Oh
my it’s been a while. Due to Christmas happening, and then New Years, I haven’t
really had time to write a blog post during the past however many weeks, I
think it’s been 3 maybe? I’m now back in London, after having a vaguely
relaxing break. The video art screening that I was planning to put on turned
into an exhibition, which went fairly well. I’ve also created an open call for the isthisit? residency alongside
harnessing a set of incredibly basic VR goggles to revitalise some old work with
360 video technology. I also wrote an essay during this time, which was titled ‘An
Artist as Curator in the Age of the Internet’, but we’ll get to that later…
I’ve
been severely neglecting my own artistic practice during this holiday period. I
did begin to create a piece utilising an old work (a towel with virtual water
printed on it). I spray painted the Half Life symbol onto it in red,
referencing the anarchist ideas embedded within the Half Life video game,
alongside the real life use for the symbol, to represent the decay constant in
the half-life equation. I then pierced the towel with a broken arrow that I’d
found during a walk in the summer. This was all considering ideas of loss of
the past, during a time when I was reflecting on the summer gone, etc. The
towel was going to be hung by some blue rope, although this was still a
beginning idea. As the weeks continued I kind of got bored of this project,
finding it a little too emotional, so gave up on the piece. Maybe I’ll return
to it at some point in the future…
For
an evening with isthisit? I revisited
an old piece that I was making around this time last year, Utopian Realism; the Sketchup based video piece that illustrates
two figures being overwhelmed by capitalism in a post-human space. This
coincided with receiving an amateur VR device for Christmas, one which you
simply slide your phone in to, rather than an ‘actual’ one. For the show, I
turned the original video into a 360 one, enabling the viewer to be immersed
within the film, looking around and focusing on different points. I think this
worked really well and was very well received, and will definitely inform
future work with VR. It’s definitely a medium that I should have looked into
more closely sooner. I rested the goggles on a tied up camping mat, which
served well as a stand, alongside referencing a future post-apocalyptic society,
where everyone will live through virtual reality in dream worlds, but in ‘real’
life there’ll be living on camping mats, due to the collapse of society. Kind
of like in Ready Player One. It was
fairly successful, but if I had more time I assume I could have made something
more succinct. It did look nice though, and the mats also functioned as a space
to put your beer whilst you were navigating through the virtual world, which
was an unexpected bonus of the piece.
I
chose to change the screening into an exhibition due to my room in Suffolk looking
more and more like an exhibition space, due to how simple it usually is, so it
seemed easy enough to get everything out of there and have a relatively white
cube environment. Due to this last minute change I was severely lacking in physical
work for the show, with the video work slightly taking over, which is
frustrating, as I hate when shows are just inundated with screen based work. In
the end I think I managed to gain a nice balance between the screen and the
sculptural. I turned a few of the videos into more sculptural works, taking
artistic license, displaying Bex’s video on an iPhone on a selfie stick,
alongside Thomas’ film embedded in a bunch of chopped up camping mats on an
iPad, which seemed to go well with his ongoing aesthetic. Pippa sent one of her
sculptural works, which unfortunately broke during transport. Fortunately, this
worked out quite well as I was able to turn the piece into a wall/floor work,
creating a nice dialogue between the tile pieces, leaning more toward the idea
that the work was a relic from the past. Although it ultimately was a success,
I should have really planned it better. There’s always next time. To see images
from the show, go to http://www.isthisitisthisit.com/an-evening-with-isthisit.
As
I already mentioned, I’m starting an online residency program for the site,
kind of inspired by other internet based residencies that I’ve been trying to get
involved in. It will function as a month long experience, beginning on the 1st
of February. Residents will be given a completely new web page on the website
to create a new piece of web based art. Obviously, the work could be images of
paintings, etc, so doesn’t need to be simply a net art piece. The work could
manifest itself as anything really, and I’m quite excited to see what people
will propose. The link to the Curator Space opportunity is here, so go submit
if you have any ideas: http://www.curatorspace.com/opportunities/detail/the-isthisit-residency/1001
Umm
what else? The collection is starting to happen, currently some new sculptural
works are being created specifically for isthisit? alongside a few video acquisitions.
