films

Social Cinema St Pauls

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from Tate
Social Cinema 3 2006

Vol 2: Enthusiasm

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Sub-Title

Date of Publication

April 2005

Location

Publisher

Whitechapel Art Gallery, KW Institute for Contemporary Art and Fundacio Antoni Tapies

Designer

Gzegorz Laszuk

Body

This book accompanies the exhibition Enthusiasm; it features an interview with the curator Anthony Spira, and commissioned essays on the films and film programmes - Love, Longing and Labour, from Art Historian Amelia Jones, anthropologist Rachel Moore, artist and critic Carles Guera, political theorist Magda Pustola and previously unpublished film stills; it's tri-lingual.

The whole publication is released under a Creative Commons: Attribution NonCommercial ShareAlike v2.0 License

from the Introduction to Enthusiasm

2005 marks the tenth anniversary of Neil Cummings and Marysia Lewandowska’s collaborative work. They exert a subtle but pervasive influence in numerous cultural spheres; their committed art practice continues to generate networks of collaborators, colleagues, friends and supporters. And, despite the accelerated development of their art projects, Cummings and Lewandowska have remained deeply committed to teaching, they provide an inspiration to younger generations of artists and thinkers.

Over the years, each individual project has added momentum to a wider critical undertaking that scrutinises the invisible power structures, the modes of communication and exchange, that regulate our everyday lives. They have worked with Museums, Banks, Galleries, Archives, places of Education and Department Stores in London, Geneva, Copenhagen and Paris. They have explored the entanglements of art and capital in 19th century Manchester and researched trafficking and smuggling of surrogate goods on the Polish Ukrainian border; documented lost property recovered by London Transport in a single day, and impersonated a famous art dealer. Their projects, although diverse, have consistently engaged with the cultural institutions that designate and mediate art, and the increasingly devolving experience of art, to their public.

This publication forms part of the latest manifestation of 2 years of research into films produced by Poland’s amateur film movement from the 1950s to the mid 1980s. Under the Socialist regime, ‘leisure’ in Poland was organised through numerous factory-sponsored clubs, the most popular of which were perhaps those encouraging the making of films. This publication and the accompanying exhibition explore how such amateur endeavour became an asylum for the marginalized; for dreams of happiness, love and freedom.

In the summer of 2004, ‘Enthusiasts’ curated by Lukasz Ronduda was first exhibited at the Centre for Contemporary Art, Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw. It was accompanied by a publicationn that explored the social and cultural context in which the amateur filmmakers worked. With a deft sleight of hand, the project’s subsequent title and focus has shifted to ‘Enthusiasm’. A move aimed at opening up the phenomena of enthusiasm to a universal audiences; and concentrating on how enthusiasm affects and motivates us all.

Ranging from short satirical animations and ‘experimental’ films to ambitious documentaries and epic romances, a selection of the films found by the artists are arranged in three themes - Love, Labour and Longing – for the duration of the exhibition. In this publication, Historian Amelia Jones describes how love becomes a highly subversive force in the hands of these amateur filmmakers. Anthropologist Rachel Moore situates ‘longing’ between ‘private repression and public violence’ while political theorist Magda Pustola traces how the films ‘inconspicuously transform homo laborans into homo faber. In his essay, film critic Tadeusz Sobolewski evokes the complexity of life ‘behind the iron curtain’ and compares consumerist advertising in the free world to propaganda under a Socialist ideology. Artist Carles Guerra meanwhile, situates Cummings and Lewandowska’s Enthusiasm in a contemporary social and political context. Grzegorz Laszuk, designer of both volumes has, together with the artists, sensitively and intelligently brought all of the disparate parts of this publication together. We would like to thank all of these people, and many more, for their shared passion and enthusiasm, without which this project could not have taken form.

We are equally indebted to Wojciech Krukowski at the CCA, Warsaw, Grzegorz Boguta of the Culture Foundation (Fundacja Kultury) Warsaw for his continued commitment to the cause and to Grzegorz Molewski, Tomasz Piatek at Kino Polska for helping with the release of the official newsreels.

Finally, we would like to thank the artists, Neil Cummings and Marysia Lewandowska, for their unstinting generosity and energy. This partnership of institutions and individuals is indebted to them for their creative and inspirational involvement in every aspect of this publication and the exhibition it accompanies.

Iwona Blazwick, Whitechapel Gallery, London
Anselm Franke, Kunst-Werke, Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin
Nuria Enguita Mayo, Fundació Antoni Tàpies, Barcelona

Read an interview between us and the curator Anthony Spira From Enthusiasm to the Creative Commons.

Buy the book from the Whitechapel or Artwords

Description

ISBN/ASIN

0 85488 143 3

ArtWords Link

Love cinema screening

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audience: Love cinema
installation, Whitechapel Gallery London

Labour Cinema

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Labour cinema entrance,
Whitechapel, London

British Art Show 6

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Sub-Title

Commissioned by curators Alex Farquharson and Andrea Schlieker

End Date

17 Sep 2006

Start Date

24 Sep 2005

Location

Gateshead, Manchester, Nottingham and Bristol

Body

Commissioned by curators Alex Farquharson and Andrea Schlieker to make a new work for the British Art Show Six; we collaborated with Eileen Simpson and Ben White.

