Monday 28 November 2016

A127, Zuckerberg and Guest Curators

The days are slowly moving forwards, towards Christmas and towards a break. I’ve enjoyed how busy I’ve been this term, although the lack of gallery visits has become incredibly frustrating. I’m unsure whether this is because of where I’m living now, extending my travel time into central London, or if it’s laziness on my part, or maybe just busyness… I’m not sure, and either way it’s incredibly annoying. I do need to go to more galleries, I just need to plan a few days in advance, rather than on the day of the visit. Anyway, my week has been focused a little more on my own art making, as well as taking down isthisit? AFK and contacting a bunch of curators to be a part of my online platform.

My work for the show at uni is slowly manifesting itself. I’ve nearly got all three of the video works created, and am currently waiting on the delivery of a sculptural work to be hung on the metal shelf. The main video is still going to be centralised around the friendship anniversaries, but has slightly changed. I’ve decided to make the entire installation focused on the figure who runs Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, specifically, his ethos and interest in saving time and reducing the aspects in his life that make him an individual person. It basically all comes down to the grey t-shirts that he wears on a daily basis, his explanation for this is here:

"I really want to clear my life so that I have to make as few decisions as possible about anything except how to best serve this community. I'm in this really lucky position where I get to wake up every day and help serve more than 1bn people, and I feel like I'm not doing my job if I spend any of my energy on things that are silly or frivolous about my life, so that way I can dedicate all of my energy towards just building the best products and services."

Like Steve Jobs, and many other prominent figures, Zuckerberg wears the same thing every day in order to cut down on the time that it takes to think about what he wants to wear each morning. Although this makes him unique, and turns him into an individual within himself, it also makes him anonymous and incredibly similar to all the other grey shirted 34 year olds. If we look at the lack of individualism in Zuckerberg’s life, we can quickly see how that translates to his social media platform, and then to the videos that are circulated which celebrate one’s friendship anniversary.

As a backdrop to the main video, I’ve now inserted Zuckerberg wearing his signature grey t-shirt with his face covered by the various videos, repeatedly playing. This also comes back to how private Zuckerberg is, and how he himself covers up his webcam on his computer, seen in this image here:
I experimented with slowly smudging his face over the course of the video, but that seemed a little basic and tired, compared to simply having his face continually covered. Also embedded within the installation will be a replica of Zuckerberg’s t-shirt, still in its Vistaprint packaging, coming back to how everything that we do on the platform is based within a pre-built structure. This will be draped over part of the metal structure in some way.
The other videos that are going to be playing on both the iPhone and the Kindle will be utilising different, Facebook created videos, that are available to some of its users. The video on the kindle is going to be a compilation of marriage anniversary videos. These videos, which last around 30 seconds long, take images from the couples Facebook profiles and slot them into certain events in their relationship, like when they first met, got engaged, etc. It’s basically another video provided to you by Facebook harnessing information that is no longer yours, due to it being uploaded to the social media platform. This video is around 30 minutes long in total, featuring multiple couples in that time. The video is on top of an image of the wedding ring that Zuckerberg’s wife, Priscilla Chan, was given by Mark. The ring cost around $25,000, pennies compared to how much Zuckerberg makes on a daily basis. This returns to how simple Mark likes to keep his life and the lack of individualism that’s contained within it.
The last video, displayed on an iPhone, is looking at another film that Facebook creates for its users, an anniversary experience focusing on what date the user joined Facebook. These videos last about a minute or so, and contain a bunch of photos from your profile and some status’, etc. I’m still kind of unsure about this video, as most of the dates that I have are just random ones, so it’s a little too un-specific. I’m considering simply showing my own anniversary video, although I’m unsure of how to get that if, for example, I joined Facebook in June or something… I also want to overlay this video on another of Mark’s possessions, be it his house or a car, it needs to be another simple item that adds to his mundane and repetitive lifestyle. Maybe his favourite drink? Not totally sure.

