page 268

The Place of Artists’ Cinema French Intermittents campaign 41 Fried, Michael 26 Frieze Art Fair 9, 48 ‘Artist’s Cinema’ project 50–1, 168 and funding 50, 51 Frieze Foundation and funding 50, 51 Froment, Aurélien 166, 191 The Prompter’s Work 210 Théâtre de Poche 207–11, 208–9 White Balance 210–11, 212, 213, 218 functional sites 31, 111, 161, 215 funding and art fairs 48, 50, 51 and artists’ cinema 54 for circulation/distribution organizations 46–7 for exhibition projects 45, 50, 55 public funding 48, 110–11, 129, 130, 134, 215 galleries see commercial galleries; museums and galleries ‘gallery films’ 19, 20, 23–4 Gass, Lars Henrik 213 genealogies of artists’ cinema 19–22 generic and specific settings 28, 80, 92, 215 ‘ghosts’ Derrida’s ‘hauntology’ and Demand 179 ghost story genre 86, 90, 91 in multi-screen projections 70, 86, 90–1, 93, 96, 107, 214 Giles, Howard 136, 138 Gillick, Liam 42, 218 Gladstone, Barbara 54, 99 ‘global city’ concept 43 Godfrey, Mark 241n Gonzalez-Foerster, Dominique 32 Gordon, Douglas 19 Feature Film 44 Zidane (with Parreno) 25–7, 165 Gothic themes and images 91 Graham, Dan 19 Cinema 167–8

Opposing Mirrors and Video Monitors on Time Delay 23 Graw, Isabelle 49, 58 Greenaway, Peter 65 Griffin, Tim 26 Griffiths, Alison 240n Guggenheim Museum Bilbao 68, 91–2 Gunning, Tom 113, 175 Guzman, Patricio Obstinate Memory 143 The Battle of Chile: Part 2 143, 148, 149 Haacke, Hans 31 Haan, Siebren de: Monument of Sugar (with Brummelen) 216–17 Hardt, Michael 217 Harryhausen, Ray 54 Hartley, Hal 65 ‘hauntology’: Derrida and Demand’s work 179 HD video technology 211 Heath, Stephen 80 ‘here-and-now’ ‘being-with’ and cine-materiality 198 and event-site documentary practice 130, 131 and video installation art 23, 27 heterotopias and exhibition space 171 Hill, Gary 19 Hiller, Susan 86 The J. Street Project 115 history cinema history and artists’ cinema 10, 65, 66 and landscape in cinema 28 memorialization and national history 148–9 and memory 115 in multi-screen projections 71–2 ‘museumization’ of past events 137 see also reconstructions/re-enactments Hitchcock, Alfred North by Northwest 81 refilmings of work 130, 142 Hlavajova, Maria 192

268

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:43 Page 269

Index Höller, Carsten: Frisbee House 42 ‘Hollywood monoculture’ 19 Hollywood production methods 45 Holmes, Brian 41 Horelli, Laura 13, 110 Helsinki Shipyard/Port San Juan 116–22, 117–19, 121, 161–2, 215 Horváth, Zsolt K. 181 Hunger (McQueen) 165 Huyghe, Pierre 13, 23, 111, 215 Blanche-Neige Lucie 142 L’Ellipse 16–17, 29–31, 139 Remake 142 on Smithson’s Spiral Jetty 31–2 Streamside Day Follies 31–2 The Third Memory 139–42, 140–1, 162 This is Not a Time for Dreaming 172 Huyssen, Andreas 12, 67–8, 115 hybrid gallery space 19–20

Irvine, Jaki In A World Like This 90 Ivana’s Answers 90 The Silver Bridge 64, 86–92, 87–9, 107, 215 Jacobs, Ken 53, 114 Jacquemin, Frédérique 43–4 Jäger, Joachin 73 James, David E. 21–2 Jameson, Fredric 34 on Dog Day Afternoon 139, 142 on ghost stories 86, 90, 91 on North by Northwest 81 Jetée, La (Marker) 91, 152 Jonas, Joan 23 Jones, Jesse: 12 Angry Films 170–1 Julien, Isaac 47, 65 BaadAssss Cinema 81, 84 Baltimore series 63, 81–6, 82–3, 85, 215 Vagabondia 84