As I start to amount more work I’ll be able to put on exhibitions solely from
the collection, although that won’t happen for at least a few months.
The
guest curating is going well. I’ve still only had one guest curator, but this
coming week I’m doing a collaborative thing with Scaffold Gallery, who’s
launching an offline exhibition. At the same time the online show on my site
will go live, showcasing the same artists with slightly different works. The
week after that is Jake Moore, who’s curated a really solid list of artists
which I’m really excited for. I must contact more people as it’s been a great
way to interact with individuals who I’d never talk to normally...
The
online shows for the actual website have been going well. This was the 34th
online show: Albert Einstein famously said “I know not with what weapons World
War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and
stones.” This is, of course, referring to the ever growing advancements in
nuclear warfare, both in Einstein’s life span as well as our own, and how
ultimately the human race will destroy itself and have to start over from the
beginning. This type of reflection, on the past, present and future societies
of our world, served as the basis for isthisit?’s 34th online exhibition,
titled ‘Embrace The Past, Forget The Future’. Naomi Ellis’ video piece ‘Three
Clay Fragments Dancing’ utilises an eBay listing for Bronze Age clay pot
fragments as a case study to discuss ideas of virtual time distortion and
object history. For the duration of the film the fragments, having been
projection mapped onto wet clay, are slowly manipulated and moulded, which
becomes a visual representation of the choreographed narratives that are
fabricated by eBay sellers to promote and sell their questionably legitimate
historical products. Accompanying this methodical break down of a pot from the
past is Emma McNamara’s increasingly painful film ‘Harvest’. The work sees a
heavily pregnant woman from the future, hooked up to a machine that resembles a
prop from any number of Cronenberg films, an envisioning of the Orwellian
future to come. It’s not clear whether the relationship between woman and
machine is a mutually beneficial one, with each of the participants in this
bizarre ritual in a succumbed state of narcolepsy. The backdrop to the two videos
is a print from Louis D’Arcy Reed, which comes from a series of works titled
‘what i mean to say and what i've always tried to say’. The series attempts to
engage the viewer in various narratives, meditations on the everyday by
utilising inspirational quotes and memes juxtaposed with desert landscapes that
inspire contemplative moments. In this instance, the quote hanging over this
exhibition is ‘Destroy Yourself’, which encourages the viewer to consider where
the world is going, and the different ways that we can deal with this
post-Trump, post-Snowden, post-truth world.
Then
the 35th: ‘Wow, isn’t the internet the best?’ ‘Isn’t it so great?’
‘Everything and anything is just a few clicks away!’ isthisit?’s 35th online
exhibition titled ‘isn’t the internet great?’ brings together a variety of
works both celebrating and lamenting the idea of the internet, considering the
increased connectivity of our everyday lives and the niche cliques that have
formed within the virtual walls of the web. Each of the pieces are layered on
top of one another, building towards Samantha Harvey's video piece 'iSurrender'
which consists of various disembodied arms surrendering to the viewer, or the
screen, or the point at which the viewer and the screen collide, or the
overwhelming vastness of the internet meme machine. You decide. The arms are
accompanied by a dubious soundtrack, which is both fun and incredibly
disconcerting due to its repetitive nature. Behind the piece is Marissa
Wedenig's digital collage 'Old Age in Virtual Reality' which looks at how
elderly figures in society are acclimatizing to the advent of the internet, forming
gangs in the offline and online worlds that they regularly inhabit thanks to
the easy access of the ‘free’ internet. Joseph Jackson's simple digital print
'The Perfect Holiday' explores the globalization of leisure and our increased
exposure to aesthetically pleasing holiday-scapes on a daily basis. This is
overlaid on top of Hannah Edward's film 'How Did We Get Here?' which utilises
Google Earth to explore the way users are navigating the world around them with
the help of the web, and how the internet is slowly twisting our perceptions of
the world, creating a distorted version that can only be seen through the
glistening sheen of the screen.
