The Gates of Perception

— 23rd Sep 15

Moving image and the built environment: the art of human scale

Pylon
n. 1823, “gateway to an Egyptian temple,” from Greek pylon “gateway,” from pyle “gate, wing of a pair of double gates; an entrance, entrance into a country; mountain pass; narrow strait of water,” of unknown origin. Meaning “tower for guiding aviators” (1909) led to that of “steel tower for high-tension wires” (1923).

There’s a wonderful, playful pleasure to Alex Chinneck’s illusionistic public sculptures which reminds us of how the city could be if more imaginative city servants were in positions of high office. Instead, most of the time we’re navigating arenas of often oppressive architectural form, imposed without a sense of history or lived experience, in which the human trace - and the always present species tendency towards resilience and the subtle appropriation and humanisation of hostile surroundings - are truly to be welcomed, and defended.

The moving image - operating in time and space - is particularly good at providing the perspective we seek. As the BFI’s welcome London on Film season continues along the river, NOW gallery’s cinema programme celebrates this city-focused POV with five works tracking stories, buildings and objects both real and imagined. In a genuinely necessary reversal of percentages, four women artists - and one male Turner prize winner (whose film returns by significant demand) - fuse the personal with the political, the prescient with the poetic - and reveal the public realm - whether housing estate or streetscape, office block or open space - to be both brooding and brilliant with possibility, a territory ripe for reverie and reflection.

And of course, given Alex’s commission, we couldn’t resist flagging up a couple of public information film gems, pylon promos from 1956 and 1966, wry reminders of the daily miracles we all too easily take for granted, praise songs to these energy-carrying wonders of the modern world (and the workers who made them), and all from a galaxy long, long ago, well before ‘health and safety’. So, hard hats on, sit back and enjoy (Gareth Evans).

+ in-conversation with Charlotte Ginsborg (FLAMIN award winner), David Roberts, social housing and public realm activist, artist and historian (Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL), Cordelia Swann and Andrea Luka Zimmerman (Jarman and Grierson awards 2015 shortlisted). Curated and hosted by Gareth Evans. .

Cordelia Swann: The Citadel (1992) 14 mins

‘Once there was a woman who lived alone in a fairly prosperous citadel. If the weather was fine, a rare and precious occurrence, she would go out and explore, or she would do the shopping…’ Inspired by the tragedy of Dido and the fall of Carthage, with references to the stoning of Mary Magdalene and the execution of others, The Citadel documents the perceptions, actions and dreams of a woman as she experiences, or rather, doesn’t experience, national and world events. Using a range of striking imagery within an allegorical structure, The Citadel follows the imaginary journey of this woman through a city of beauty and desolation. Shot in lyrical documentary tradition, akin to the work of Humphrey Jennings, the piece weaves together a subjective narrative with an idiosyncratic vision of London.

British Pathe excerpt: Pylon Men (1956) 2 mins

Emily Richardson: Block (2005) 12 mins

Day through night, Block is a portrait of a 1960s London tower block, its interior and exterior spaces explored and revealed, and its patterns of activity building a rhythm and viewing experience not dissimilar from the daily observations of the security guard sat watching the flickering screens with their fixed viewpoints and missing pieces of action. Block was made over a period of 10 months in a tower block in south east London from 2004–05. The film is a portrait of the place that came out of much time spent there. The contrast between the exterior and interior of the building, the impersonal common spaces and the personal spaces of the interior of people’s flats gives shape to the portrait. The security guards’ office and the bank of CCTV monitors with their random editing patterns and missing pieces of action were used as a starting point in terms of the camera techniques and editing structures employed in the film. All seeing, but seeing nothing at the same time. Working with static camera the fixed shots are repeated and edited together in sequence in a similar way to the CCTV camera recordings that flick from one camera view to another, often disrupting the (visual) ‘narrative’. The soundtrack was built up from recordings made on location at the time of shooting and sounds gathered from various sources and was composed and mixed by Jonah Fox.

Andrea Luka Zimmerman: Towards Estate (2013) 15 mins

Tracking the passing of Hackney’s Haggerston Estate and wider utopian principles of social housing, Estate offers an unruly celebration of extraordinary everyday humanity. As a 1930s block is bulldozed, a luxury-apartment-complex rises. Challenging tired stereotypes, Estate interweaves intimate long-term observational footage with the residents’ own historical re-enactments and dramatised reveries. Capturing a moment of imminent transition, Towards Estate and its feature-length successor Estate: a Reverie (83 mins, 2015) reflect on urgent matters of regeneration, gentrification and architecture; its reasons, possibilities and consequences. But more importantly, they are films about time and place, and the ability of hold forms of dreaming and the capacity for wonder within ongoing and growing daily systemic pressures. During this moment of transition (in social and architectural terms), where one structure has broken down, and a new one is about to emerge, another space unfolds; a space of proposals, of uncertainty, and of absolute initiative. In this opening, how might we ask important questions of our ideas of home, of history, always in the making, and of our capacity for an ambition of the imagination in straitened times; that which influences not only how we’re seen, but also how we see; how we dream…

British Pathe excerpt: Pylon Men (1966) 4 mins

Charlotte Ginsborg: The Mirroring Cure (2006) 28 mins

Tracing the life of a large construction site from demolition to the completion of new office space, The Mirroring Cure focuses on people’s relationship to their built environment, highlighting the complexity of personal identities formed through being at work. The film is told from the view point of the company secretary who has decided to carry out interviews with those employed around her. We witness her fascination with one of the architects whom she discovers suffers from a loss of balance, exacerbated by the large scale of the site. She becomes intrigued by the bizarre cure he develops to cope with his affliction. Appearing initially as a documentary detailing both the complexity of personal identities formed through being ‘at work’, and the effects of architecture on behaviour, the gradual introduction of a ‘story line’ leaves the viewer unsure as to what genre of film they are watching. To what extent the characters are acting remains ambiguous. Shot on 16mm over a two-year period the film forms an intimate portrait of five working lives set against the visually arresting and constantly shifting architecture of the building development.

Mark Leckey: The March of the Big White Barbarians (2005) 5 mins

London’s Public Sculptures are articulated by the concrete poetry of Maurice Lemaitre in a free translation by Leckey’s Jack Too Jack.

Venue: NOW Cinema
Date: 23 September 2024
Time: 19.00 - 21.00
FREE

NOW Gallery
The Gateway Pavilions
Greenwich Peninsula
SE10 0SQ

Booking essential: 0203 770 2212