Idea Warehouse 21 Iles, Chrissie 9–10, 19–20, 24, 52–3, 63, 71, 165, 168 immateriality 51, 165, 213, 214 ‘immaterial labour’ 55, 122, 216, 217 see also materiality ‘in-frame and out-of-frame’ continuum 23–4, 80, 97 ‘in-between-ness’ 18, 19–20, 32, 197, 214 Independent Cinema Office (ICO) 231n industrial landscapes as locations 55, 92 as museum space 68, 72, 91–2, 181 intermediate gallery space 19–20 International Short Film Festival, Oberhausen 9, 52 internet 52, 57 intersubjectivity of cinema 167–8 ‘Into the Light’ exhibition, Whitney Museum (2001–2002) 19–20, 21, 71 Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA), Dublin 90, 92

Kabakov, Ilya 51 Kaprow, Allan 32 Keenan, Thomas 97 Keller, Sam 45, 50 Kelly, Mary 53 Kentridge, William 35, 56 Kiarostami, Abbas 65 Kinomuseum, Oberhausen 9, 52 Knight, Julia 46, 47 knowledge market 49, 50 Kodak 16mm film technology 53–4 Kodascope Libraries 53 Korot, Beryl: Dachau 71 Kruger, Barbara 96 Kubelka, Peter 39 Invisible Cinema 168 Kubrick, Stanley: The Shining 70, 90 Kuhn, Annette 171 KUNSTMARKT ‘67, Cologne 47–8, 56 Kwon, Miwon 11, 32–3, 34, 41, 59, 111

269

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:43 Page 270

The Place of Artists’ Cinema labour ‘immaterial labour’ 55, 122, 216, 217 and spatialization processes 43 as theme 100–7, 116–22, 181, 186, 216–17 work patterns and structure of leisure time 142 Laclau, Ernest 25 landmarks see monuments and landmarks landscape as text in cinema 28 see also industrial landscapes Lawlor, Joe 13 Daydream (with Molloy) 134, 213 Helen (with Molloy) 130, 228n Joy (with Molloy) 108, 110, 130–4, 132–3, 162, 213 Le Fanu, Sheridan: ‘Carmilla’ 91 Leckey, Mark 51 Lede, Julián 206 Lefort, Claude 96 legibility of art 59 Levine, Sherrie 96 Levy, Julian 46 lieux de mémoire 115–16, 149 lifespan of films 53 Light Cone 39 Lind, Maria 50, 57 Linebaugh, Peter 76 LIngwood, James 51 Lippard, Lucy 11 literal sites 31, 111, 161, 215 location and artists’ cinema 11, 30–1, 54 event-sites and documentary practice 109–62, 215 industrial and post-industrial locations 55, 72, 91–2, 214 and multi-screen projections 63–4, 68–107 ‘peripheral’ to film industry 35, 214 see also place; site-specificity of works Lockhart, Sharon: NO 246n London Film Makers’ Co-op (LFMC) 46 Longo, Robert 165

loops and cinematic history 65, 66 and Douglas’ Inconsolable Memories 152 ‘looper’ display and film life 53 and mnemonic culture 66 Lootsma, Bark 175, 179 Lord of the Rings exhibition 54 Lull, Ramon 234n Lumet, Sydney: Dog Day Afternoon 139, 142 Lumière brothers 175, 177 LUX 39, 44, 46–7, 51 Mac Giolla Leith, Caoimhín 49, 77, 106 McCall, Anthony 213 Line Describing a Cone 22, 168 Long Film for Ambient Light 21, 22 MacDonald, Scott 11 McDonough, Tom 226n McMahon, Bea 166, 191 Illustration i (Folded In) 202 Illustration ii (Folded Out) 202 [in the] visible state 164, 198–203, 199–201, 218 McQueen, Steve 19, 23 Carib’s Leap/Western Deep 44–5 Deadpan 168 Hunger 165 Manacorda, Francesco 186, 189 management discourse 40 Manifesta 5 biennial exhibition 55, 116 marginality 11, 20 Marker, Chris 65 La Jetée 91, 152 marketplace and artists’ cinema 12, 21–2, 37–59, 214 Martin, Daria 51 Marx, Karl 179, 226n Massey, Doreen 11 materiality 13, 57, 213–17 cine-materiality 20, 35, 163–212, 215–16 ‘immaterial labour’ 55, 122, 216, 217 materiality and immateriality: rematerialization 213, 216, 217