And
finally the 36th: isthisit?’s last online exhibition of 2016 was
titled ‘Oh Dear’, a sort of reflection of all the apparent disastrous events of
the year, utilising the various displayed works to craft a narrative of
distress, confusion and unwanted arousal. Rebecca Glover’s piece ‘Too Hot’
served as the overarching soundtrack for the show, permeating into the other
works, visualising the feeling of punctuating through a material that’s created
in Glover’s spoken word sound piece. The work is said to imagine what it feels like
to emerge from the ice after 350,000 years of dormancy, and in this sense it
feels like the work is attempting to make the viewer reflect on the current
happenings in the world, forcing you into the position of the outside, emerging
from the ice, reflecting on the year just finished with ‘fresh’ eyes. In a way,
the piece asks the viewer to reflect on the other works in the show from a
different viewpoint too, discarding a pre-determined outlook. Ciara Lenihan’s
video work ‘Cicerone’ sees the artist presenting reworked stock footage of
classical Grecian ruins. Throughout the piece we see Lenihan wander up to
various sculptures and historical spaces, imitating a museum guide, earnestly
gesturing at the spaces that are deemed noteworthy enough for our eyes to see.
Is Lenihan mocking how we as human beings value our history, creating an
industry around these spaces, or is she legitimately in awe of these arguably
enriched spaces, as the occasional pitched choir song would suggest? Or, coming
back to Glover’s work, are we meant to be re-thinking how these locations are
being used/function in contemporary society? The final work is a video piece
from Tulani Hlalo’s series of films titled ‘As Shape Not As Sign Of Human Or
Narrative’. It’s both disturbing and attracting, confusing the viewer for the
few seconds that it takes for them to realise what’s actually occurring on
screen… What is happening?
I’m
really looking forward to see what other people write, to learn from different
people’s writing styles alongside other things. Helena’s piece of writing a few
weeks ago definitely added something to the ideas that I’m working with.
In
other, non isthisit? news, the piece
I made at the end of last year, Let’s Be
Friends, is going to be in an exhibition titled The Sacred Screen opening on Thursday this week! The show is going
to be at the Square Gallery, apparently ‘London’s youngest gallery’, which is
kind of fun. The exhibition was also featured in an article by Dazed Magazine
online, which is both weird and kind of cool. You can see the article here: http://www.dazeddigital.com/artsandculture/article/34178/1/these-artworks-ask-you-to-choose-between-irl-and-url
and if you’re around Battersea on Thursday night you should definitely come, as
some of the other work on show actually sounds/looks really good.
Oh
and I finally got around to writing my essay! I decided to look at other online
gallery spaces, and how the internet has facilitated artists moving into curatorial
roles fluidly, etc. It’s okay, but slightly rushed. I’ve been slightly more concentrated
on non-uni things these past few months. You can read it here:
An Artist as Curator in the Age of
the Internet
Being both an artist and a
curator is no new idea, there’s a long history of this occurring, beginning in 19th
century France with artists placing themselves in curatorial roles and creating
artist run organisations such as Société des Artistes Français and Société
Nationale des Beaux-Arts, the apparent trend has only blossomed since, from the
YBAs to DIS Magazine, culminating in the now and the age of the internet. In
the new, hyper-accelerated culture that we’re living in, the technologically
tethered age, our lives have become more and more complex and, to use an old
adage, one has as many fingers in as many pies as one can. Partly due to the
increase in yet-to-be artists being hastily pushed through the art school
system (UCAS, 2016) and partly due to
the heavily networked lives we all lead because of the ever-expanding web of
the internet; “since no moment, place, or
situation now exists in which one can not shop, consume, or exploit networked
resources, there is a relentless incursion of the non-time of 24/7 into every
aspect of social or personal life.” (Crary, 2014) we as human
beings are becoming more and more mechanised and transformed by work. Within
the following text I intend to examine our connected lives, considering the
rise in technology in conjunction with the rise of artists cum curators,
alongside how the internet has become an important tool in facilitating this
transformation to occur whilst reflecting on my own experiences with curating
in the online world.
