Sam Francis joined us for a guest seminar as part of Experimental Media Arts Module on Thursday 18th March 2021.
Focus for this session: Derives / Drifting, Guy Debord / situationist.
Notes, Films and Links from session:
Patrick Keiller: Robinson Trilogy - invented character ‘Robinson’:
Andrew Kotting - often collaborates with various people who join him on his walks, uses 16mm film
Margaret Tait (Orkney) : **not many women making this kind of work strangely:
Paul Kelly: how we used to live:
Also see: Finnesterre (2003) - Dir. Paul Kelly & Kieran Evans. We looked at this film in Documentary module, when looking at the city symphony.
Robert McFarlane, Stanley Donwood, Adam Scovell:
Mark Leckey: Fiorucci made me Hardcore / Dream English Kid
Film response to Georges Perec, La Rue:
EXERCISE
INSTRUCTIONS FOR A RANDOM WALK
A random walk is the process by which randomly-moving human objects wander away from
where they started. This walk will be 6.7 times more random than a usual walk.
INSTRUCTIONS
Turn your notifications off. Grab your notebook, camera, drink, snack.
Leave your home.
Allow yourself plenty of time.
If you usually turn left, turn right. If you usually turn right, turn left. Or walk straight ahead.
Don’t have a destination in mind.
You don’t have to go far.
Take a different route than usual.
Or go somewhere familiar and see it with fresh eyes.
Step one foot in front of the other in no particular order.
You might set your own instructions or pattern; left, right, / right, right / left, straight, stop,
continue, note / left or whatever.
Get into your own rhythm.
Wander.
Drift.
What do you see, sense, hear, feel.
Stop and have a closer look at something.
Examine closely whatever your attention is drawn to.
Sit on a bench or a wall if you like.
Take your time, don’t rush.
Just look, real close.
Enjoy the fact that no one knows what you are doing.
All those people, they’re all just wrapped up in their own worlds, going about their own business.
Record your discoveries by some means;
trace or count your steps
make some notes or a list
record the sounds around you
photograph each corner
film the ground
draw a line by hand
pick things up
write things down
or whatever catches your eye.
Think about the ways in which you might bring these elements together
Enjoy!
Further Reading:
Situationists + Theory of the Dérive: Guy Debord - the dérive [literally: “drifting”]
Psychogeography describes the effect of a geographical location on the emotions and the behaviour of individuals.
Georges Perec, Species of Space and Other Pieces
Psychogeography: a way to delve into the soul of a city - theconversation
Further Viewing
Where to begin with British psychogeography cinema
‘Movies inspire a lot of passion, but the back catalogue of film history can be daunting. For every fan who’s obsessed with an actor, director or sub-genre, there’s another struggling to know where to start. Sometimes all it takes is the right recommendation to set you on your path from newbie to know-it-all… Your next obsession: the drifting explorations of psychogeographic filmmaking.’ BFI
John Smith: Girl Chewing Gum
Sam Francis
See Sam Francis’s own work on her website. Including her Urban Typologies project, which was Exhibited at RWA Open Exhibition, Bristol, 2010
Environments - Richard Edkins & Karen Bristoll
Environments - 'A photographic – video - art project exploring issues of identity, histories, space and time, on an overland journey from Birmingham to Beijing and Back on public transport.'
15 years ago, March 27th 2006, we left Birmingham New street station to travel overland on public transport, heading towards Beijing. We had no plan as such just an idea to head in that direction, overland on public transport - trains, buses, boats, rickshaw...
We didn’t want to fly for environmental reasons, aviation represents the world’s fastest growing source of carbon dioxide emissions*, but also traveling overland you feel more connected, how spaces, nations, peoples, histories are connected. In a plane you miss all that.
