Fringe! Club des Femmes & LUX present:
This is Now: Film and Video After Punk – Through A Glass, Darkly + guests
Sunday, 29th November 2015 1pm
Guests confirmed: Jill Westwood, Cordelia Swann
Prices: Full £8, Student £6.50, Disabled £6.50, Unwaged £6.50
In the early 1980s, clubbers, art students, new romantics and members of the post-punk scene used inexpensive, domestic technology to find new modes of expression and subvert the mainstream media. Independent VHS tapes were released, stridently bypassing censorship, and Super 8 film was embraced as a cheap yet distinctly lyrical and direct new medium. The DIY approach of punk was powerfully reborn. This underground work explored the blurred lines between media and identity, creating new dialogues between the self and the world. It was an uncertain, politically contentious time, a time in which technology appeared to ease life and make things more exciting, yet also create gaps between people (much like the internet does today). Artists considered what images and technology could mean and be in their fullest sense. This period also saw new perspectives and voices emerge. More female, gay and black filmmakers pushed themselves forward, and often they were friends – squatting in flats together and enjoying the club scene, whilst developing new styles and techniques.
This specially curated programme focuses on work by post-punk’s most provocative female filmmakers who treated the moving image like a mirror or crystal ball; a surface of divination through which to explore ideas around female subjectivity and that of the gendered viewer, evoking metaphysical journeys and challenging the limits of the body.
Our programme includes particularly strong, challenging work that was originally connected to the industrial scene.
The Wound
Dir. Jill Westwood, 1984, UK, 18mins
Skinheads and Roses
Dir. Jill Westwood, 1983, UK, 7mins
The Branks
Dir. Akiko Hada, 1982, UK, 7mins
All Veneer and No Backbone
Dir. Holly Warburton, 1980-84, UK, 5mins
Winter Journey in the Hartz Mountains
Dir. Cordelia Swann, 1983, UK, 12 mins
Grayson/Flowers/Jewels
Dir. Jennifer Binnie, 1985, UK, 3mins
Shadow of a Journey
Dir. Tina Keane, 1979, UK, 19mins
Passion Triptych
Dir. Cordelia Swann, 1982, 4mins
TRT: 75mins
http://thisisnow.org.uk/feedback/
Image: Still from Jill Westwood The Wound 1984. Courtesy of the artist.
Part of the touring programme ‘This is Now: Film and Video After Punk’, presented in partnership with LUX and the BFI National Archive. All images courtesy the artists and LUX.
