Paradise Lost & Found?

All Main Images: Paradise Circus, Central Birmingham, March 2016

Well, it’s (relatively) early days yet, but it looks like I’ll be exhibiting again, later in the year.  The plan is to do a three-handed show in early September, with my Birmingham-based friends Shaun Morris and AndrewSmith, (both of whose work I’ve showcased regularly on here).  The Location will be Artist’s Workhouse in Studley, Warwickshire.  We went over to check out the gallery, and meet Artist/Curator Dawn Harris, (and lay a few speculative plans), the other day.

It feels good to have a new, specific target in view, and a reason to put a little more impetus behind my ongoing work.  Things have been progressing in a satisfactory, if relatively unhurried manner during the first quarter of the year. Now it’s time to change up another gear, in order to the make the most of this opportunity.

Actually, as I move psychologically from last year’s ‘Mental Mapping’ show, (with Andrew), to this next venture, it feels like the main task is to get into a kind of steady rhythm with all this exhibiting lark.  My aspiration is to reach a situation where phases of pure production, and of going public, grow organically out of each other as an ongoing process, (you know, - like a grown-up artist).  My instinct is that exhibiting should become a natural part of the whole deal, and one which involves a commensurate level of energy and emotional investment, without leaving one a feeling burnt-out in the aftermath.  I’m sure old hands would find this pretty obvious, but I still think of myself as being on a fairly steep section of the learning curve.

Clues Everywhere: "Where Commerce Meets Culture"

And Who Could Resist "The £500m Redevelopment Of Paradise"?

Anyway, this definitely feels like an exciting next step, and I’m sure I’ll be writing more posts about our show, as the weeks go by.  For now, I want to take a slight detour, and mention what happened in Birmingham after my discussions with Shaun and Andrew were complete.

Behind Those Windows Was The Yardbird Club; A Place Which Really Could Be Paradise On
Any Given Night

With a few hours to spare, and favourable lighting conditions, I headed into the City Centre, to see how the demolition of the old Birmingham Central Library complex, at Paradise Circus, was progressing.  I’ve talked about, (and, indeed photographed and filmed) this site, on numerous occasions, and its passing feels more than a little significant.  This goes way beyond my personal responses; and the passing of what was either a masterpiece of Brutalist Modernism, or a dismal, neglected eyesore, (or both), seems somehow symbolic of social, philosophical and political change in a much broader context.

Big - Art Project, Or Big Art - Project?

Anyway, whatever the pros and cons, the removal of John Madin’s landmark building is inescapable.  Indeed, a significant portion of the dramatic edifice is already reduced to a pile of concrete rubble.  Actually, my timing felt pretty good, - with the interplay of wrecked sections and those still standing creating plenty of visual drama.  However, as is always the case at such sites, the inevitable walled-off exclusion zone, and my lack of a decent long lens meant really good views and compositions were a bit limited.  The shots I took tell the story, but aren’t necessarily the best I’ll ever take.  My response to this was to get a bit visually ‘meta’, pausing to capture the abundant information graphics, and the abstract delights of the safety fencing, in addition to the main event.

An As-Yet Untouched Corner Of The Complex 

And Another.  I love The Way They Just Arbitrarily Boshed The (Once) New Into The Old

It’s hard not to be struck by the extent of all the PR branding surrounding what we are already being prompted to think of as ‘Paradise’.  It’ll always be Paradise Circus to me, not least because the cyclical reinterpretation of what Paradise might actually imply to different generations, does actually feel like a bit of a circus.  Utopia can never be more than a mental construct, after all.  As ever, it’s as much about the competing meanings, spectacles, and Psychogeographical resonances, as it is the practical or expedient realities.