270

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:43 Page 271

Index Matta-Clark, Gordon: Conical Intersect 168 May 1968 achievements 40, 41 Meaux, Charles de 32 mediation and art 18, 46, 57, 86, 168 organizational mediation 33 Mehring, Christine 47–8 Mekas, Jonas 39 Méliès, Georges 210 Memories of Underdevelopment (Alea) 149, 152, 154 memory 210 collective memory and culture 28, 67 lieux de mémoire and place 115–16, 149 memorialization and national history 148–9 mnemonic culture and museums 66–8 recollection and multi-screen projections 65–6 see also nostalgia; reconstructions/re-enactments ‘memory theatres’ 65 Mendelsohn, Adam E. 130 Meyer, James 31, 111, 161, 215 micro-communities and relational art 218 Mik, Aernout 166, 191 Citizens and Subjects 192–8, 193, 212, 216, 218–19 Convergencies 192, 197 Mock Up 192, 194–5, 197 Training Ground 192, 196, 197 ‘milieu’ for memory 115–16 Millar, Jeremy 11 Ming-Liang, Tsai: It’s A Dream 171–2 Minh-ha, Trinh T. 65 Naked Spaces: Living is Round 114 Minimalism 21, 23, 58–9, 216 mirrors 23, 84, 202, 206–7 mnemonic culture and museums 66–8 mobile spectatorship 24–5, 68, 70, 166, 216 Molloy, Christine 13 Daydream (with Lawlor) 134, 213 Helen (with Lawlor) 130, 228n Joy (with Lawlor) 108, 110, 130–4, 132–3, 162, 213 monuments and landmarks 67, 76, 81, 97, 115, 123

Morris, Robert 53 Morse, Margaret 22–3, 25 Mouffe, Chantal 25 multi-camera process 26 multi-screen video projections 61–107, 214 market and collection 52 and spectatorship 25 use of opposing screens and time and space 23, 29, 64 Mulvey, Laura 93 Museum of Modern Art (MOMA), New York: Film Library 64–5 ‘museumization’ of past events 137 museums and galleries as alternative site 19, 214 and cine-material structures 166, 168 commissioned works 111 and cultural flow 217 as exhibition spaces 61–107, 213, 218 as final resting place for video installation art 51–4 as home for contemporary art 39, 51, 52 ‘in-frame and out-of-frame’ continuum 23–4, 80 and industrial landscapes/regeneration 12, 68, 72, 91–2, 181, 214 as location 54, 84 as multi-screen exhibition space 61–107, 214 and New Institutionalism 42, 44 as public space 34, 214 spectatorship and individual artworks 25 see also commercial galleries Naficy, Hamid 28–9, 99 Nancy, Jean-Luc 18, 198 narrative loops 23, 152 narrative voice: Ahtila’s Consolation Service 92–3, 94 Nash, Mark 27 national pavilions 177–9, 178, 184–5, 186–91, 192, 193, 197

271

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:43 Page 272

The Place of Artists’ Cinema Nauman, Bruce 19, 23, 53 Nazeri, Shahram 100 Negri, Antonio 217 Nelson, Mike 198 The Coral Reef 112 The Deliverance and the Patience 112 Nothing is True, Everything is Permitted 112 Neshat, Shirin 19, 23, 56, 165 Turbulent analysis 62, 64, 97–100, 98, 166 Turbulent, Rapture and Fervor trilogy 29, 66, 97, 99 New Institutionalism 42, 44 New York Film-Makers’ Cooperative (NYFC) 39, 46 Newman, Michael 86, 107 Niemeyer, Oscar 177, 179 No Restraint (documentary) 54 Noack, Ruth 29, 97, 99 ‘noncommodity’ status 22–3, 51 Nora, Pierre 115–16 North by Northwest (Hitchcock) 81 nostalgia for cinema 168, 171, 218 for space 168–9 ‘not-for-profit’ distribution 39, 46, 47 Nouveau Collectif Jeune Cinema 39 Oberhausen Short Film Festival 9, 52 Obstinate Memory (Guzman) 143 O’Doherty, Brian 23 Ohanian, Melik 13, 111 Invisible Film 143 September 11 1973 _ Santiago, Chile 143–9, 144–7, 162, 215 opposing screens and time and space 23, 29, 64 Order, The (Barney DVD) 54 organizational mediation of art 33 ‘originating’ contexts 110, 161–2, 215 Orlow, Uriel 71, 106, 115 Osborne, Peter 24–5 Oursler, Tony: The Influence Machine 44 ‘out-of-frame’ context 23, 80, 97

