Spin Events
Black Box
Edinburgh College of Art, Edinburgh
31 July 2003
We are delighted that this month’s Spin date coincides with the opening of the Festival show at Edinburgh College of Art, BLACK BOX. All members have been invited to join the opening party from 6-8pm in the College. This is a great opportunity to see the work before the exhibition opens to the public, and although there will be no formal discussion, Kirstie Skinner and Emma Nicolson look forward to chatting to members informally over drinks.
BLACK BOX is a collaboration organised by Edinburgh College of Art (eca) and the Edinburgh International Film Festival (EIFF), consisting of four acclaimed film installations by internationally-acclaimed artists: Turner prize nominees Jane and Louise Wilson (1999); Isaac Julien (2001); Italian artist Francesco Vezzoli and US-based artist Malerie Marder.
Jane and Louise Wilson present Gamma: a multi-screen installation that was shot at Greenham Common, the American military base in Berkshire which stored cruise missiles during the cold war. The abandoned nuclear installations and institutional architecture appear sinister and surreal in equal measure.
First exhibited in Germany at Documenta 11, Paradise Omeros by Isaac Julien is a semi-autobiographical narrative set on two island settings, St. Lucia and Britain in the 1960s. Julien conveys the story of a young boy’s expulsion from his native Caribbean paradise. Exploring post colonialism and globalisation, the work includes extracts from the poem Omeros by Nobel Prize Laureate, Derek Walcott.
Italian artist Francesco Vezzoli’s The End of the Human Voice portrays a broken love affair starring political activist Bianca Jagger as the forsaken heroine, and Vezzoli himself appears as the ex-lover who listens to her as she is pushed to despair. The film is based on Jean Cocteau’s monologue for theatre The Human Voice and brought to the screen by Roberto Rossellini.
At Rest by Malerie Marder is an exploration of how humans behave in the fleeting state of sleep. The footage, shot over two years in various locations including LA, London, New York and Paris, portrays desire without sexual intention. Beautifully shot, the work is accompanied by sound produced by Jonathon Bepler, who also composed the sound for Matthew Barney’s Cremaster films.