During our research, we realised that each of the host cities houses a regional Media Archive; The Northern Region Film and Television Archive in Newcastle, The North West Film Archive in Manchester, Moving Image Archive for Central England in Nottingham and the South West Film & Television Archive based in Plymouth. We have been working with these archives on a project that will evolve during the exhibition tour.

All creative work is born into copyright; every image, text or sound is automatically designated as the property of its apparent author. Copyright is founded on the right of exclusion. And even material deposited in Public Archives is considered a property, access to which is subject to the generosity of archivists and keepers; effectively copyright restricts the creative re-use of public resources.

For the British Art Show Six we sourced orphaned, or out-of-copyright material from which to edit four new films - one for each city - while simultaneously searched for copyright expired music in the British Library and Library of Congress sound archives to create appropriate soundtracks. Our intention with the project is to encourage interest and discussion into the nature of film and other public archives, the public domain and the nature of creative practice

A film was added to the exhibition, at each of the host cities during the year long tour

Screen Tests 1-4 Screen Test

Baltic, Gateshead 24 September 2005 – 8 January 2006.

The Northern Television Film Archive declined to participate, so we screened Screen Tests, made for Manchester

While the film was screened silently, Ben White remixed the soundtrack live, at the opening event

Screen Tests 1-4 Screen Test

Urbis, Manchester 28 January – 2 April 2006

Screen Tests unfolds as series of Andy Warhol-like screen tests, slowly revealing the location and the occupation of those before the camera - students and models from the Manchester School of Art.

While the film was screened silently, Ben White remixed the soundtracks live, at the Whitworth Art Gallery Live Art event

Screen Tests 2-4 Dragline

Angel Row Gallery, Nottingham 22 April – 25 June 2006

Dragline stumbles across an autonomous event; and returns the default setting of contemporary digital sampling and looping to its industrial roots, via 1970’s structuralist film.

While the film was screened silently, Ben White remixed the soundtracks live, at the Future Factory Live Art event

Screen Tests 3-4 Broadcast Times: The Birth of Westward

A Bond, Bristol 15 Jul – 17 Sept 2006

As the exhibition train leaves the platform, we are taken on a documentary journey of A happy hunting ground for tycoons the birth of commercial television broadcasting.

Ben White remixed the soundtracks live, at Spike Island on the 15th September 2006, see the British Art Show Live Art link for details

While working with the archives, we negotiated to release the source material - visual and audio- and our new films into the public domain -on a freely available Screen Tests DVD - through a version of the Creative Commons License. The new artwork and its constituent parts become, in perpetuity, a legally protected creative resource. Artists and others will be able to use and re-use the artwork as material for future creative exchange, enriching rather than depleting the public domain.

See the related and evolving Enthusiasts: archive

Eileen Simpson and Ben White have initiated the Open Music Archive

The Archives

The North West Film Archive in Manchester

Moving Image Archive for Central England in Nottingham

South West Film & Television Archive based in Plymouth.

Northern Television Film Archive in Newcastle declined any involvement

The British Library Sound Archive exactly what it says

The Library of Congress Recorded Sound Reference Centre

You could also visit the British Art Show 6 website, or read a Guardian review

Man 1

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unknown man

Enthusiasm

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Sub-Title

Films of Love Longing and Labour

End Date

15 Jan 2006

Start Date

1 Apr 2005

Location

Whitechapel Art Gallery London
Kunst Werke Berlin
Tapies Foundation Barcelona

Body

In collaboration with the architects 51% studios architecture we transformed the lower galleries of the Whitechapel Gallery into a film makers club-room, three beautiful curtained cinema spaces, and an archive lounge.

The exhibition Enthusiasm investigates how the amateur, the enthusiast or the hobbyist works invisibly within the relentless flow of ‘official’ culture, frequently adopting a counter-cultural tone of tactical resistance and criticism. In Poland under socialism even leisure was organised through factory-sponsored associations, and yet these film-makers activities became a space for dreams of love, criticism and freedom.

The first exhibitionary encounter for the visitor was a re-construction of a fictional film club. Many of the film clubs we visited during our research trips were marvelously evocative; they caught and held the traces of the social and creative history of the members and the films they made. The clubs were usually stuffed with framed photographs, printed film stills, caricatures, posters, certificates, medals, prizes and trophies from film festivals, cupboards stacked with of unwanted film reels and video cassettes, redundant projectors, old cameras and recording equipment, film editing desks and chemicals, homemade developing tanks and film dryers, tea and coffee making equipment, a fridge, a coat-stand, odd chairs, salvaged furniture, junk and even rubbish. Our installation of a ‘club-house’ – created from materials borrowed from club-members, scavenged, or bought at flea markets in Warsaw – was inspired by ethnographic museum room tableau. A monitor and VHS deck in the club-house replayed films by club-members documenting club ‘trips’ and holidays, special events, the process of filmmaking, meetings and festivals. Through inserting loops of self-representation within the fictional ‘club’, we tried to ensure the collaborative and social nature of the film making process remained to the fore. While at the same time enabling the ‘club’ to be an actual social space for the exhibition visitor; the club-house became the hub of the exhibition, mirroring its status in the culture of amateur film-making.

