Time, a Hesitant Smile
Johan Grimonprez, I may have lost forever my umbrella, 2011.
A series of artist film programmes, curated by Jacqui Davies and Joseph Constable
A touring programme:
Hackney Picturehouse, London. November / December 2014
Glynn Vivian Gallery, Swansea. February 2015
Time, a Hesitant Smile considers filmmaking and broadcast as contained and compressed moments of time travel. Taking its title from Fernando Pessoa's 'The Book of Disquiet' - itself a kaleidoscopic collection of temporal fragments - a bold selection of experimental, cult and ground-breaking artists' film looks at how multiple voices, narratives and histories are synthesised and disseminated in present moments of fact and fiction.
The programme looks at the various apparatuses that humans utilise in order to enact different methods of time travel. Technological prostheses such as the microphone, the mixing desk, the iPhone and the film camera, become tools with which to manipulate our experience of time, duration and dimensionality.
I
The first programme of Time, a Hesitant Smile contains multiple channels of broadcast and (mis)communication. Temporal stability is thrown into question as voices and images appear through windows - the Internet browser, the television screen or the satellite transmission – conveying enigmatic messages from the past and the future.
Haroon Mirza, This content was transmitted to this date in 1987, 2013. 3min
James Richards, The Misty Suite, 2009. 7min
Louis Henderson, All That Is Solid, 2014. 15min
Laida Lertxundi, Cry When It Happens, 2014. 14min
John Latham, Erth, 1971. 25min
II
The second programme of Time, a Hesitant Smile explores the gaps that lie between science fiction and reality. Three films feature a series of surreal landscapes that appear strangely familiar. These warped realities, apparently located in an alien time and place, act as subtle warnings in their picturing of our human fascination with technology, appropriation, and progress.
Angela Melitopoulos, The Language of Things, 2006. 33min
Semiconductor, Some Of Us Will Have Become, 2012. 3min
Ben Rivers, Slow Action, 2011. 40min
III
The concluding programme of Time, a Hesitant Smile takes as its starting point the material processes of filmic editing as contained moments of time travel. From the disembodied voice and sonic spectres that echo in the present, to the layering and fragmentation of image and duration, the hesitant smile of time is revealed as an uncertain reality.
Mark Leckey, Pearl Vision, 2012. 3min
Anri Sala, Mixed Behaviour, 2003. 8min
Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Sakda, 2012. 6min
Judith Goddard, Lyrical Doubt, 1985. 17min
James Richards, Raking Light, 2014. 9min
Johan Grimonprez, I may have lost forever my umbrella, 2011. 3min
Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Cactus River, 2012. 10min
Patrick Bokanowski, La Plage, 1992. 14min
Programmed with the support of LUX, London
Random Acts, Channel 4. Commissioned by Jacqui Davies and FACT, Liverpool (2011-2013)
Anthony Reynolds Gallery, London
Hauser & Wirth, London
Lightcone, Paris