It was sad, but aesthetically satisfying to arrange the final delivery of milk to the former nursery at Latimer Road, now 154 Freston Road and a temporary art studio space pending regeneration. I had to be up at 5am to intercept the delivery of 13 pints of glass bottled milk. Many thanks to Gillham Industries for donating the milk to the project.
On Saturday, I collaborated with artists Nadia Berri, Sandra Crisp and Dee Harding in the making of a short film called Day Care. We improvised various site-specific scenes. The highlight was a ritualistic marking of the building with bottles and a playful evocation of lost space. Many thanks to B,C and H for their help and I look forward to further collaboration in the post-production edit. The film will also include contributions from the following artists who offer reflections on their studio use of the space and early childhood memories of play and creativity: Marcus Harris, David Stockley, Olga Koroleva, Brett Manley and Katie Smith. Photos courtesy of Sandra Crisp:
There are great double acts in film direction and musical scoring: Hitchcock-Herrmann, Fellini-Rota, Leone-Morricone. It is often hard to imagine the image without the music and vice-versa.
You can throw Roman Polanski and Krzysztof Komeda into that mix. KK was one of the most important jazz musicians to have worked in film. In his short life, he scored 38 films from 1958-1969, most noticeably his collaboration with Polanski: Knife In The water, Cul-de-sac, Fearless Vampire Killers and Rosemary's Baby. How to describe his qualities? The uniqueness of his Polish slavic influences, married with the post-war developments in jazz (most noticeably improvisation, John Coltrane) and the ability to distil this in a bold, fresh manner for the cinematic frame. I really like the symbiotic relationship between his jazz and film music. The 1964 album Astigmatic, announced a cool, more abstract approach and can be seen as a forerunner of the ECM sound of Manfred Eicher. It's a pity there is no English-language book about Komeda. My old Professor at film school, Richard Dyer, has recently penned the definitive book on Nino Rota and hopefully someone will take up the challenge of putting Komeda's life and music into words. As a visual artist, I've created 4 drawings as a homage to his work. They have been improvised with the music as a backdrop. I'm responding to the emotional and psychological qualities of sound and re-imagining this as a filmic image. Homage to Svantetic is a pictorial reference to the mysterious death of Komeda in 1969 at the age of 37. He was involved in an accident in the States, possibly as a result of high-jinks with a compatriot. Not being insured, Komeda who had originally trained as a medic, travelled back to Poland for treatment and died shortly after from a haematoma. More information: Official Homepage of Krzysztof Komeda Virtual Museum of Krzysztof Komeda
Collaboration on a short film project called Day Care This is a call out to film makers, artists, performers and dancers. I'm currently making a short film about a former nursery and children's centre in North Kensington that has been transformed into a temporary artist studio and art project space. The film will poetically investigate the interlinking experience of history, play and creativity that defines this site. The building will be demolished to make way for new housing from October 2012 as part of a regeneration scheme for the Silchester Estate. Project outline
I'm looking to assemble about 10 people (local residents, artists, performers) to take part in 3 sequences that I want to stage and film. On the day, I'll be displaying 30 images in the space, briefly talking about the film (collaborative film in progress) and inviting those present to help me stage and choreograph movement / dialogue within the space, based on the themes of the film. They will be given milk bottles and asked to work in 3 small groups within the space to explore their associations with childhood, history and the space itself. They will storyboard ideas for filming and and I'll then assist them in filming the sequences. Themes for groups to explore include: 1. Lost nursery space and associations with childhood, play, creativity. Link this to current, temporary use as artist studio and art project space. 2. Milk bottles as signifiers of emotion/ideas /images related to the Notting Hill Race Riot (1958), sociological project about the local environment (1964) and the nursery space. 3. I want to challenge participants to stage and film sequences / dialogue in a cinematic fashion. Juxtapose rapid editing with the long take. Using the body in motion to explore duration in space and time. One group will devise, act in and shoot a "riot" sequence underneath the archway opposite Latymer Tube Station. Another will work on the "nursery" inside the project space. The final group will explore the playground area of the nursery (ruined, glass landscape). I'm looking to shoot about 5 - 10 minutes of footage for each sequence that can be edited into the film. Filming schedule and collaboration Filming will take place on Saturday 22nd September. 10am-4pm. This is a no-budget film, but will credit co-authors in the film, supply DVD copies and lunch on the day. If you would like to take part, please contact me: [email protected] / 07508 996510 Link to Project location I finally got round to editing a short film, based on a photographic project that I took part in at Siobhan Davies studios. Really loved this site-specific walk as dance event. It elegantly looped and navigated its way around the studio space, taking in internal stair-cases and external fire exit. There was great interaction with the performers as you literally moved and breathed with them around the space. I hope to use this mode of exploring space in a film project that I'm currently working on at Latymer Project space. You can catch the choreographer, Matthias Sperling talking about how the work was conceived and constructed. |
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