David Jones, artist and poet (1895-1974) begins his PREFACE TO THE ANATHEMATA :

'I have made a heap of all that I could find.' (1) So wrote Nennius, or whoever composed the introductory matter to Historia Brittonum. He speaks of an 'inward wound' which was caused by the fear that certain things dear to him 'should be like smoke dissipated'. Further, he says, 'not trusting my own learning, which is none at all, but partly from writings and monuments of the ancient inhabitants of Britain, partly from the annals of the Romans and the chronicles of the sacred fathers, Isidore, Hieronymous, Prosper, Eusebius and from the histories of the Scots and Saxons although our enemies . . . I have lispingly put together this . . . about past transactions, that [this material] might not be trodden under foot'. (2)

(1) The actual words are coacervavi omne quod inveni, and occur in Prologue 2 to the Historia.
(2) Quoted from the translation of Prologue 1. See The Works of Gildas and Nennius, J.A.Giles, London 1841.


10 April 2019

55 PHASES OF LOOKING


Long Play is a boutique Cinema & Bar
in Melbourne that has a bar up the front,
and a small dedicated cinema at the back

INFO FOR ALL SCREENINGS

As seats are limited, please book by emailing 
Bill Mousoulis at bill@innersense.com.au
The venue is at 318 St. Georges Rd, Nth. Fitzroy. 
Do not go to St. Georges Rd, Northcote.
All sessions start at 7:30 pm. If booked out, 
there may
be (no guarantee) another session at 9:30 pm.
There is a small entry charge of $5 per person. 
Cash only, and try to have the right amount on you.

Unknown Pleasures: Australian independent cinema is a series of semi-regular screenings curated and presented by Chris Luscri & Bill Mousoulis, featuring the best of Australian indie cinema, both new and old, narrative and non-narrative, with discussions with most of the filmmakers, presented at Long Play Cinema. 

read more

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Thursday, April 11, 2019, 7:30 p.m.
$5 entry. To book a seat, email bill@innersense.com.au

55 PHASES OF LOOKING
(2018, 53 mins, James Clayden)

Intro & Q&A with James Clayden

Recently, James Clayden has been experimenting with web-based video forms, consciously refining his practice through a unique methodology that makes extensive use of prior film and video works. The culmination of this is 55 PHASES OF LOOKING– comprised of re-filmed and digitally altered fragments (some originally shot on Super 8) from almost a half-century of film-making, “chopped and screwed” to profoundly personal effect, tremulous with anxiety and deep melancholy. 

(Chris Luscri)

Apart from 
55 PHASES OF LOOKING, the short film GLASLOUGH 64 (2018, 3 mins) will also screen.

The project began about eight years ago with the working title LOOKING FOR CÉZANNE (Perception & Illusion). After shooting material in France, I thought I knew what I was doing but I struggled to find my way to put it together.

Then by chance, I read a book – THE ENTANGLED EYE by James Krasner – which inspired me to abandon my original idea, out of which came 55 PHASES OF LOOKING. My approach was to treat the everyday things that took my fancy in the same manner that I treated my dreams and memories in my previous works, more or less like an improvisational visual essay, with Darwin’s “entangled bank” in the back of my mind, as if making improvised music, where the way it feels is everything.

The idea of making the piece for a small screen appealed to me a lot, as it does to have no protagonist or victim nor obvious narrative, as in painting the mystery is an essential thing.

-- James Clayden

This presentation of 55 PHASES OF LOOKING is something of an experiment – borne of curiosity but innately animated by something more mysterious. A way of testing the limits, both audience and artist? Of parsing over, imbibing, 'turning' the object, glint by glint against the light? Of plumbing hidden depths, of image blown all out of proportion? All of these things, for sure – but this list is not exhaustive. No other Australian artist works with texture quite like James, so definitive and violent are his interventions. To suggest a canonical presentation gestures toward an inert deadness, a sense of composure and containment that I suspect James would instinctively react against: tools in hand dissolved, awash in the interstitial sensations that arise from the practice of looking, perceiving and reacting. For all the dizzying and rhizomatic formal complexities at play, the motivation is as simple as this – an Impressionism borne of deep personal truths (as in the inaugurably canonical GHOST PAINTINGS series) and passionate devotion to his vocation, complete with its own iconography of wonders, terrors and trancendents. James Clayden is an extraordinary human being.

-- Chris Luscri (curator)



Theatre of the Actors of Regard 
 detail
 A Person Looks At A Work Of Art/
 someone looks at something... 
         
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