Alongside
using my own curatorial practice as a case study for this essay, I’m also going
to be looking at 2 other artists/curators, with specific relation to the
burgeoning wide spread use of the online world which continues to flourish. The
first figure that I’ll be looking at is Lawrence Lek and his ongoing utopian
focused project Bonus Levels, which sees Lek creating virtual iterations of
locations around London. They’re a set of downloadable interactive experiences where ‘each chapter uses simulation as a
medium to assemble site-specific collages of objects and places drawn from
reality’ (Lek, 2016) .
One of the levels was made as part of Art Licks Weekend 2013; Bonus Levels: A Collective Tower. This
piece, that transformed into a collaborative collective video game, contained
21 gallery spaces, in the ‘real’ world located on the fringes of London, but in
the virtual housed within a monumental tower. This pinnacle of capitalism, built
up from cubed blocks imitating the idyllic Bauhaus architecture of the early
1900s, allowed for the different galleries to carve out their own individual
personalities and ideas, with each floor of the building being a different
explorable exhibition space.
The majority
of galleries that Lek worked with were artist run spaces, originally created in
the same vein of the artist led organisations sprouting in the 90s in London
like City Racing and Matt’s Gallery (Higgs, 2016) .
In this way, Lek has become the ultimate artist/curator, an artist curating
curators and gallerists who are also artists themselves. In doing so, and through
the use of the internet and tools like Unity,
he has become the thing that individuals running these spaces are turning away
from, the institutional machine organising and choreographing their movements. However,
this, Lek argues, is ‘simulation as
institutional critique’ (Khan, 2016) ,
taking on the form, or function, of the institution in order to critique it,
becoming the ‘insatiable vampire and
zombie marker’ (Fisher, 2009) of the capitalist system that we all
reside in. By doing this, Lek has stepped back into the role of the artist,
utilising the different galleries as tools to craft his own artistic vision.
This is the embodiment of the artist/curator as demonstrated by Elizabeth
Price’s curated touring exhibition In a
Dream You Saw a Way to Survive and Were Full of Joy, which is a prime
example of the gift of affective association that is afforded to
artist/curators; ‘linking apparently
unrelated things in ways that collide both visually and emotionally’ (Coatman, 2016) .
Before getting
too immersed in Lek’s gamified versions of our society, I’ll introduce my
second artist/curator that uses the internet as a form of production and
curation; Timur Si-Qin, and more specifically the Chrystal Gallery, which
Si-Qin was the first person to curate. Si-Qin is primarily an artist, working
with radical biological and evolutionary theory whilst utilising commercial and
retail visual tropes combined with state-of-the-art technologies of production
and display. The Chrystal Gallery is an online gallery made up of still and
moving imagery of a computer generated white cube space. It launched in 2010
with both an online and offline opening with the aptly titled Exhibition One that Si-Qin curated and
rendered. The show featured a variety of sculptural works, computer rendered
models of offline objects, questioning where artwork stops and the
documentation begins.
Due to it
being a virtual exhibition, the use of the word rendered is key. Both Si-Qin
and Lek had to be proficient in 3D modelling for them to curate each of their
online exhibitions, a valuable skill that’s already a major part of their
separate practices. Open source software like Google Sketchup and Blender have
allowed a whole generation of artists to work and curate in new, low cost ways.
Rather than renting an expensive gallery space you can now create that same
atmosphere via the internet, alongside the gallery being open 24/7, the work
can now technically be on show forever, or until the web 2.0 of today
transforms into the web 3.0 of tomorrow. Even then, there’ll always be the
Internet Archive.
