Wednesday 26 November 2014, 7pm, OTO Project Space
Out of nowhere is a new film and performance series programmed by guest curators in association with no.w.here, collective-iz, Rosalind Fowler and other no.w.here associates and members. The series begins at Cafe Oto's project space with films by Rosalind Fowler and William Raban.
Time and the Wave - William Raban (2013, 15')
The paradox of the present as a time that cannot be reflected upon until it has already become past, seems consistent with the idea of thinking about the passage of time as the movement within a wave, where the individual particles of water remain static despite an illusion of movement upon the surface. Might not the succession of events in daily life pertain to a similar form of illusory movement? Time and the Wave engages with this paradox by focusing on key London events filmed in 2012 and 2013: the opening of Westfield Shopping Centre at Stratford, the Saint Paul’s Occupy movement, the Queen’s Jubilee Thames pageant and the funeral of Margaret Thatcher to expose Britain in the condition of crisis of late capitalism.
Folk In Her Machine - Rosalind Fowler (2013, 47')
The film starts and ends in London and is told from the perspective of a female narrator who looks back over the archive of footage she has collected over the years on her repeated visits to two seasonal folk traditions in England, Haxey Hood in north Lincolnshire and May Day in Padstow. Her voice is interspersed with those of people she meets on her journeys, describing the significance of the rituals for them. Folk in Her Machine is a sensual film essay on the meaning of place and belonging in a global world, and a meditation on the nature of filmmaking. Shot on a combination of 16mm and digital cameras, the film is narrated by celebrated actor Jodhie May.
£3 students and unwaged / £5 waged - on the door only
Please wear warm clothes as the space will be heated but is an outdoor structure.
Both filmmakers will be present for a Q&A and to discuss their representations of the contemporary English landscape.
“With Folk in Her Machine, Rosalind Fowler has crafted a distinctive take on place, ritual and belonging, as embodied in the moving image; a personal but widely resonant work that commands attention in voice and visuals and marks the arrival of a welcome and keenly alert.” - Gareth Evans, film curator, Whitechapel gallery
William Raban is one of the foremost British artists and experimental filmmakers of the last forty years, known primarily for his landscape, performance and multi-screen based films. From 1972 to 1976, he was the manager of the London Filmmakers Co-operative and is currently Professor in Film at University of the Arts, London.
Rosalind Fowler is an artist filmmaker with a background in film and visual anthropology. Her work explores the politics and poetics of place and belonging in the contemporary English landscape through performative and experimental/auto-ethnographic forms of enquiry. Folk in Her Machine premiered at PLACE cross-platform festival, Aldeburgh, February 2014 (curated by Gareth Evans), and screened at the William Morris gallery in London in March as part of a late-night opening of Jeremy Deller’s touring Venice bienalle piece ‘English Magic’.