The Legart Archive
These resources "introduce and examine experimental film and videoʼs aesthetic concerns, their political opposition to the values of commercial cinema and the alternative practices which they have developed throughout the 20th century."
The Video Show at the Serpentine Gallery in 1975 reviewed by Tony Rayns in TimeOut, May 1975, with a reference to Outside the Grounds of Obscenity and Libel…..
The Technique of the Film Cutting Room by Ernest Walter (1968)
A review for the Journal of the Association of Cinematograph and Television Technicians (ACTT) of a Focal Press publication, the imprint servicing mainly amateur filmmakers and students. The article observed that the techniques described used methods that in the world of television were rapidly becoming obsolete. The publishers and friends of the author were so insenced by the line taken that the editor was forced to print a second review in the following issue. Such is the power of union members when behaving like the ruling classes.
"The Brief Encounters project will reinforce, in the context of contemporary practice in the studio and the gallery, the close relationship between the working space and the showing space, the private activity of making and looking, the public activity of installing and debating. It will be achieved in four phases: curatorial research, commissioning of artists, production residency / exhibition and a conference. The research phase is the subject of this proposal and will lead towards identifying the six artists who will be invited to a six-week residency in the Artspace studios, to work together on individual installations as part of a specific Artspace exhibition. A conference will conclude the project and event, though the installations will be de-mountable and will be offered for touring. A separate proposal from myself and Artspace in 2004 will address the post-research phase of the project." Extract from funding for unsuccesful funding proposal to Australia Council.
On Stage : the Theatrical Dimension of Video Image : Matilde Roman : Intellect, Bristol, and University of Chicago Press (2016)
(trans. Charles Penwarden, from On Stage: La Dimension scénique de l'image vidéo, Le Gac Press, 2012)
Between the original French title and the recent English translation of this lucid commentary, there are indicative shifts in meaning between the terms 'stage' and 'theatrical'. These point towards the nuanced domain of contemporary video installation where the audience are often given agency to determine the duration and quality of the encounter, not exactly actors or stage props nor seated audience; 'Far from acting in the space of the work, they are acted by it.'
One and Five Ideas: on Conceptual Art and Conceptualism : Terry Smith : Duke University Press (2017)
and
Image and Text in Conceptual Art: Critical Operations in Context : Eve Kalyva : Palgrave Macmillan / Springer Nature (2016)
Reaction could be dismissive as there were careers and investments embedded in institutionalised structures where the role of the critic was to affirm or deny the efforts of the artist hero according to a historical sense of aesthetic revision; or in the context of Cold War politics, national prestige. Critical theory in practice became the antidote, where the context of production and its point of reception were considered a part of the artwork, thus placing meaning-making into permanently contested space. …. Creating interpretive space can be regarded as a radical assault on the sensibilities of gallery goers who, prior to a range of practices emerging under the rubric Conceptual Art, were attuned to the appreciation of an artwork rather than its interrogation. Both writers acknowledge the primacy of language as a component of the experience of art, having roots in the philosophical work of Wittgenstein among others.
Aerial Aftermaths: Wartime from Above : Caren Kaplan : Duke University Press (2018)
The spectre of the aerial photograph, imaging the surface of the planet beneath, is riven with emotional response; as much for what is imagined than what is actually seen. Bombarded with looping footage of claimed precision interdictions, our lives and those of others are enmeshed with images that obscure and deny causation and affect. Wartime aftermath is the aphorism applied throughout this stimulating volume, specifically the technological approaches taken to envisioning warfare and the social outcomes following wars leveling affect.
“Arthur Boyd grew up in Victoria in the 1930s, one of the extensive Boyd family of painters, ceramicists, architects, writers and musicians. He found his fortune in England where he lived from the early 1960s onwards. His work sold so well that ten years later he was able to add to his property portfolio, a farmstead on the Shoalhaven River in NSW. A prolific painter, drawer, printer and ceramicist, he and Yvonne relaxed only when they made the annual pilgrimage to the Shoalhaven, travelling by sea in both directions to and from Britain. Ensconced by the River, he would often work in the landscape, en plein aire, responding with paint and gesture to what he saw in front of him.” Orchids appeared often in his work, one of which the painting above being known as the Nodding Greenhood orchid. The editor of Australian Orchid Review in which this article appeared thought it more likely to be the Rusty Hood orchid (Pterostylis rufa)
Go to https://player.vimeo.com/video/277844040 for 3-min preview
The film follows native orchid expert, Alan Stephenson, as he visits sites in the Shoalhaven bush in NSW, Australia over a 12-month period; some 70 different species grow in the wild, ranging from the miniscule to the substantial. There are 142 species that grow in this area of which 17 are threatened or vulnerable to extinction. The 55-minute film shows the settings and explains some of the science, becoming involved in controversies with developers and landowners whose activities threaten the sustainability of the biodiversity necessary for this oldest of flowering plants to survive. Two completed versions of the film are available for screening: A Native Orchid Almanac (55-min) and The Orchid Protector (25-min), in disc formats and online.
Lab Coats in Hollywood: science, scientists and cinema. David A. Kirby, MIT Press, Cambridge and London (2011)
From IBM to MGM: cinema at the dawn of the Digital Age. Andrew Utterson, BFI, Palgrave Macmillan.
The two Cinema titles have intriguing areas of overlap, containing the tensions and anxieties of not only their areas of focus but also in the approach taken to communicating such issues to a reading audience. The first examines how science in general including computers, is represented within the dream machine and the second, how computers are both represented and used for the manufacture of predominantly, popular entertainment.
In Leonardo June 2011