“Change the language of the object based on the origins of the object.”

‘Talking, counting, blinking, noting’* takes the form of a period of reflection on a collection of film materials shot over the course of 2017-2019 including films documenting works by Jonathan Owen, Karen Cunningham, Catherine Street, William Joys, Elín Jakobsdóttir and a collaborative work with Wendy Kirkup, alongside titled camera and film tests at museum sites in Edinburgh and Glasgow, and locations in Berlin, Paris and the United States. These reflections will determine the shape of a sequence of one-to-one 16mm film workshops with invited artists that describes the camera and the disciplines, properties and parameters of film as a space for collaborative exchange and critical development. The work is rooted in the shared biography, the episodic and the diaristic.

Supported by an Open Project Fund, Creative Scotland, 2019-2020.

Updates and information posted on this page.  

* Title is taken from an essay by curator João Ribas on the artists João Maria Gusmão & Pedro Paiva, in their publication ‘The Sleeping Hippopotamus and the Missing Eskimo‘, Arguer Kunsthaus/Kölnischer Kunstverein, Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther Köning, Köln, 2016, page 95

With thanks to Anne Petrie at Creative Scotland,  and made with the participation of Emma Balkind, Alex Millar, Leah Millar, Nathalie de Briey, Wendy Kirkup, Rowan Markson, Anne-Marie Copestake, Rosie Roberts among others. Thank you to Bea Haut, artist/filmmaker at the University of East London. (In addition thank you to Ewen Cunningham, Apiary Manager at the Dunblane and Stirling Beekeepers Association.)

Episode 1, w/ artist and writer Emma Balkind, Glasgow July 2019, research images, 29 June 2019, posting soon, reversal and black-and-white
Episode 2 w/ artist Rowan Markson, an extract from research on the life of Tamara Talbot Rice, July 2019
Episode 3, w/ artist filmmaker Leah Millar, Newcastle, June/July 2019, the river(s) and portraits
Episode 4, w/ artist Nathalie de Briey, lighthouses and Stargazing from Dr Peter Hill
Episode 5, w/ artist Helen McCrorie
Episode 6 w/ artist Wendy Kirkup
Episode 7 w/ artist Rosie Roberts
Episode 8 w/ anonymous

Further episodes and shoots to be announced

Image, research shot, from Emma Balkind’s estate, black and white and colour reversal, 2019

Leah Millar, research and camera test, double-exposed, masked, 250D, the rivers