Creating
these type of online shows is a different kind of labour intensive process, it
requires 3D modelling skills, access to a computer, admin capabilities. However,
in the world of emails and text messages, where one has the ability to interact
with hundreds of individuals without leaving the comfort of their own bed,
these tools are easily learned through the very medium that we intend to use
them on; the internet. Due to the relatively easy process of learning these
skills via YouTube tutorials, alongside the collapse of the contemporary
office, having ‘morphed into a ubiquitous
technoscape… reconfiguring the very nature of working time’ (Wajcman, 2015) it’s become a lot
more viable to create these types of exhibitions whilst continuing onwards with
one’s own artistic practice.
Rather than
having to create links with artists as a curator, artists have already built up
these links through the dialogues that artists have been having with each other
for generations whilst they’re making the work that they’re discussing. The
importance of a dialogue isn’t lost on Hans Ulrich Obrist, arguably the world’s
most famous curator in the contemporary; ‘the
process always starts with a conversation’ (Obrist, 2015) . The advent of email
has obviously made this exercise easier, and isn’t an aspect of curating
exclusive to artists, but being side by side in the work creation seems to be a
lot more important and valuable for the artists who are simultaneously
curators. If you reside in the same networks, go to the same private views and
work in the same studio, you’re a lot more likely to know what the other’s work
is about. Going further than this, you know their personality and their
unprofessional self, which allows for further curative insight when placing
peoples works together.
In both of my
examples, there was both an online and offline launch, which for me shows how
important the physical space of the gallery still is, in some ways to
legitimise the event, similar to a book launch, or the sale of a new iPhone. Is
the importance of an offline element due to the apparent ease of creation of an
online gallery, or is it because you can’t physically ‘see’ the work and its
substantiality through a screen? In this respect, the two online exhibitions
that I’ve already looked at are incredibly tame, similar to every commercial offline
gallery that has a website, afraid to have a purely online show with an online
launch party. Most private galleries’ websites are an extension of the AFK exhibition, usually used to document, to show off the install shots to attract
visitors. However, this creates the question of why we go to these galleries in
real life in the first place, when you can see everything that they have to
offer without leaving the comfort of your own home. There is, of course, the
rare exhibition, Jon Rafman at the Zabludowicz Collection, Rirkrit Tiravanija at
Berlin Biennale 9, who make the experiencing of artwork in the real an
interactive, immersive experience that can only be properly consumed live. Unsurprisingly,
these are usually instances where the artwork controls the curation, empowering
the artist to be a part of the curatorial process. However, this is away from
the norm of the Tate and the ICA, where a simple television screen or
projection is the final resting place for digital art. Why is the offline seen
as so important at this time, when the internet has become so widely used? Have
we, as some say, ‘developed two faces: a
private one in which (we see how we) really feel, and a public face for use in
the outside world’ (Lovink, 2011) so to interact with art we must have
our public persona enforced? Maybe this quote reinforces the importance of
online exhibitions, allowing us to view work with no judgement from the mass
art market, or would that simply turn us into the twitter trolls that we love
to hate. This, however, is a different matter altogether.
For my final example I’ll talk
about my own experiences with curating. Since May 2016 I’ve been running a
website called isthisit? which
operates on a weekly exhibition schedule, showcasing emerging artists under a
variety of concepts and mediums. It slowly transformed over the course of a few
months, using the internet as a tool, getting artists to submit from all over
the world via art opportunity websites as well as working with a free website
builder, I created a professional online gallery, alongside a curator’s persona
for myself. The use of the internet allowed me to become a curator, making
links with artists, putting on weekly exhibitions whilst building up my artist
CV with shows that I’d curated. As time continued, these online exhibitions ironically
worked as a stepping stone for offline ones, where I utilised artists that I’d
had experience with on the online platform to form my first curated exhibition
in a physical setting. The internet created the possibility for me to become an
artist/curator without having to fully commit myself in the first place, to the
costs and logistical issues around the physical experience, giving me an
example of the possibilities which could be afforded to myself.