‘outsideness’ 11 Owens, Craig 31 Pahl, André 203, 206 Paik, Nam June 20 ‘paracinema’ 21, 22, 213 Parreno, Philippe 32, 42, 218 Zidane (with Gordon) 25–7, 165 Pasmore, Victor 68 pavilions as exhibition space 165, 166–7, 180–6, 216 national pavilions 177–9, 178, 184–5, 186–91, 192, 193, 197 ‘peripheral’ places and location 35, 214 Pfeiffer, Paul: The Saints 44 photography photographic displays 155, 160–1, 162 photographs in Froment’s Théâtre de Poche 207, 208–9, 210 and ‘unrepresentable’ 34 Picture This 44 Pierce, Sarah 42 Pincus-Witten, Robert 48 place and artists’ cinema 11–12, 34, 35, 59, 214, 218 and avant-garde cinema 28–9 ‘displaced’ contexts 110, 161–2, 215 event-sites and documentary practice 109–62, 213, 215 and film industry 35 and memory 115–16 multi-screen projections and museum space 61–107, 214 ‘peripheral’ places and artists 35, 214 and the supernatural 86, 90, 91 see also location; setting; site post-industrial locations and production 55, 59, 72, 91–2, 214 postmodernism and museums 67–8 Potter, Sally 93 Preziosi, Donald 84

272

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:43 Page 273

Index Prince, Richard 175 prints 53 see also editions of works production and circulation/distribution methods 45–7, 213 post-production and digital technology 100, 216 production methods for exhibitions and art fairs 45 see also digital technology and media; technology ‘project’ as ambiguous concept 40–1 project spaces at art fairs and biennials 50, 56 ‘projective city’ 12, 40–1 props and art objects 54–5 ‘Psycho Buildings’ exhibition, Hayward (2008) 189 Psycho (Hitchcock) 130 psychoanalytic film theory 93, 148, 172 public funding art fairs 48 artists’ cinema projects 110–11, 129, 130, 134, 215 cooperatives 46, 47 public service media 20–1 public space and democracy 96–7 and event-site documentary practice 130–9, 215 and multi-screen projections 63, 81, 100–7 museum as 34, 214 pavilion as 166–7 and private space as theme 19–20 ‘Public Vision’ exhibition (1982) 96 ‘publicness’ of art 96, 215 cinema and exhibition space 64–6 and marketplace 47–51, 52, 55, 56–7, 58, 214 multi-screen projections and museum space 63, 65–6, 107, 214 see also public funding; public space Putrih, Tobias

A Certain Tendency in Representation 189–90 Venetian, Atmospheric 186–91, 187–8, 190 Rainer, Yvonne 65, 93 Raunig, Gerald 41 Ravenal, John 24 ‘real-time’ experience 26 realism and HD technology 211 ‘reanimation’: Demand’s Trick 175 Rear Window (Hitchcock) 142 ‘re-auratisation’ 213, 218 reception of artists’ cinema and cinema history 10 exhibition visitors and cinema spectators 22–7 and gallery location 20 and multi-screen projections 97, 99 and New Institutionalism 42 and nostalgia for cinema 171, 218 ‘public’ and marketplace 47–9, 56–7 and ‘publicness’ of museum space 64–5 and relational art 218 see also spectatorship recollection and multi-screen projections 65–6 recombination 35, 59, 215 reconstructions/re-enactments 35 of cinema space 170–2, 174 Demand’s models 175, 177 and event-sites 130–62, 215 refilmings of Hitchcock 130, 142 remaking artists’ work 51–2, 112 Rediker, Marcus 76 re-enactment and event-sites 35, 130–9, 215 reflection as theme 23, 84, 203, 206–7 regeneration see urban regeneration ‘relational art’ 11–12, 32, 42, 218, 237n rematerialization 213, 216, 217 Rendell, Jane 18 Renov, Michael 113–14, 116, 160 rentals system 39, 46, 52, 53, 57 reproducibility issues 53 Reynolds, Lucy 114–15 Rietveld, Gerrit 192

