19 November 2011 at 6.30pm
A visit to The Modern Institute to discuss the work of artists, Sue Tompkins and William E. Jones.
Sue Tompkins will show a series of typed text constructions on paper, chiffon fabric works and performed Hallo Welcome to Keith Street. Tompkins’ performances have been described as strung-out exercises in associative free thought: performance poetry that moves from the page to the voice, from speech to song, from song to signal, from signal to pure sound.
All Tompkins’ works contain repeated and ritualistic, patterns and actions – undertaken alone when she is in her studio; they can be traced in her text and fabric works, and are then accentuated in her live performances which hint at transcendence between worlds and times.
Also on show is new work by Los Angeles-based artists and filmmaker, William E. Jones. Known as a filmmaker, this is Jones first exhibition of works predominantly on paper. Having made 16mm experimental films always screened in cinema contexts, this new body of work required digital production techniques to realise it.
The new series of photographs and film were made in Ohio, the state where Jones grew up. Returning after twenty years, he discovered that the industrial landscape, which had started to decay in the 1970s, had changed little since he left in the 1980s. Staying in his family’s house, he looked at the books he had left behind, including the art encyclopaedia which had informed his desire to be an artist. The new works connect photographs of ruined buildings with skeletal pages of art books, with the paintings and drawings excised. Jones’s experience traverses pivotal points in the economic and geographic shifts in American society, and these experiences are reflected in these works.
23 June 2010 at 6pm
This month we will be revisiting the Collective Gallery to view Patchwork Cinema, a new body of work by Torsten Lauschmann which deconstructs the experience of time and cinema through the projected image.
As an artist, filmmaker and live performer, Lauschmann celebrates glitches and out-takes, bits in between and images that might be easy to ignore. Born in Germany and based in Glasgow, Lauschmann’s work has evolved beyond straight photography and film works to investigate the mechanics of digital processes, software creation, experimental editing, approaches to performance and the sculptural potential of video installation.
In Patchwork Cinema, Compilation 1, Lauschmann questions the formalised cinema experience and highlights the pivotal point in early cinema when film presentation was not prescribed in the same way. This work is an alternative cinema experience with an assemblage of found film footage with the addition of sound and lighting effects which have been programmed to trigger a further reimagining of how we view film.
Prior to entering Patchwork Cinema, visitors can view Digital Clock (Growing Zeros) 2010 consisting of a looped 24-hour projection of a digital clock with the red numerals changed manually by visible hands. This less formal digital time matches correct time local time. We will also be able to see Lauschmanns experiment with pre-cinema optics which transforms one of Collectives gallery spaces into a camera obscura.
19 May 2010 at 6.30pm
This month we visit the sumptuous and beautifully intimate cinema within GMAC to see the work of the highly acclaimed emerging artist, Corin Sworn, who will personally screen her short films, show slides and talk to us about her emerging practice.
Corin Sworn (born in London 1976, lives in Vancouver and Glasgow) is a visual artist whose work explores issues connected with the process by which subjective experience becomes translated into history. She works with drawing, video and sculpture, and her work has been shown in group exhibitions including: ICA London (2010), Witte de Wih (2010) EASTInternatinal (2009), Kunsthalle Basel (2009), The Contemporary Art Gallery, Bogotá, The Kunstverein Wolfsburg, Participant Inc. New York (2008). A new solo exhibition was presented at the Glasgow International Festival of Visual Arts, and she has a forthcoming solo show at Tramway.
Within her practice, Sworn draws on historical events to produce works that serve the place of artefacts, ephemera or props in a fragmented retelling of some historical, cultural event. These works are not interested in reproducing a specific history but in analyzing some suggestion within it. Throughout this work she has often considered whether mute objects can carry and convey the events they purport to relate to. Or whether they, instead, situate readings that are performed upon them.
For over 20 years, GMAC (Glasgow Media Access Centre) has supported independent filmmakers and the community through access to low cost facilities, equipment and high quality training and production opportunities. GMAC provides a central space and resource for all people interested in film and media. The organisation aims to be a bridge between local communities and the screen industries by providing opportunities and accessible resources for all. www.g-mac.co.uk
25 June 2009 at 6pm
This month we will be visiting the recently opened gallery space Sierra Metro, located in a disused testing facility for the Northern Lighthouse Board in Granton, to see ‘The Reckoning’ Part One.
Curated by Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop, in collaboration with Kings Artist Run Initiative from Melbourne, The Reckoning features sculpture, film and installation by eight artists from Scotland and Melbourne which will then tour to Australia in Autumn 2009.
We will be joined by some of the exhibiting artists including Derek Sutherland who uses low-tech, ostensibly mundane materials to create unexpected configurations and arrangements; Jonathan Owen creates sculptures from found objects and intricate cut-outs in 2D to address the themes of British suburbia; Danica Chappell makes work using photography, video and installation to explore concepts of oppressiveness; and Darren Farquhar is a performance artist based in Edinburgh who draws his influences from cult cinema and drum-based, sub-pop music.
Other exhibiting artists featured in the exhibition include Kel Glaister, Tamsin Green and Jackie McNamee from Melbourne, Australia and Edinburgh-based Jessica Harrison – who some of you will remember from the Spin event at Edinburgh Printmakers’ last year.
26 October 2006 at 6pm
This month, you are invited to join us at Stills Gallery to view the work of Tracey Moffatt.
We will be joined by Kirsten Lloyd, Stills Programme Manager, who is also a practisng artist and a member of the artists group, Emerged. Kirsten will first introduce us to the most recent developments at the Gallery, and then we will discuss its current exhibition, Adventures by Tracey Moffatt.
Tracey Moffatt is one of Australia’s leading contemporary artists and is highly regarded for her formal and stylistic experimentation in film, photography and video. She often describes herself as a director of photo-narratives, creating distinctive photographs which reference popular and visual art culture – an amalgamation of 70s television, comic books, B-movies and 007.
Shown alongside these photographic works is a group of her earlier films including Love (2003), a spectacular cut-and-paste video work which carefully splices together scenes from some of the artist’s favourite Hollywood melodramas. Cinematic cliche gives way to a darkly sexy feminism with hours of film edited down to a succession of passionate embraces, acts of betrayal, frenzied violence and revenge.
This should all make for a very interesting and entertaining event. We look forward to seeing you there.
19 July 2006 at 6.30pm
Artist Ruth Barker will host an informal discussion about the CCA’s current exhibition, Test Transmission, which explores video artists relationship with television. There will also be a special screening of some work in the CCA cinema.
