The ICA Artists’ Moving Image Network, hosted at Manchester’s Cornerhouse, offers an ongoing series of screenings of new and rarely seen artist film and video work.
COLOUR is a group screening exploring its influence and uses to evoke mood and rhythm, as well as its function as a narrative device in artists’ film. For many artists, hues and tones play an important role in a work’s composition. This programme explores the uses of colour in a cross-section of moving image work.
Spiralling Friends Film
This work by Jennifer West draws the viewer in right from the beginning, with the protagonists’ eyes fixed cautiously on the audience. The selection of people portrayed is diverse – there are young and old, male and female, and a variety of outfits and ethnicities. Some are shown performing one or two simple tasks, like braiding their hair. It feels inclusive, and yet somehow almost ethereal. The characters stand out against a dark background, and it feels like an imaginary realm defined by introspection; an inner corner of their psyche populated by manifestations of their true, vulnerable selves. The celluloid patterns projected across the screen are an enthralling visual effect, but unfortunately detract from the human element that serves as the central theme. Besides this, the film is remarkable in that viewer almost takes on a role of their own, as the stares of the protagonists seem to invite observation, conversation or even self-examination.
httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pHV9iQMy4gg
Goodbye to Elvis and USA
Keiichi Tanaami’s surreal animation reads as a critique of American culture. Throughout its seven minute run Tanaami subjects us to an unrelenting barrage of images and sounds, blending the ugliest aspects of the American psyche – chiefly food, sex and drugs. Sex is especially abundant, never more than a few frames away. Occasionally pop-culture references sidle in, but even those are tinged with decidedly sexual themes.
To be honest, it seems a shame. Though it proclaims to be an ode, the title appears to be sarcastic and Tanaami’s depiction of the States is far more critical than affectionate. Through it makes accurate criticisms of American advertising and consumerism, other references are oblique, and fall decidedly flat. It feels slightly snide, and the focus on sex feels like a missed opportunity; an overly-simplistic portrayal of a vast and many-faceted nation.
“a pineapple and a series of a strange events in an exotic location.”
Gliding in on a Shrimp Sandwich
Jeannine Han and Dan Riley join their creative forces with Tamara Henderson to explore unusual interiors and post-modern design in a series of tableaux. Characterised by a claustrophobic style of shooting, there is an intriguing fluidity to the transitions, and the camera pans and rolls as things are physically torn away from the screen in understated reveals. Unfortunately though, more care seems to have gone into the style of shooting than the tableaux themselves, which are often unclear or obscure as the claustrophobic close-ups are taken to their logical extreme. As the centrepieces holding the film together, they possess no character or flair, and there is nothing to make them particularly memorable.
Life Looks Like This
Tymek Borowski’s short plays out like an educational film or PSA, using a small lead ball to illustrate the triumphs and frustrations of modern life. The narrator’s deadpan, off-kilter pronunciation and the peculiar rhythm to his words is complemented with occasional beautifully idiosyncratic asides. The little lead ball itself is treated as a separate character, making appropriate noises of effort and disappointment. Whether you realise it or not, you’ll quickly find yourself rooting for the little guy, and it’s this sense of solidarity (with an inanimate object, no less) that underscores the entire piece. It’s hilarious, simplistic and communicative, and the highlight of the programme.
httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HIG1lOb7Q7o
Scroll Sequence
Nate Boyce creates a mesmerising, futuristic work in Scroll Sequence. His vision of a computer-generated world is discernible in his choice of backdrops – flat maps upon which you can make out varied environments like snow, tundra and even ocean. The cyborg creatures hovering over these landscapes are even more fascinating to watch. Light slides along their lengths and reflects from their joints, and gently pulsing LEDs add to their alien, otherworldly aura. The lack of sound creates a calm serenity that pervades the piece, suggesting a kind of bliss existing in this fantastic dimension.
However, the cyborgs themselves display no human or otherwise anthropomorphic characteristics, giving us no point of correlation with our own world. It is still an interesting experiment that works to some degree, but it is not relatable, thereby taking the feet out from its premise as an alternate universe.
Isabelle Cornaro brings a medley of images cascading together in Celebration. Delicate ceramics are the initial frames beginning a series of still life images, which quickly get ever more complex and fascinating – especially the close-up detailing the swirls and eddies of a ‘toothpaste marble’. The film progresses into a simply enthralling array of colours, dancing and whirling and flashing across the screen. They melt and blend together as the movement becomes frantic, almost dizzying. Cornaro uses colour as to transcend all boundaries, adeptly expressing a familiar, positive emotion using a versatile universal medium.
Crayon Angel
Unsettling motifs and an eerily bizarre soundtrack comprise the hallmarks of another Keiichi Tanaami work. Crayon Angel deals with the figurative golems of destruction and confusion of the Second World War. Real films of navies, infantrymen and American bombers, as well as static photographs of civilian families are fused with more abstract and sometimes terrifying animations, mimicking the inextricable link between the artist’s own childhood memories and dreams of WWII. The heartbeat and air raid sirens are omnipresent throughout, making the whole experience superbly sinister.
httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rqrXLmLN3yw
Floues et Colourees
As opposed to the more complicated themes explored in other films in this programme, Floues et Colourees is enjoyable escape, somewhat reminiscent of Cornaro’s other work, Celebration. Various shades of paint are sprayed onto a canvas with a hose, creating pleasing patterns and tones. The artist is content to dispense with the deeper meanings and intellectual implications, happy to let viewers simply get lost in the colours; it’s a relaxing final piece to wind down.
Click here for information on the next ICA event at the Cornerhouse.