273

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:43 Page 274

The Place of Artists’ Cinema Rijke, Jeroen de 114, 192 Rist, Pipilotti 165 Roberts, John 217 Roberts, Liisa 169–70 Roden, Steve 76 Rogoff, Irit 41–2, 110, 114, 122, 198 Rooij, Willem de 114, 192 Rosler, Martha 45, 56 Royoux, Jean-Christophe 142 Ruiz, Raul 65 Ruscha, Ed 53 sacredness and aura 218 Sala, Anri 56, 114 Salle, David 165 Saltz, Jerry 49–50 Sankofa: Territories 47 São Paulo Bienal 177–9 Sassen, Saskia 43–4 Sastre, Martín: Bolivia 3: Confederation Next 54 Scarface (De Palma) 154 Schjeldahl, Peter 72 Schnabel, Julian 165 Schneider, Gregor: Das Totes Haus Ur 111–12 screens and cine-materiality 166, 192–211, 215–16 Graham’s Cinema 167–8 self and subjectivity as theme ‘Amorales’ 206 participatory documentary approach 122, 217 self-presence in work 25, 106, 107 and setting 112 Zidane 25–6, 27 seriality and art 59 Serralde, José Maria 203, 205 service economy and artists’ cinema 32–3 Seth, John 106 setting 111–12, 162 industrial and post-industrial locations 55, 72, 91–2 specific and generic settings 28, 80, 92, 215 see also location

Sharits, Paul 19 Shaw, Lytle 161 Sheikh, Simon 48, 56 Sherman, Cindy 96, 165 Shining, The (Kubrick) 70, 90 Siden, Ann-Sofi: Warte Mal! Prostitution after the Velvet Revolution 20 simulacrum and Demand’s work 179 Sir John Soane’s Museum, London 84 Sirk, Douglas 128 site and ‘between-ness’ 18, 214 dual exhibition sites 26, 27, 54 functional and literal sites 31, 111, 161, 215 lieux de mémoire 115–16 ‘site-oriented art’ 41 see also place; site-specificity of works site-specificity of works 22, 31–3, 41, 59 economic context 44–5, 52 event-sites and documentary practice 109–62, 213, 215 location and film production 113 multi-screen projections 63–4, 68–107 16mm film technology 53–4, 169 Skoller, Jeffrey 24, 71–2 Slater, Ben 131 Smithson, Robert Spiral Jetty 31–2 Toward the Development of a Cinema Cavern 168 Snow, Michael 19 Two Sides to Every Story 168 Soane, Sir John 84 sociality and ‘relational art’ 218 Soja, Edward 18 South West Screen 51 space ‘between-ness’ 18, 19–20, 214 cine-material structures and screens 20, 35, 163–212, 215–16 ‘in-frame and out-of-frame’ continuum 23–4, 80, 97

274

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:43 Page 275

Index nostalgia for 168–9 see also public space spatialization processes 42–4 specific and generic settings 28, 80, 92, 215 spectacle 68, 166–7, 198 spectatorship 10, 203 cinema spectators and reception 22–5, 171 mobile spectatorship 24–5, 68, 70, 166, 216 re-enactment of cinema experience 170–2, 174 see also reception of artists’ cinema Staple, Polly 50 state cultural programmes 43–4 see also public funding static art work and exhibition 52 Steiner, Barbara 180 Stone, Oliver 154 Strathaus, Stephanie Schulte 18 Structural film and art market 21–2 studio production methods 45 Stunke, Hein 47 subjectivity see intersubjectivity of cinema; self and subjectivity as theme substitution and location 35, 214 supernatural 86, 90, 91, 207 see also ‘ghosts’ Šušteršicˇ, Apolonija: SunsetCinema (with Bik Van der Pol) 170 Tallentire, Anne 59, 216 Drift: diagram vii 64, 100–7, 104 Drift project 100, 101–4, 106 trailer (as work-seth/tallentire) 106 Tate Modern, London 42, 68, 92 Taylor-Wood, Sam 165 ‘technical division’ of labour 217 Technicolor 128, 211 technology availability for video production 66 and increase in multi-screen projections 63 see also digital technology and media

television documentary commissions 134–9 and modes of production 197, 218–19 and structure of leisure time 142 Workshop Agreement 47 Tellez, Javier: One Flew Over the Void 110 temporal dynamics 14, 148–9, 169 theatrical exhibition and art fair projects 51 and artists’ feature films 165 dual exhibition sites 26, 27, 54, 213 see also cinema Third Cinema 28 35mm film 53, 131, 211, 213 Thomas, Peter 46, 47 Tiravanija, Rirkrit 42, 218 trans-nationalism 114 ‘transnational cinema’ 28–9 transience of art objects 32 transportation and multi-screen projections 72 Uklanski, Piotr 165 ‘unrepresentable’ 33–4, 35, 214 urban regeneration 44, 134, 186 and museums 12, 68, 91–2, 214 V22 collection 57–8, 59, 214 Vacche, Angela Dalle see Dalle Vacche, Angela Valentine, Jeremy 33 Van Lieshout, Eric 171 Van Peebles, Melvin 84 Van Sant, Gus: Psycho 130 Varda, Agnès 65 Venice Biennale 112 ‘Atopia’ exhibition 171–2 and cine-material structures 172–4 and commercial sales 56 funding for projects 45 pavilions as exhibition space 166–7, 170, 180–6, 192, 197 Vertigo magazine 231n Vezzoli, Francesco

