First Tutorial

Through guidance of my Tutor, Clio Padovani I was given a long list of artists and theorists that would be great inspiration for my work. Introducing Clio to my previous work and the footage I've been working on my practice she felt it best to start this intial research in a creative and free manner. Experimenting with material, installation, footage, High & Low Tech and how the viewer could perhaps interact with the work.

I also visited the exhibition of Haroon Mirza's The Last Tape a film installation based on Krapp's Last Tape a one-act play written by Samuel Beckett and the exploration of post-punk pioneers Joy Division. Entering the room I initially engaged with large hanging projection of a middle aged man, sat underneath a hanging light bulb. Using a tape recorded the man is frustrated and this is emphasised by the interference of a 'fly' buzzing around the light, to which the man reacts by spraying with fly killer.

The acting is simple but effective and the contrasting colours of the black background and the flesh tones work really well. The filming is sharp and the colour balance is really effective. Opposite the screen sits a turn table type box, fitted with a strobe light behind an image of Ian Curtis reflecting Curtis's iconic epilepsy dance.

Luckily I was able to speak to the film's Cinematographer Conor O'Grady about the work.

Fantastic exhibition in a great space.

Photographs & text taken from Vivid's website.

Last Tape, featuring actor and musician Richard ‘Kid’ Strange, is a reinterpretation of Beckett’s play in which its protagonist, Krapp, looks back at the events of his life as recorded onto tape each birthday. Using previously unrecorded lyrics written by Joy Division frontman Ian Curtis, the film depicts Strange enacting the lyrics onto magnetic tape. Strange engages with both the lyrical content and the audible sounds created by the accompanying sculptural works, which includes furniture, turntable, radio, and LCD screen stripped of its backlight and casing, in a performative manner. An awkwardly balanced strobe intermittently illuminates the screen, indirectly referencing Curtis’ epilepsy.