For what it’s worth, my immediate reaction to the numerous artist’s impressions dotted around the site, is that what replaces the old concrete Ziggurat may be little more than just another generic glass box, filled with the usual offices and retail outlets.  This objection to an ever-encroaching corporate blandness is something many have raised in recent years, but it’s also important to recognise that what you are reading here are equally the observations of a middle-aged bloke, with a weakness for dystopian spectacle, watching the landscape of his early years gradually being erased.  Ultimately, the significance, or otherwise, to real people’s lives, of either the old building or what replaces it, is for the people of Birmingham to decide.

In the context of all this, the most moving moment came as I dropped down into the service yard of the adjacent Copthorn Hotel, in search of more camera angles.  I fell into conversation with one of the demolition workers, - clearly a local guy, who spoke in a very informed manner about the old building’s history.  It was clearly an important landmark in his own local mental map, and he expressed regret that the original architectural vision was compromised by budget constraints from the very start, - but also, his remorse at participating in its destruction.  He kindly handed me a fragment of concrete from the rubble as a souvenir, and we parted by recognising that, if nothing else, it was all keeping him in employment for the time being.  I often talk about my fascination with the perpetual processes of transformation at work in urban environments, but this took it all to a far more human level than normal.

Postscript:

Having orbiting the entire site, and gathered what images I could, I left Birmingham, via Spaghetti Junction, and drove on to Nottingham for a little more social activity.  That included watching Ben Wheatley’s newly released film adaptation of Ballard’s ‘HighRise’ [1.].  This isn’t the place for a full review, (I enjoyed it), but it’s worth reflecting that the concerns of ‘High Rise’ chime more than a little with some of the above.  My journey even included extended delays on the M6, caused by a distinctly Ballardian road accident.  Once again, things just seemed to join up.

[1.]:  Ben Wheatley (Dir.), ‘High Rise’, UK, Recorded Picture Co./British Film Institute/Film 4, 2016.

Jonathan Glazer: 'Under The Skin'

A little while ago, I mentioned the advertising work of Jonathan Glazer in connection with the exhibition, 'Since 1843: In The Making', at Nottingham Trent University, where several of his familiar TV and film ads ran on a show reel amidst the work of other Trent alumni.  Whilst being impressed once more by the high production values, resonant imagery and sly humour of Glazer’s work, I couldn’t help my sense of disillusionment at such high quality work coming into existence purely to shift sportswear, T.V.s and expensive beer.  Call me an old hippy if you like but, ultimately, such output, however well realised,  just seems to make the world a little more debased and disappointing.  I know, - it creates work, fuels the economy, brings pleasure, etc, but still, I just feel my life become ever more enmeshed in someone else's marketing plan…

Jonathan Glazer

Jonathan Glazer, Still From: 'Sony Bravia (Paint)',
TV Ad., 2006

Hence, it was with interest that I went to see ‘Under The Skin’, [1.] - Glazer’s alt-science fiction feature film, the other day.  I enjoyed it immensely and, rather than being disillusioned, left the cinema feeling like my life had been enriched, just a little, for having watched it.

Scarlett Johansson.  Still From: 'Under The Skin', 2014

‘Under The Skin’ has received numerous critical plaudits and not a little media attention, in large part because of the presence of big-league Hollywood star Scarlett Johansson in the lead role.  Perhaps it’s a sign of the times that the participation of Ms. Johansson in a distinctly non-mainstream, experimental film should be greeted with distinct surprise.  However compromised by the demands of the marketplace movie-making may be, should it be such a stretch to believe that an actress who is, (I assume), serious about her work, might relish the challenge of working in new and interesting ways with a director willing to take creative risks?  Cynics might observe that it doesn’t hurt to have the occasional left-field entry on her CV, but I’m not exactly unknown for my cynicism, and am trying to give everyone the benefit of the doubt here.

Scarlett Johansson.  Still From: 'Under The Skin', 2014

There’s always a risk of including too many spoilers in a film review, but I don’t think it’s any secret that Johansson plays the part of a mysterious alien who prowls the streets of Glasgow in an anonymous van, preying upon lone men with what can only be described as a kind of fascinating blank allure.  The exact nature of her victims’ demise, in the squalid darkness of an abandoned house, is both ambiguous and highly stylised.  Glazer’s calm use of digital manipulation in these minimalist passages reveals just a little more each time but is far more effective than anything that might have been achieved with chaotic camera work, rapid editing or Grand Guignol.  The men are certainly ‘had’, but in a way that could not be predicted.