On our research trips we watched hundreds of films, in many extraordinary circumstances, often with former club members present. We became wary of imposing our own preferences and taste on the richness of the films themselves, and thus tried to become sensitive to their makers’ enthusiasms and hopes. What eventually evolved from screenings and discussions were three porous themes: themes of Love, Longing and Labour. This enabled us to select the films for exhibition into three film programmes, although in contrast to the conventions of artists’ use of ‘found-footage’ the compiled films were left complete, with their original music and fully credited. Our emergent themes seemed better able to curate the films into comprehension than the arbitrary violence performed by sorting the films into the genres usually deployed (feature, documentary, animation and so forth).

We had found a means of giving an exhibitionary context to the films and their production, but how should a cinema of enthusiasm be represented in a gallery?

Too often we have seen films and the culture of cinema lazily installed for exhibition. Films are routinely digitalized, and projected onto a wall in a black box installed inside the gallery with nowhere to sit, no programme, no running time, nothing. We were determined to complement the film-makers’ own cinematic aspirations, and thus we worked with architects Peter Thomas and Cathy de Toit of 51% studios to find a form of exhibition that could simultaneously express the gap between the humble club and the cinematic desires of the members. What evolved were three beautiful, lush, sensuously curved, vibrantly coloured, five-meter tall, velvet-curtained cinema spaces. Each cinema had appropriate chairs where visitors would feel comfortable, a screen, soft low-level lighting and a printed programme with film-notes and running times. Through the programme we wanted to hand control of the routes through the elements and spaces of the exhibition back to the visitors themselves. They could sit back and luxuriate in a particular cinema watching the whole programme, or wander from screen to screen mixing their own film selection. As with Capital, the space of the Enthusiasts exhibition became a space of creative production for visitors, mirroring the collaborative practices employed by the amateur film-makers themselves.

In the cinema entitled Longing we screened films of personal, political and sexual love, loss and longing; we explored themes of alienation, ecological anxieties, a fear of war and violence, and a terrible longing to be elsewhere. In Love, the films reflected on the joy, banality and celebration of an ‘everyday’ love of life; they dealt with themes of humor and camaraderie, of families, parties, passion and sex as a radical transgression of the expected. In Labour the films traced the beauty, routine, discipline and horror of work in all its forms; themes of celebration, futility, boredom and exhaustion are acutely depicted through films made by people caught within the processes of production.

The last major exhibitionary encounter within Enthusiasts was with the Archive Lounge. We were conscious that there were many films that could not be accommodated through our emergent taxonomies. An Archive Lounge would enabled visitors to watch, via searchable DVDs, all the films found, collected and digitalized but not screened as part of our cinema installations. Our intention was to make available as many films as possible, to enable visitors to curate their own programmes and recognize that our selection – Love, Longing and Labour – was part of an interpretive process and not final or in any way authorial.

From the seed of the idea of the Archive Lounge developed for exhibition, we are currently growing a huge and permanent archival extension of the project. Through watching visitors using the Archive Lounge, we realized the possibility for a new kind of exhibitionary space: a space partly opened by new technology, partly through our practice, and partly by a new suite of licenses.We are developing an on-line version of the Enthusiasts: archive it's featured as part of the i-commons summit 2006 in Rio Janeiro

Organised with the Centre for Contemporary Art, Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw, the Whitechapel in London, Kunst-Werke in Berlin, and the Tapies Foundation in Barcelona.

Versions of the exhibition were also shown at The Saidye Bronfman Centre for the Arts Montreal Canada February-April 2007; curated by Renee Baert, and as part of Breaking Step a major collaboration between the British Council and Belgrade's Museum of Contemporary Art, from March- June 2007

Read a review of the project from metamute

Or read Leira Vergara's text on Enthusiasm and the Archive for Zehar Magazine

You can also read Carles Guerra's introduction to the enthusiasm_archive_workshop at Arteleku from the 22nd to the 24th of February 2006

From Enthusiasm to the creative Commons is an edited email exchange between Whitechapel curator Anthony Spira, Neil Cummings & Marysia Lewandowska, its taken from Enthusiasm 2005 a publication which accompanies the exhibition. The text was republished in 2006 as part of Documents of Contemporary Art: The Archive edited by Charles Mereweather.

Chanceprojects

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Francis Bacon sold and in transit, Sotheby's New York 2006

Chance: films

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Annual Film competition at at the KFKM Film and Video club, Mechelen Belgium

films

Social Cinema St Pauls

Vol 2: Enthusiasm

Sub-Title

Date of Publication

Location

Publisher

Designer

Body

Description

ISBN/ASIN

ArtWords Link

Related Films

Related Projects

Related Publications

Love cinema screening

Labour Cinema

British Art Show 6

Sub-Title

End Date

Start Date

Location

Body

Related Films

Related Projects

Related Publications

Man 1

Enthusiasm

Sub-Title

End Date

Start Date

Location

Body

Related Films

Related Projects

Related Publications

Chanceprojects

Chance: films