275

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:43 Page 276

The Place of Artists’ Cinema Le Commizi di Non Amore 174 Trailer for a Remake of Gore Vidal’s Caligula 168, 172–4, 173, 216 Vidler, Anthony 168–9 Vidokle, Anton 57 Viola, Bill 19 waiting lists 49 Walsh, Maria 30 Warhol, Andy 53 Empire 165 Wasson, Haidee 46, 53, 64–5 Watkins, Peter La Commune (Paris, 1871) 138 Culloden 138 Punishment Park 138, 143 Wenders, Wim: The American Friend 30–1 Walley, Jonathan 21–2 White, Ian 9, 50, 52 Whiteread, Rachel: House 168, 169 Whitney Museum, New York 52–3 see also ‘Into the Light’ exhibition

Willemen, Paul 28, 31, 80, 161, 162 Williams, Raymond 28 Wilson, Jane and Louise 166 Normapaths 72 Stasi City 63, 68–72, 69, 73, 86, 215 Winston, Brian 211 Wise, Howard 47 witnessing 20, 93–4, 215 Wojtowicz, John ‘Sonny’ 139, 142 Wollen, Peter 93 Woolcock, Penny: Exodus 44, 45 work see labour work-seth/tallentire collaboration: trailer 106 Workshop Agreement 47 World’s Fair, New York (1964) 19 Yablonsky, Linda 54, 165 Yass, Catherine: High Wire 44 Yates, Frances 210, 234n Zidane (Gordon/Parreno) 25–7, 165 Zwirner, Rudolf 47

276

Place of Artists Cinema:Place of Artists Cinema 27/04/2009 12:43 Page 280

CONNOLLY

The Place of Artists’ Cinema Space, Site and Screen

Artists’ film and video has been marked by a concern with context and site for several decades. Since the 1990s, it has been possible to identify both an increased emphasis on the moving image in the spaces and sites of contemporary art and a new focus on the social and architectural history of cinema. Major international survey shows and biennial exhibitions now routinely encompass various forms of artists’ cinema, from multi-screen projections and site-specific film and video projects to sculptural installations exploring the architecture of the movie theatre.

About the author Maeve Connolly is Lecturer in Film and Animation at Dún Laoghaire Institute of Art, Design and Technology, Dublin. Previous publications include, as co-editor, The Glass Eye: Artists and Television.

The Place of Artists’ Cinema examines the social, political, cultural and economic factors shaping the production, exhibition and circulation of artists’ cinema in various contexts, from museums, biennial exhibitions and site-specific public art projects to commercial galleries, and art fairs. The book incorporates in-depth readings of recent works by twenty-four artists, including Doug Aitken, Carlos Amorales, Gerard Byrne, Tacita Dean, Jeremy Deller, Thomas Demand, Stan Douglas, Pierre Huyghe, Jaki Irvine, Isaac Julien, Aernout Mik, Shirin Neshat, Tobias Putrih, Anne Tallentire and Francesco Vezzoli, among others.

00

9 781841 502465

intellect | www.intellectbooks.com

The Place of Artists’ Cinema Space, Site and Screen

Space, Site and Screen

‘Maeve Connolly is the first film scholar in any language to explicate in depth contemporary artists’ insights on the cinema, new media, photography and cinephilia. She engages the specialist as well as the educated reader, by addressing the difference between information and translation, animation and re-enactment in the context of major art exhibitions all over the world.’ – Angela Dalle Vacche, Professor of Film Studies, Georgia Institute of Technology

ISBN 978-1-84150-246-5

The Place of Artists’ Cinema

By Maeve Connolly

Cover image: Tobias Putrih, Venetian, Atmospheric, 2007. Plywood, OSB plates, scaffolding, PVC curtain, 16mm projectors, digital projectors Installation on the Island of San Servolo for the 52nd Venice Biennale, Slovenian Pavilion Courtesy of the artist and Max Protetch Gallery, New York. Photograph by Michele Lamann

By Maeve Connolly