Unlike A Collective Tower and The Chrystal
Gallery, isthisit? functions as a simple web page, rather than simulating the
white cube of the institution or turning the viewing of artwork into a video
game. In a sense, isthisit? encompasses the utopian ideas of the early net
artists, using simple web formats to escape the philosophies of the
institution, making a conscious decision to walk away from the aestheticizing
of artwork in the white cube setting whilst functioning with simple coding
tools afforded to artists like JODI in
the pre dot-com internet of the 90s.
The draw of
the internet as an exhibition platform in the post-Edward Snowden world has connotations
within itself, which are considered in each of the spaces that I’ve been
looking at. Be it Lek’s Bonus Levels turning the exploration of a gallery space
into a game within itself, mimicking how we navigate the virtual world of the
web in our increasingly surveilled lives, or Si-Qin’s hyper-realistic rendered
forms purposefully exhibited in a white cube space, when the world, and
everything else, was literally his oyster to create in the confines of Maya.
As the
internet has grown, it’s become a space for artists to explore new concepts,
connecting on a wider scale, enabling them to experiment further with their
practices. Curating has increasingly becoming an extension of artists’ work,
seen in both Lek’s, Si-Qin’s and my own curatorial endeavours. Artists who are
curators bring their own artistic knowledge and interests to their curated
projects, cementing their work with the artwork that they’re displaying, which
has led to more succinct and interesting exhibitions, both off and online. In
this way, the internet has also allowed artists to control how their work is
shown and in what context their work is shown, giving them independence and
access to a wider viewer base.
I
think that might be everything art related for the past few weeks? As I say, it’s
been mostly focused on Christmas things, seeing people that I haven’t seen for
a few months alongside going on walks in the country and writing the essay…
I’ve
also been catching up on a lot of films over the past few weeks, beginning with
Fan. This was a very interesting
Bollywood film focusing on a young man’s obsession with a movie star, who he
happens to look exactly like. Both men are played by the same actor, which is
interesting, and adds to the fairly basic plot, especially when the younger man
starts impersonating his older counterpart. Definitely worth your time,
incredibly funny and surprisingly dark.
The
Netflix made film Spectral was pretty
dull; guns and sci-fi with a PG rating. Doomed to fail.
American Honey
was a fairly good film, if a little long and drawn out. I understand how the
plot worked with the length, but by the end I was kind of annoyed by this
young, very random individual who we are being made to watch. Some beautifully devastating
moments occur, alongside some solid acting from the cast.
Although
I’m a big fan of Cronenberg, Eastern
Promises left me slightly bored. I’m not sure why, as the premise is
interesting; a mystery being uncovered by a midwife which has ties to a Russian
mob. I dunno, yeah?
Jack Reacher: Never Go Back was quite bad, which was vaguely surprising, as
the first film in this burgeoning franchise was actually okay. This just felt like
a budget Bourne film…
The Princess and the Frog was quite a sweet animation that I’m surprised I
hadn’t seen before.
The
rebooted Ghostbusters was terrible
and unfunny, although I’m not really sure what I was expecting after reading a
bunch of terrible reviews for the experience.
I
finally got around to watching the rebooted version of The Ladykillers, which means I’ve now seen all of the Coen Brothers
films. It was fine. Not that funny, although the ending was solid and
unexpected due to the jovial nature of the majority of the film.
I
also finally watched Cast Away, which
was really good. Although it definitely went through all the motions of what
happens in these types of films, although it is considered to be the ‘stranded
on an island’ film that defined all the other iterations, so I think that’s
probably allowed. But yeah, really solid acting, etc.
Self/less,
a tale of an old man having his mind transplanted into a young man’s body, was
fine. Flawed but fine. Less sci-fi and more mystery action for my taste.