I’m still considering whether I want to keep the frame structure grey, or whether I should spray paint the whole thing a Facebook blue, or black to go with all the attachments. It would be a little obvious, but help to encapsulate the whole thing, although I can still come back to the darkness of the internet, etc. It would also be changing the frame, away from its ‘factory settings’, so maybe that would take away from the pre-built nature of the whole thing. I need to consider this over the coming week.
Oh and our group didn’t get the space we wanted for the show, which is a shame. We’re now sharing a large room with another, four-person group. They seem alright, although it would be more exciting to actually curate the show with them, and have a dialogue with them, rather than simply deciding which spaces we want.

In other news, A217 Gallery is slowly becoming a thing. The space is now ready and waiting for us to put on a show there. In total, we have four artists/curators, each working in different disciplines/ideas. The first show is simply going to feature ourselves and our own artwork, mostly due to lack of time to actually get people to submit to the open call. I’m currently unsure of what I’m going to show, something new or something a month or so old. I’m considering exhibiting the deck chair and video, although that’s already been in an exhibition. I’ve also been thinking of printing out some images from The Sketchup Residency, although I don’t want to hurry that, as I feel that that’s an important body of work within itself to be shown at a later date… It’s slowly looking like I’m going to be showing the chair, kind of annoying, but more people will get to see it now, and it would be hard to create a completely new piece of work in under two weeks (the private view is on the 9th). I need to think it over more, check out the Facebook event here: https://www.facebook.com/events/1151741068194464/

I’m more interested to see how it’s going to function in the new year, as a four-person curatorial team is kind of big, as well as the fact we’re all interested in different types of work. Will we designate a different ‘head curator’ each month, who chooses the artists with the others simply helping out, or will we discuss what we want to look at each month as a group. It’s actually really exciting, and is sure to make the new year a lot busier.

isthisit? AFK officially ended on Thursday, having had around 20 visitors to the space whilst it was open ‘by appointment only’, which is quite good. I managed to document all the work vaguely well, although it could have been executed a lot better with the help of a professional photographer, which I did consider. In the end, I’m happy how the images turned out, as they definitely show what the space was like, which is all that I wanted from the images. Overall, it’s been a really great experience, with the majority of the artists being incredibly helpful and cooperative. It’s definitely made me reply to emails faster from things that I’ve applied for. I’m generally very happy how it went, and just need to get all the work back to everyone now. You can see all the images here: http://www.isthisitisthisit.com/isthisit-afk



I’ve also been contacted by a few people who have mentioned that they wouldn’t mind me curating a few shows in various gallery spaces around the UK, which is very exciting and definitely something that I’d be interested in. I definitely want to do another thing like this in the new year, it’s been such a great process. I’ve also been thinking about doing something whilst I’m away from London for Christmas, creating some space for a show or something within my home environment, something that no one would actually come to, but would be something for the CV and could be viewed online via YouTube Live or something. I dunno, maybe.

This also inspired me to start contacting fellow curators to be guest curators on the website, allowing them to curate a weekly show and write a little bit about their process, etc. I’ve emailed several people, and heard back from a couple, this is the email:

I'm writing to inquire whether you'd like to be a guest curator of an online gallery that I manage called isthisit? The platform features weekly exhibitions containing a variety of different works, showcasing emerging to mid-career artists.

I'm currently putting together a roster of curators that would bring in their own artists and concepts to the virtual gallery, utilizing the online space already established at www.isthisitisthisit.com, to put together their own online exhibition to be inserted into the weekly program of events. I recommend taking a look at the website to get a feel for the kind of work/ideas are being interrogated, whether or not you completely change everything on the site would be up to you as an independent curator.

Do let me know if you'd like to be a part of the project, alongside which week in the future you'd be free to curate an online exhibition. As the shows are created on a weekly basis, i can be very flexible with dates.

I believe the first curator is going to be starting this week, which is exciting, especially as it’s quite fool proof. If it doesn’t go to plan, I can simply curate a show on the day, which is always doable. Check back on isthisit to see who the first person will be! I also realised that I’ve now been doing isthisit? for over 7 months, which is very weird… Guest curators is probably something I should have done a little while ago, although it’s taken me this long to establish isthisit? as an actual thing.

