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This is an AHRC-funded group residency with fellow artists/PhD researchers that took place at the Sidney Nolan Trust in Wales between 26 and 30 June 2017, and 25 to 30 June 2018. Both residencies were an intense period of creative work and discovery. The first one resulted in three films, which were inspired by the research themes of the other artists, combining their performances with my intuitive, visual exploration of the atmospheric spaces and objects. During the second residency, I predominantly worked with Super8 film stock, exhibiting a found-footage film (which I had produced as part of my research) together with live music performance. I also built an interactive Super8 audio-visual installation, and used various Super8 film stock to capture the atmosphere of the residency. The work from both residencies has been screened during an exhibition at the Trust, as well as at subsequent (and upcoming) exhibitions in Manchester, side-by-side with work produced by other members of the group. Please see below for more information on both residencies.
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THE SECOND RESIDENCY
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This was my second Sidney Nolan Trust residency, and the sense of comparing the two experiences was therefore steadily on my mind, and permeated many conversations that we had with the other participants. And the two couldn’t have been more different, both from my personal, creative perspective, but also quite objectively.
First of all the inter-personal dynamic: there were almost twice as many of us taking part, and that meant a greater diversity of characters and conversations, but also general liveliness (the previous year definitely felt more intimate and quiet). This sense of liveliness then perfectly combined (as a powerful oscillation) with the weather. Last year, it was fairly cold and cloudy; this year, the sky was totally clear every single day, and it was very, very hot. This created many summery opportunities, such as making a trip to the river for a little dip or talking until the small hours of the morning outside by the bonfire. The weather has also defined all the memories, providing a perfect setting for the deep and authentic social experience.
Personally, I had the whole year to digest the previous experience in my subconscious, and build up a strong sense of inspiration ahead of the residency. Last year, I arrived without any plans or expectations, and inspiration had to be discovered and emerge from the residency directly. This year, I had not only a very specific plan in place, but what had first emerged as an inspiration toward the residency had quickly spilled over into a much more significant part of my research. Since I’ve been working with Super8 film stock in my practice for the past several months, I had the idea of editing a film out of found footage and then projecting it during the residency. However, the process of buying old films from all over the world on eBay quickly turned into a creative obsession in its own right: after acquiring more than 60 diverse film reels, I realised that it wouldn’t be feasible to edit this during the residency, and I instead decided to work on this ahead of time. All creative decisions put aside, the physical edit of the 26-minute long film had taken me whole five days to complete, so doing this in advance allowed me instead to follow other related creative opportunities at the Trust.
I focused on capturing the atmosphere of the farm and the surrounding countryside with my Super8 camera, using film stock that had expired in 1981 (before I was born). With the help of one of the participants, Laurie Reynolds, who is an artist photographer with a considerable expertise in chemical processing, I was able to develop this expired film on site, using a home-made substance called Caffenol (based on instant coffee and vitamin C), since the actual processing chemicals for this film stock have long been discontinued. At night, on the same day of developing it, I was able to project this film outside by the bonfire to some members of the group, with the composer Isabel Benito Gutierrez accompanying the semi-abstract negative images with electric piano improvisation. This moment emerged spontaneously and without any planning, and to me demonstrated the frictionless alignment of human and non-human elements during the residency, which allowed for serendipity to flourish.
The exhibition likewise felt very different to the previous year: there was so much more taking place, due to the high number of highly creative and productive participants, filling the barn with amazingly diverse work and performances. In terms of performance, an important addition to the group was Isabel, who enriched the exhibition through music collaborations, including the improvised scoring of my found-footage film projection, together with James Vandeventer on the clarinet and myself on electric guitar. The found-footage theme for my participation this year had also inspired a spontaneous, interactive art installation that I came up with on the day of the exhibition. I decided to put the Super8 film editor-viewer device on a tall stump, which I found in the barn, and place a small guitar amplifier behind it next to a tractor (the tractor simply happened to be parked in the middle of the barn). I then edited together a selection of some obscure dramas and cartoons, which could be played back and forth on the editing device, with the exhibition visitors being able to control the speed and direction of playback. The low-fi sound, coming out of the guitar amp, had a strong echo effect mixed in, giving the old films quite a surreal, alien feel.
The way this Super8 art installation emerged so quickly and spontaneously just a few hours before the exhibition is, for me, a testament to the raw inspiring potential of the barn at the Sidney Nolan Trust, where any human artistic creation is first thoroughly rubbed down by the dust and dirt of the real.
First of all the inter-personal dynamic: there were almost twice as many of us taking part, and that meant a greater diversity of characters and conversations, but also general liveliness (the previous year definitely felt more intimate and quiet). This sense of liveliness then perfectly combined (as a powerful oscillation) with the weather. Last year, it was fairly cold and cloudy; this year, the sky was totally clear every single day, and it was very, very hot. This created many summery opportunities, such as making a trip to the river for a little dip or talking until the small hours of the morning outside by the bonfire. The weather has also defined all the memories, providing a perfect setting for the deep and authentic social experience.