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang was funny and well put together, although I think I
prefer The Nice Guys, Shane Black
learning from his mistakes and ironing out the kinks of this buddy murder
mystery-type film.
Frequencies
was a weird little film, very low budget with an intriguing idea. Children
learn how ‘lucky’ they will be when they’re very young, something that shapes
their destiny. A highly lucky young girl makes friends with an incredibly
unlucky young boy. Things happen, a few twists, actually kind of good.
Sometimes a project like this does need more money though…
Trolls was
kind of basic. Fun but basic, with the songs making the film slightly better.
Brotherhood is
the third in the series of films from Noel Clarke, which he directs and stars
in, all very impressive. It was good, not as dark as the previous iterations,
maybe because the main characters aren’t kids anymore?
Amélie
was incredible, following the exploits of a young woman living in Paris looking
for some kind of love. Really beautiful, very sad at times and nicely
uplifting.
The Girl with All the Gifts was very good. Set in a dystopian future, where a
form of zombies rules the land, a teacher and a young girl with the zombie
virus venture out into the world. Solid acting and a solid plot with a really
good ending. Worth your time if you’re into intellectual sci-fi.
Oh
my, God Bless America was terribly
good. It’s basically a combination of Super,
Falling Down and Sightseers, where the main character is just very angry at popular
culture, so decides to start killing people in brutally filmed ways. Basic, but
worth it, simply due to the painful violence that occurs, in a ‘I feel bad that
I’m laughing’ kind of way.
I
also watched the new Harry Potter film; Fantastic
Beasts and Where to Find Them. I kind of liked it, being immersed in that
world again whilst being shown a different part of J. K. Rowling’s creation. Humorous
and just plain nice, although there were a few plot holes and some weird acting
from Eddie Redmayne, I liked it for what it was.
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story was so fucking good. Like, so good. So much better
than last years The Force Awakens,
becoming its own film whilst slotting into the in-between space of the
franchise so well. Great characters, with the robot being a favourite,
alongside some nice little call-backs to the earlier films. My one criticism
would be not enough lightsabre fights, although that’s very childish of me.
Gareth Edwards can do no wrong it seems, what will he be directing next?
My
final film of this period was The Girl on
the Train, which I found very distressing. In the film, Emily Blunt’s
character, a divorced drunk (which she plays incredibly well) becomes tangled
up in a murder case. The idea of memory loss comes into play numerous times,
with a key line from an earlier moment in the film ‘I always had my husband to
tell me what I’d done the night before’ resonating throughout the experience
for me, culminating in a series of very brutal scenes towards the end. Really
good film and worth your time, if you have already seen the new Star Wars that
is…
Other
than films, I’ve watched a few TV shows. I’m still watching Gilmore Girls, having stopped for a few
weeks, although I’m now nearly finished with it. It’s become a chore now, with
the two main characters, the mother and daughter, just turning into not very
nice people who I don’t really want to be watching anymore… It’ll all be over
soon.
Other
than that, I watched The OA, which
was both incredibly satisfying and frustrating. An interesting mixture of
narratives, alongside keeping you on your toes for the entire season ending
with a fucker of a finale. Really good and definitely worth watching if a fan
of sci-fi that isn’t sci-fi.
The
second season of Humans was very
good, considering at what point computers become human beings, etc. Vague Black
Mirror vibes.
The
final series was Trollhunters, a new
animation from Guillermo del Toro, which makes for interesting television.
Surprisingly good for a children’s TV show with basic narrative.
So,
now I’m back to London hopefully I’ll be back to posting this weekly, alongside
going to a few exhibitions this week as I’ve been lacking art for nearly a
month now. What else? Essay hand in and back to making work, whatever that will
manifest itself as. I’ve been looking into using Amazon Dash buttons, where you
can order products by literally pressing a button. But yeah, who knows what
will happen in the next few months…
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