For the 30th online exhibition, titled ‘Progress Quest’, three artists were selected. The name derives from a video game of the same name, where the players job is solely focused on inputting and accumulating arbitrary statistic points, which are displayed on an excel-like spreadsheet. This idea of time accumulation and degradation is considered in each of the three works for this exhibition, be it in a very literal way in terms of how long the work actually took to make, or in a more philosophical way in relation to progression and pursuing a never ending goal. Within the show, all three of the works are layered on top of each other, slowly moving through the waves of different art movements and idioms. One is first encountered by Karl Russell Vickers' collage print 'See That Loophole Over There?' which contains a variety of appropriated imagery, evoking a feeling of strangeness within the seemingly loosely put together creation. Tim Hodkinson's video piece 'Present' is positioned behind the print, featuring outwardly organic forms and a melodic soundtrack. The moments of hyper-saturation that occur throughout the film forces the viewer to consider these environmental tableaus in minute detail, continually asking the unanswerable question of how long one should interact with a work of art. The exhibition is finalized with Dom Chastney's painting 'Cell' that focuses on ideas of mark making and repetitive movements, whilst utilizing found objects in order to create 'clean' areas of the canvas.
What else? I’m slowly putting together a website for the exhibition, The Kitschen, Cooking Up A Debate. At the moment I’m simply putting everything onto the platform, with the bulk of the work occurring over the next few days. I need to actually ‘curate’ these works, consider which pieces to put alongside which piece, etc. I’m also creating individual artist pages for each person, as well as writing something about this process, which will be alongside writing from the curator of the physical exhibition, and the person who chose all of these artists. My writing will be focused on the links, whereas hers will look at the process of choosing which artists. You can see my slow progress here: www.imagesmatter.co.uk

Oh and yesterday I undertook an online performance on YouTube with #cam4art. It was a 2-hour piece, a variation on a previous body of work titled Watching Me, Watching You. I basically leave my webcam on, as well as having my screen recorded, and that’s it. It’s incredibly voyeuristic and shows me going through the motions of my day. This time I cooked my dinner whilst watching Gilmore Girls, chatted with friends and played a video game. I should definitely do more of these, as it was actually really fun, with the ‘live’ part being incredibly important. The video can be used on my Vimeo, or on their website here: http://www.cam4art.com/bob-bicknell-knight
Hmmm… I think that’s all the art I’ve been doing. I’m still doing The Sketchup Residency for a few more days, ending on the 1st of December. I’ve been doing about 3 Instagram updates a day, which will equal to over 50 images at the end. I’m still thinking about what I want to do with these, printing them out and displaying them on the walls alongside the island to be manoeuvred around? I’m not sure… I’ve really enjoyed the experience of posting daily though, alongside working towards a bigger thing. I definitely want to do something else like this in the future, or set my own thing up with isthisit?






Once again, very few exhibitions this week. I went to CSM both this week and last week for their open studios. It was all okay, all very student based, especially as their exhibition spaces are their studios, so all the exposed walls, etc make the whole thing look very unprofessional. Some good work, a highlight being a performance by Campbell Mcconnell which featured the artist, wearing a suit and reading from a pre-written script, filled with corporate jargon, whilst ‘empowering’ music was happening in the background. Really clever and very good. In both exhibitions though, a severe lack of labels, which is always so frustrating.

I also went to the Chelsea 3rd year exhibition. It was okay, some interesting work. In a simply aesthetic way I enjoyed a trio of televisions, mounted to the wall at an angle, making you lean against the wall whilst looking up to view the work. An all-round favourite was a piece by Louis Judkins, which involved a crudely made, carnival-esque, target and a bunch of perfectly made plates, with various political figures’ faces emblazoned on the front. You were encouraged to don a pair of protective glasses and throw the plates at the target. Although I loved the idea, it was badly positioned, in the corner of a room. If it was in the middle of a wall it would have been perfect, with the debris from the plates going on everyone else’s work, perfectly encapsulating the concept. Very close to being great. Unfortunately, it was shut down after ten minutes of plate throwing, which is kind of great, as that demonstrated the point of the work perfectly.