Personally, I had the whole year to digest the previous experience in my subconscious, and build up a strong sense of inspiration ahead of the residency. Last year, I arrived without any plans or expectations, and inspiration had to be discovered and emerge from the residency directly. This year, I had not only a very specific plan in place, but what had first emerged as an inspiration toward the residency had quickly spilled over into a much more significant part of my research. Since I’ve been working with Super8 film stock in my practice for the past several months, I had the idea of editing a film out of found footage and then projecting it during the residency. However, the process of buying old films from all over the world on eBay quickly turned into a creative obsession in its own right: after acquiring more than 60 diverse film reels, I realised that it wouldn’t be feasible to edit this during the residency, and I instead decided to work on this ahead of time. All creative decisions put aside, the physical edit of the 26-minute long film had taken me whole five days to complete, so doing this in advance allowed me instead to follow other related creative opportunities at the Trust.
I focused on capturing the atmosphere of the farm and the surrounding countryside with my Super8 camera, using film stock that had expired in 1981 (before I was born). With the help of one of the participants, Laurie Reynolds, who is an artist photographer with a considerable expertise in chemical processing, I was able to develop this expired film on site, using a home-made substance called Caffenol (based on instant coffee and vitamin C), since the actual processing chemicals for this film stock have long been discontinued. At night, on the same day of developing it, I was able to project this film outside by the bonfire to some members of the group, with the composer Isabel Benito Gutierrez accompanying the semi-abstract negative images with electric piano improvisation. This moment emerged spontaneously and without any planning, and to me demonstrated the frictionless alignment of human and non-human elements during the residency, which allowed for serendipity to flourish.
The exhibition likewise felt very different to the previous year: there was so much more taking place, due to the high number of highly creative and productive participants, filling the barn with amazingly diverse work and performances. In terms of performance, an important addition to the group was Isabel, who enriched the exhibition through music collaborations, including the improvised scoring of my found-footage film projection, together with James Vandeventer on the clarinet and myself on electric guitar. The found-footage theme for my participation this year had also inspired a spontaneous, interactive art installation that I came up with on the day of the exhibition. I decided to put the Super8 film editor-viewer device on a tall stump, which I found in the barn, and place a small guitar amplifier behind it next to a tractor (the tractor simply happened to be parked in the middle of the barn). I then edited together a selection of some obscure dramas and cartoons, which could be played back and forth on the editing device, with the exhibition visitors being able to control the speed and direction of playback. The low-fi sound, coming out of the guitar amp, had a strong echo effect mixed in, giving the old films quite a surreal, alien feel.
The way this Super8 art installation emerged so quickly and spontaneously just a few hours before the exhibition is, for me, a testament to the raw inspiring potential of the barn at the Sidney Nolan Trust, where any human artistic creation is first thoroughly rubbed down by the dust and dirt of the real.
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The residency was a great opportunity to collaborate with fellow artist-researchers, and to (intuitively) explore the potential of a site with powerful genius loci, which the Rodd Farm undeniably is. The unique sense of the place originates from the dynamic intersection of the raw nature, the raw (repurposed) barns and sheds, and the artistic drive that carries this stasis forward – originally through the residence and activity of Sidney Nolan himself, and later through the nurturing actions of the Trust and a host of artists who come to stay and work in this place. All of those forces remain active and present, and can be felt as one homogenous atmosphere – in the materiality of the shadowy interiors and the dusky fields surrounding them, and in the faint light itself from which this materiality sustains itself, like a permanent vibration, an enveloping mirage. It only made sense, therefore, to arrive empty, without any ideas, plans or expectations, and to connect into this delicate living spirit, which now included seven new highly potent, creative ingredients. And together as eight we became a seamless part of this environment, yet also the one possessing the most immediate agency, such that can stir the settled numinous air all around us and uncover its most secret appearances.
As a filmmaker with particular research interests and aesthetic sensibility, I was drawn to the images and sounds that can be captured from this spirit, through collaboration with some of the other artists (with their particular research interests and aesthetic sensibility), while letting the place do the rest – disclosing its dormant affective truth as serendipity to us. The main part of the work focused on a shabby wooden barn, where time had stood seemingly still – in the sense of molar organisation of matter – for many decades. There on the earthen floor we stumbled upon a small window frame: the glass intact yet covered in a dense layer of dirt and dust – a sedimented memory of time itself, perceived through a window looking nowhere. We recognised immediately its value and significance; and so we looked through it, and used it in a way our own sedimented creative experience and the instantaneous energy of the moment compelled us to do. But it also used us: it looked right through the lens of the camera, and made the resulting film gravitate and warp around its absolute vision of nothing.
(Published in the Manchester School of Art Postgraduate Arts and Humanities Centre Newsletter, Autumn 2017)
As a filmmaker with particular research interests and aesthetic sensibility, I was drawn to the images and sounds that can be captured from this spirit, through collaboration with some of the other artists (with their particular research interests and aesthetic sensibility), while letting the place do the rest – disclosing its dormant affective truth as serendipity to us. The main part of the work focused on a shabby wooden barn, where time had stood seemingly still – in the sense of molar organisation of matter – for many decades. There on the earthen floor we stumbled upon a small window frame: the glass intact yet covered in a dense layer of dirt and dust – a sedimented memory of time itself, perceived through a window looking nowhere. We recognised immediately its value and significance; and so we looked through it, and used it in a way our own sedimented creative experience and the instantaneous energy of the moment compelled us to do. But it also used us: it looked right through the lens of the camera, and made the resulting film gravitate and warp around its absolute vision of nothing.
(Published in the Manchester School of Art Postgraduate Arts and Humanities Centre Newsletter, Autumn 2017)
collaboration with sara davies, featuring nigel allmark |
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