Focus on Film: Artists’ Film and Video in Scotland Study Day

Two Views on the above, first by Sarah Smith, followed by review by Ann Vance

Saturday 7^th November 2009, 9.30am-4.30pm, Hawthorden Lecture Theatre, National Gallery Complex, Edinburgh

The Focus on Film study day was a collaborative endeavour that brought together a set of common themes and issues proposed by two coincident Edinburgh-based film events: Running Time: Artist Films in Scotland 1960 to Now, an exhibition at the Dean Gallery (17^th Oct – 22^nd Nov, 2009), and the Diversions experimental film and video festival, which is now in its second year (Filmhouse Cinema, 6-8 Nov).

The well-attended event presented an engaging programme of short talks by distinguished curators and artists interspersed with screenings of artists’ film and video. Particular highlights of the day were the historical overviews provided by videomaker, lecturer and Rewind lead researcher Stephen Partridge and curator, writer, and Director of Centre for Contemporary Art (CCA), Francis McKee. Partridge focussed on video art in Scotland in the 1970s and 80s, noting its antagonistic relationship to television, and showed two of David Hall’s seminal Television Interruptions (1971), while McKee offered observations on the recent shift in film and video practices in Scotland from Douglas Gordon’s DIY aesthetic in the 1990s to the professionalised film production of younger artists such as Henry Coombes today (an internationally resonant shift).

Diversions director Kim Knowles’ and Running Time curator Lauren Rigby’s introductions to the day included a brief acknowledgement of the pertinent issues of nomenclature (here they opt for ‘artists’ film’ over ‘experimental film’ or ‘moving image art’) and national contexts activated by this series of related events. Clearly there are limits to what can be explored in one day, however a direct tackling of these central framing devices in one of the talks would have been useful. Without it, these interesting issues, though identified, were left somewhat hanging.

In an essay that charts the differences between experimental film and artists’ films in the face of a growing tendency to conflate them, Jonathan Walley observes “the spectre of a split, even an unbridgeable gulf, between two camps of film art.”[i] He urges us to recognise the material conditions - “historical, institutional and discursive” - of these camps so that we avoid the temptation to overvalue aesthetic allegiances.[ii] Like Walley, I suggest that it’s preferable to remain sensitive to differences that prevail between the two modes of practice rather than endorse imprecise catchall appellations that emerge from the recent crossovers between them.

Artist Matt Hulse’s introduction to his animation film Take Me Home (1997) emphasised the significance of Scotland to his practice from his enrolment in the influential MA in Electronic Imaging at Duncan of Jordanstone to the valuable local network of filmmaking resources, while artist couple Dalziel and Scullion spoke about their Scotland-based trajectory from artschool to now, also screening a number of their sumptuous moving image works. London-based curator George Clark introduced a screening of Duncan Campbell’s Falls Burn Malone Fiddles (2003), by theorising the use of archival material in the found footage work of Campbell and another Scotland-based artist Luke Fowler; each of whom disrupt and interrogate the documentary image and form in different ways. Although the geographical focus on Scotland was clear, scholar David Curtis’ comment in the closing panel discussion that experimental film is really an international movement leaves us wondering, apart from location, what precisely constitutes Scottish artists’ or experimental film.

McKee’s talk ended with a general note on new media’s continued aberrance within the rarefied gallery environment - one that in various ways prohibits its disruptive potential - and both Partridge and McKee noted current changes in moving image art practice, technological and budgetary, which mark an uncertainty about its future. Not only have recent years heralded a greater confluence between moving image art and experimental film (in terms of funding as well as modes of practice and reception), we now see these converge with the cinematic. Where previously artists and experimental filmmakers engaged with the cinematic in an oppositional and overtly critical manner, we now see a more nuanced relationship, albeit one that often retains criticality. Sometimes today an interrogation of cinema is not the main objective, but rather an exploration of the potentialities of narrative and mise-en-scène for art practice. Such narrative works often also precipitate an artist’s move into commercial cinema production proper e.g. Sam Taylor Wood’s first commercial feature Nowhere Boy (2009) and Glasgow’s own Henry Coombes’ anticipated first foray into feature film making following on from the success of his short narrative film The Bedfords (2009).[iii]

The Focus on Film study day undoubtedly provided a valuable and stimulating forum to pause and reflect on the current landscape of moving image art practices in the UK and internationally. Although this reviewer would have liked to see a more pointed discussion of central issues, it is certainly a welcome and important item in the Scottish calendar of moving image events.

Sarah Smith

December 22nd, 2009