I’m so frustrated with the lack of exhibition visits recently; I just need to plan…

So, films. Only a few this week as I’ve begun watching Gilmore Girls, and like any good TV, it slowly consumes you the more you watch. I’m really enjoying the mother – daughter dynamic, as well as the various storylines that are slowly becoming intertwined, etc.
I watched Little Men, a short film about two young boys and their friendship, which is slowly tested by a disagreement between their parents. Quite sweet and lovely, simply a ‘solid’ film that doesn’t outstay its welcome.
A very weird experience was Enemy Mine. The film considers the relationship between a human soldier and an alien one, both stranded on an alien world with no way home. Even though they’d been fighting against each other in a war between their worlds before crashing on the planet, they slowly become allies, working together to get off the planet. Things start to get weird when the alien becomes pregnant and dies, leaving the offspring to be brought up by the human companion. I’m not 100% sure what to make of the whole thing.
I also finally got around to watching Catfish. A film that I’ve wanted to watch for a while, even though I knew it was going to be terrible and incredibly fake. To nobody’s surprise, it felt incredibly fake and a created narrative, one in which a guy named Yaniv is conned into thinking he’s conversing with a young woman, whereas he’s actually talking to a married, 43-year-old woman with multiple kids. It just felt incredibly fake, which made the whole thing very awkward and ultimately dull, as you could see where it was going from the beginning.
Craigslist Joe was kind of nice, considering how one man could survive solely from people’s generosity on the website Craigslist for about a month. It ultimately turned into a ‘how great are people’ kind of documentary, turning away from what had originally interested me about the film, that all these connections that he’s having are being facilitated by this anonymous website. Kind of inspiring, maybe worth your time.
Cyber-Seniors was another internet themed film, which documented a group of young people attempting to teach senior citizens about computers and the internet. Kind of lovely, if a little obvious. I particularly enjoyed when they had a competition to see who could make a video with the most views on YouTube. That was a fun thing.
The final film was The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters, which showed you a very weird, incredibly obsessed, side of video game world record breaking. It was also, I assume, incredibly outdated, being nearly 10 years old now! Seeing these people being incredibly pedantic and serious about video game scores was really interesting, if a little over-obsessive and petty.
Alongside the films, I also played a video game, one that I’ve been meaning to get to for a while; Everybody's Gone to the Rapture. What can I say about this game? It was a very beautiful rendering of an English countryside, that’s for sure. I will definitely be using footage from the game in an artwork at some point. The ‘game’ element is made up of the player exploring this village, which is deserted, finding small fragments of light that allow you to listen to peoples past conversations, from a few days to a many years ago. As you listen further, you learn that some sort of event has happened, which has made everyone disappear. I wanted to like this game, I wanted to learn about these people’s lives and engross myself in the details of the village, but I found myself getting incredibly bored. By the final chapter I was kind of willing the whole thing to be over, having found no real excitement from operating this nameless figure for multiple hours. I’m not sure…
I think that’s everything for this week. Only a few more weeks of London before Christmas, which means at least 2 full days of galleries to go to all the shows I want to see at the moment. I’m also going to Manchester this weekend, for the Rachel Maclean show at HOME, which I know will be awesome, alongside Cecil B Evans at Tate Liverpool, which will also be quite awesome. Two great shows that aren’t in London, how annoying. This means making all the work/videos before then, so I’ll be ready to install on Monday/Tuesday in a weeks’ time. I also need to put together the Kitschen website by the 4th, so that will be completed this week too! How exciting…

Monday 21 November 2016

this is it, Sully and The Sketchup Residency

This week has been mostly dominated by isthisit? AFK, with a lot of the days being dedicated to installing all the work among other things. Now that that is finished with, I just need to make some new work for the end of term exhibition, which is happening fairly soon. I also need to go to a lot more exhibitions before leaving London, as I’ve been so busy lately going to exhibitions has definitely taken a back seat.

