Elmington Estate revisited

Nearly six years ago, in December 2005, I posted this short sketchy video which animates views of council flats undergoing demolition. The photographs were taken in August 2005, the Elmington Estate being demolished is just on the edge of Burgess Park on Edmund Street, Camberwell, South London. I have just reposted it as part of an occasional series for which I plan to post 'archival' Direct Language videos as some of the links to the original videos at the Internet Archive seem to be broken.

Looking back at the video I was curious to see what had become of the site after the credit crunch. I was expecting to find the estate to be replaced by some kind of new development, hopefully retaining some social housing at the very least. I was slightly surprised then to find that, in spite of being demolished, as this view from Google Maps attests to

it has been transformed into a wasteland by Southwark Council, which has since handed it over to Notting Hill Housing for regeneration.

On the face of it Notting Hill Housing seems to be a perfectly responsible, local organisation with an interest in social housing, which is in some contrast with the global developers the council uses elsewhere for more lucrative high profile developments such as the Heygate Estate at Elephant and Castle. But after six years the site remains uninhabited, where the decanted residents are now who knows, or whether they to be part of the new community, and the regeneration plans as outlined by Southwark Council are ambiguous indeed.

Travelling Practice - Directors Lounge special screening

Digital video works 2003—2010
curated by Klaus W. Eisenlohr

21:00, Thursday, 27 Oct. 2011
Z-Bar
Bergstraße 2
10115 Berlin-Mitte

programme:

Metalogue (26:37, 2003),
Direct Language (10:00, 2005 ­ 2008),
The Ground, the Sky, and the Island (7:45, 2008),
Aboriginal Myths of South London (10:27, 2010),
Personal Electronics (26:00, 2010)

more details, with an essay by the curator

Land Gauge

Recently I found this version of my video Land Gauge.  Land Gauge has appeared in various forms and contexts. It first appeared in January 2007 as Direct Language 4.0 on my original Direct Language videoblog.  That version used the sound as recorded with the image although the whole thing is slowed down. In 2008 I made a version for One Minute Volume 2 where it is accompanied by 60/60 a sound piece made when I was at art college in 1981, which was also on the Snatch 3 compilation.  For this version I sped the original 60/60 up so that it would fit within the 60 second parameter of the project.  Later that year it was in the Transcentric show, where it was projected on a small raised platform screen on the floor so that one looked down onto it, replicating the original point of view, as a silent 4 minute loop.  This version was made while preparing the video for Transcentric and compiles several parts of the original sequence, into a kind of extended mix as a continuous 10 minute video, it too is silent. 

some September screenings

Inanimatismus

Inanimatismus screens at:
• Ukrainian Art Festival, Koktebel, Ukraine,
7 - 9 September;
• Future Proof, Marseille Project Gallery, France,
Saturday 18 September;
• Stew Gallery, Norwich, UK,
Wednesday 29 September.
These screenings are part of One Minute vol 4. 

The Ground, the Sky, and the Island screens at:
• Alchemy Film and Moving Image Festival
Hawick, Scottish Borders,
Sunday 12 September;

Direct Language screens at:
• cogcollective at The BAck doOR
Melbourne, Australia

Saturday 25 September. 

August Aggregate

Direct Language (3 posts)

Public Water (2 posts)

on the return of Direct Language

stuck somewhere

the word

the dissolve

refused to render

until the sequence

had been deleted

and even then

with difficulty...

 

...the return of Direct Language

Direct Language on DVblog

Direct Language videos featured on DVblog today.

16 January update: more videos on DVblog.

Thanks Michael!

Direct City Visions

On Sunday 15 June at 2pm I will be discussing my work alongside other artists and Tracey Warr at the Visions in the Nunnery show. Warr has curated City Choreographies a programme that concentrates on the relationship between the city and its pedestrian inhabitants, screening at the Nunnery on Saturday from 12 - 2pm and 3 - 6pm, at 2pm she will be in conversation with Alan Smith, one of the artists whose work is featured in the programme.

I'm looking forward to this very much as clearly the themes of Warr's programme connect strongly with the selection of Direct Language videos screening at Visions in the Nunnery (Direct Language 1, 8, 2.5, 2.7, 2.9, 3.2, 3.0, 4.0 and 4.5 - which can all be viewed on the videoblog), with their variously rhythmically edited sequences of skateboarders, ad hoc synchronised dancing in a Soho square, visual Dopplerised U-bahn trains, cable car landscapes, jittery urban spaces and so on, they are very much dancing about architecture, enunciations of the city space by the pedestrian inhabitants and the author, of course, is one of their number.

Direct Visions

A ten minute compilation of a selection of the Direct Language videos will be exhibited at Visions in the Nunnery between 6 - 15 June. The private view is 6:30 - 9:00pm on Friday 6 June, the Nunnery is at 183 Bow Road, London E3 2SJ.

With the exception of Outside and Unknown at the Pixelodeon and Screen Dump at cogcollective - both programmes dedicated to works from videoblogs - this is the first time videos made for Direct Language have screened publicly in a context outside of the web.

Sam Renseiw has written of Direct Language:

Usually using unostentatious settings as stepping-stone footage for the videos – from urban settings, interiors, and forests - the subsequently manipulated and precisely choreographed patterns mirror the concern for formal and cognitive visual rigor. Often palindromic and/or surgically sliced into rhythmic, repetitive footage with careful concern for soundtrack implications, the short pieces reveal, at times, surprising short-circuiting attentive observations from the seemingly banal out-sets. A study in the manipulation of the inconspicuous.

Direct Language has long since ended as an abstracted video serial journal project, it can be viewed in its entirety archived at Direct Language and I am also making a selection of the videos available as an unlimited edition DVD series, unostentatiously packaged in a plain cover with a handwritten label. This can be purchased for a nominal amount to cover materials, handling and postage. Email me for details with "Direct Language DVD" in the subject field.

direct language 2.6

Direct Language 2.6
QuickTime Movie 1Mb 0' 59"

direct language 4.5

Direct Language 4.5
QuickTime Movie 7.5Mb 1' 21"

direct language 4.4

Direct Language 4.4
QuickTime Movie 16.8Mb 2'54"

direct language 4.3

Direct Language 4.3
QuickTime Movie 22.5Mb 3' 37"
An installation by Petr Nikl and a performance by Eric La Casa, Jean-Luc Guionnet and Philip Samartzis, Orbis Pictus - interactive exhibition of musical instruments, Czech Museum of Music, Prague, 21st April 2007.

direct language 4.2

Direct Language 4.2

QuickTime Movie 11.4Mb 2' 00"

direct language 4.1

Direct Language 4.1
QuickTime Movie 984kb 00' 28"

direct language 4.0

Direct Language 4.0
QuickTime Movie 2.9Mb 01'17"