So, isthisit? AFK. After vacating my room on Monday morning, I had multiple days to work with the space in order to properly curate the exhibition. I’d already been making multiple Google Sketchup models in preparation, which had already helped with choosing people to exhibit within the show before making the final decision on who was actually going to be in it. The two main tableaus within the exhibition were two short shelving units which functioned as a base for multiple works. On one table there was a video piece on an iPhone, alongside some sweets, a readable book and a sound piece. These tables turned into micro exhibitions within themselves, which had a much more refined theme, as opposed to the relatively simple one in the overriding space of ‘the internet but in the real’. The install was relatively easy, with the shelves taking a few hours to build and all the wall based work being relatively simple to hang. I’ve had some experience wall mounting TVs in the past, so this went smoothly too. I also decided to take the door off of the room, creating a fluid space to move in and out of, enabling viewers to move through the exhibition into the kitchen, as well as making it incredibly obvious as to where the show actually was, due to the blue light flooding out of the room. The blue light actually worked really well, giving the whole space a futuristic spa vibe, as well as hiding the yellow-nuss of the walls, which were definitely going to be a problem.

On the day I was rushing around slightly, buying a bin for the alcohol to go in as well as another universal remote because I had misplaced my own (I then found it the day after the PV). The press releases also needed to be printed out, an element that is incredibly important, that I didn’t want to leave until last minute. Unfortunately, this was not the case, and I ended up stapling pieces of paper together 20 minutes before the exhibition was set to open.

In terms of the private view, many people came, which was great. Overall there were 137 visitors, a lot more than I had expected. I also got to meet a few of the artists whose work was in the show, which was exciting, if a bit daunting. I felt a lot of pressure to say why I chose the work, which was a weird, albeit great feeling, talking about understanding someone else’s work with the artist in question. None of the work was broken, which is a definite plus, and the one performance of the evening by Aidan Studwick was actually really good, and worked well within the space.

Everyone who I talked to said the show was a success, which is great, and has definitely motivated me to want to put on another exhibition soon, most probably in the new year. I also want to refine the theme a little more, and not have such a crammed in environment, even if it worked well this time. For now, you can still see the show by appointment, so contact me at bbk12345678910@gmail.com if you want to come down to New Cross to see it. I’ve already had a few appointments booked, which is kind of exciting, to think that people actually want to come and see it. I’m just slightly missing my bed and having my own space at this point, it’s a bit weird not having somewhere to go and just be by yourself, within your own house.

The main problem I’m now encountering is documenting the work in the space. As it’s so small I can’t get a clean photograph, so may just have to embrace the madness. I’m not sure how I’m going to do it… For now, you can see some early documentation, which probably won’t be published on the website.

In terms of my own work generation, I don’t think anything has actually happened, which is incredibly annoying. I did decide to utilise the shelving structure for the upcoming show next month, placing a large television within the metal, with my Kindle and iPhone attached to it with the metal mounts. The main video being played on the larger tv, the one featuring Facebook’s friendship anniversary system, would be referencing once again how all these relationships are the same, following along a set structure that most people follow in life. In this way, the apparent uniqueness of the videos on the tv would be visually trapped within the shelving units pre-organised structure. I also still plan to order some personalised items, like cups or a t-shirt, but I’m still unsure what these will manifest as. I’ve thought about printing on a t-shirt all of the profile pictures of the people featured in the main video, allowing the viewer to see the similarities in each image, etc, or getting all the names of the people in the video printed onto the back of a jumper, like a ‘leavers hoodie’ that you’d get printed of your year group in school. Although I’m unsure if this idea is good enough. Either way, I think the print should probably be the same for each item, coming back to the idea of the similarities that are shared between relationships facilitated by the internet, or simply how the internet (or the larger companies who operate within the internet) wants to structure these relationships, creating trends that people follow, allowing users to ‘check in’ to various social spaces, etc. I’m also not entirely sure yet what I want to display on the smaller screens in the installation. A vague idea is to show myself simply scrolling down a screen of hashtags, with the particular hashtag being searched for one that is personal and about friendship, like #bff, but slightly better and less obvious. It also has to be unique enough for less people to use it, but not unique enough that it actually becomes a unique thing. This means a lot of research into #’s is needed.
Other art based things that are happening is the creation of the gallery space within Chelsea. It’s pretty much finished, and looks really great; a beautiful white rectangular box with a bunch of small windows on one side. I can definitely see some good things happening in the space. Tomorrow we’re going to give it one more coat of paint and it’ll be ready for some work to be put in. The plan is to hold an ongoing open call for work, which we then pick from every month in order to curate an exhibition surrounding various themes. Before Christmas, however, we plan to show our own work within the space as a ‘meet the people who are going to be running the space’ kind of thing. I think this is good, and takes away from anyone being annoyed about making the space nice and then not getting to show any of their actual work in it. You can like the Facebook page here: https://www.facebook.com/GalleryA217/ You can also see the website, a work I progress, created by myself here: http://www.a217gallery.com/
What else happened this week? We’re having to submit exhibition proposals at uni, which are required to see what kind of space the different collective groups require. We have asked for an incredibly sought after space in the Cookhouse, due to it having a huge glass window looking out to the courtyard, which would be utilised by one of the group’s members for a text based work. I made a Sketchup model of the space, with all the different works being portrayed within it. Although I really want it to work, I’m not sure whether it will. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.
I’m still undergoing The Sketchup Residency, and still thoroughly enjoying it! Although the model is slowly becoming impossible to navigate, due to the amount of stuff actually in it. I’m not sure when it actually ends for me, but for now I’m content to keep creating these small visual tableaus, which are works within themselves. Maybe at some point they could be printed off, to be exhibited on a long roll of paper or something? To accompany the actual explorable 3D model. This does sound very enticing to me, very Evan Roth, etc. Or maybe I could make a book made up of these prints, with the titles of each work being the title I add to them when putting them on Instagram? Or maybe this is something I could question the creators about, and they could create a book for every resident, immortalising their work in print, bringing the virtual into the real.











Oh and after talking more with Catinca about curating the website for her, I think it’s actually happening, which is exciting. It’ll go live a day before the physical show occurs that she’s putting on, with the same artists being shown, simply in a different setting. We’ve talked a lot about how the internet gives all the agency over to the viewer, taking away the power from the creator of the work and allowing the user to do with it as they want. I’m not really sure what I intend to actually do with the platform, as I’m yet to have received all the work for it. Even so, I’m excited to get started. Could you call this a commission? I hope not.

The online version of isthisit? is still moving forwards. Inspired by the aforementioned Sketchup Residency, I intend to allow artists to do ‘Instagram takeovers’, as well as asking fellow artists if they want to curate a show every now and then. I think having guest curators would be a really cool thing. I think Helena Kate Whittingham, a fellow artist/curator, will be the first. I’ll definitely be holding an open call, or maybe I could start to contact other people who run online spaces? Like DVDISDEAD or The iPhone Residency. This would be a really simple way of creating more links in the artist community, whilst taking a little less of the work load from myself.

The title of the 29th online exhibition by isthisit? was titled ‘Private Assurances’, pertaining to how all three of the works either questioned the idea of privacy, or allowed the viewer to engage in other peoples’ private moments. Alice Watkins’ website, ‘How can this be private?’, is an ongoing archive of found texts taken from the titles of porn videos found online, with the names growing increasingly more violent towards women as you scroll down the seemingly endless page. Although the thumbnails of the videos have been discarded, the view count and number of ‘likes’ are still displayed, continuing the question that was originally posed by the title of the work, how can this be private? Flanking the website is Silvia Carderelli-Gronau's video 'Share' which features the artist and her son, exploring a city whilst enabling the viewer to discover the complexities of their relationship. It’s an incredibly subtle experience, featuring Gronau interacting with various spaces and locations that the boy introduces her too, dancing in tandem with her son’s skateboard as their relationship is wordlessly presented to the viewer. Finally, there's Lottie Walsh's ambitious film 'Where We Go Next (A Place That's Neither Real nor Fantasy)' which explores various unnamed territories, mixing real world locations with virtual creations. These private landscapes are continually surveyed from the sky, occasionally lingering on various intricate details and idiosyncrasies of the different environments.
Hmm, what else? I went to a panel at the ICA called Technology Now: Blackness on the Internet, which was obviously interesting. A lot of talk about how the internet was created for the white man, and how black people work within (or outside of) that, using the internet as a place to critique, etc. Although at times it did simply break down to going through the motions, which I do see the value of, as the things that are always said at these events are important, but sometimes they are unneeded, as everyone at a talk at the ICA are probably aware of the problems. I don’t know… It was good, and I learned about some artists that I hadn’t been aware of before.

I also had a lecture focusing on Afrofuturism. It’s an interesting idea, and one that we’ve had lectures on before, so I didn’t really learn anything new. Being taught these ideas by a white man was also kind of interesting, and definitely something to note down.

I don’t think I went to any galleries this week, apart from my own as well as Touch Me Baby, the exhibition I was in where you were able to touch any of the artworks. It was a weird experience, especially as the ‘curation’ aspect to the show wasn’t very thought out, which is a shame. A lot of the works weren’t actually very good either, alongside the person at the bar being incredibly terrible at their job. Two of my caps were also taken, which is really annoying. Yet again, maybe something just for the CV.

I did manage to see a few films, which is always positive. I began by watching The Host, a very bland sci-fi about an alien race slowly brainwashing the entire population of earth. It was okay, but maybe a little too sappy, a little bit too PG…
Next up was the dramatization of the Edward Snowden leak, unsurprisingly called Snowden. It was literally a more ‘dramatic’ version of Citizen Four. It’s only real purpose was to gain money, although we did get more of a backstory to why Snowden did leak millions of documents, but it’s all a fictionalised reality anyway, so it’s pretty much bullshit. Not that great really, which is unfortunate, as its subject matter is incredibly important to myself and the work that I make.
Closet Monster was an interesting one, focused around a teenagers’ ‘journey of self-discovery’. The plot moves forward quickly, treating you to various early childhood scenes, hastily giving layers to the characters being displayed on screen. It was kind of fun, quite dark at times and kind of unpleasant. A very real life drama that is never going to end well.
The BFG was quite a lovely realisation of the Roald Dahl book, even if it wasn’t as dark. The animation was quite incredible at times, alongside a really lovely story about friendship that didn’t outstay its welcome. Really lovely viewing.
Now, Sully. This was a dramatization of a real life story of when an American pilot landed a plane in the Hudson River. It was an incredibly moving and very well done film, especially the scenes where they repeatedly replayed the crash, over and over again. It just kept being hammered into you. Although I did enjoy Flight for how drug fuelled and crazy it was, I think I prefer this very solemn, very real window into what happens after this kind of incident. The film becomes a lot more about the aftermath, and breaking down the very detailed moments of the crash, rather than the overall crash itself.
Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring was quite incredible. The film followed the evolution of a young boy into an old man, who lives for large portions of his life in the middle of an isolated lake in the mountains alongside a Buddhist master. Quite awesome and a definite must watch for anyone interested in the subtleties of film.
I Wish was a lovely experience, documenting the journey of two brothers attempting to rebuild their parents failed marriage. An incredibly sweet and funny experience.
Although it feels like I’ve done very little this week, I think I’ve accomplished a fair amount, putting on the show all by myself, etc. The hard part will be getting all the work back to the artists. Fuck the postal system. Now I need to concentrate on my own art making, I have films to make and t-shirts to print, and a lot of missed thinking time. I’m also looking forward to getting my room back…