Scarlett Johansson.  Beware, - White Van Woman.  Still From: 'Under The Skin', 2014

This willingness to play everything down is the key to both the film’s success overall, and the power of Johansson’s performance in particular.  She is, of course, hardly a stranger to a particular mode of enigmatic, internalised performance, (although I sometimes suspect I’m the only person who actually likes ‘Lost In Translation’, [2.] - the film in which she first came to my attention.)  It can’t hurt either that she is blessed with a certain brand of glacial beauty and the ability to do that only-just-kind-of-smiling thing that seems to allude either to something far away, or an only partial connection with those upon whom it falls.  It appears that many of Johansson’s chance encounters with strange men were actually filmed 'for real' with anonymous members of the public, indicating a willingness on her part to go out on a limb, an impressive ability to play straight, and in passing, mastery of a completely convincing, English assent.  That use of middle class English tones to imply an alien presence on Scottish streets is both effective, and rather sly, just now.

Scarlett Johansson.  Still From: 'Under The Skin', 2014

The world through which Johansson’s character passes as the most unusual visitor, is distinctly mundane.  Lacking any particular gloss about her adopted appearance either, she drives through a dimly lit environment of dull streets, nondescript suburbs, trading estates and ring roads.  Having employed numerous memorable examples of heightened Capitalist Spectacle in his day job, Glazer proves here that he is more than capable of capturing the intrinsically bizarre nature of the over-familiar.  In this aspect, the film reminds me not a little of ‘Morvern Caller’, [3.] - another film in which an impassive female protagonist attempts to construct some kind of identity within Scottish surroundings that are strangely resonant through their essential drabness.

Scarlett Johansson, - The Woman Who Fell To Earth.  Still From: 'Under The Skin', 2014

Nicholas Roeg (Dir.), 'The Man Who Fell To Earth', 1976

Another precursor that springs to mind is Nicholas Roeg’s ‘The Man Who Fell To Earth’ [4.].  Whatever one thinks of David Bowie’s performance in that film, there’s no doubt it captures a similar sense of an impassive stranger attempting to make sense of an alien environment.  In Roeg’s piece, Bowie’s initially high achieving, and essentially exploitative alien is gradually traduced by the human society through which he moves, and this is a feature of ‘Under The Skin’ too.  Glazer hangs his script [5.] around two pivotal episodes.  The first is a moment of almost unbearable human tragedy that ably demonstrates Johansson’s character’s terrifying detachment.  The second involves a sea change in her relationship with potential human prey, and the start of something that might be called empathy, or at very least a growing curiosity about the species around her, (literally).

Stills From: 'Under The Skin', 2014

Beyond this point, her failing attempts to pursue this impulse see her character acquire previously unseen levels of vulnerability amidst the fog and rain of a Highland landscape.  Her baffled flight from the tentative beginnings of a considerate relationship is followed by an encounter with much darker aspects of human behaviour.  The film’s abrupt denouement is both visually arresting and truly shocking in it’s all-too banal horror.  Ultimately, there is little equivocation about which species is being examined here.

Stills From: 'Under The Skin', 2014

I’ve seen a number of films over the last year or eighteen months, most of which left me pretty unimpressed, despite their hype.  Consequently, 'Under The Skin' came as a very welcome surprise, and the best thing I’d seen since Ben Wheatley’s splendid ‘A Field In England’, [6.] last year.  He demonstrates the visual flair we might have expected, but also an ability to communicate an intriguing and unusual script with real intelligence.  His willingness to leave certain aspects largely unexplained, such as the sinister (alien) motorcyclist, who both assists and shadows Johansson, or her own back-story, only add to the film’s power to effect.  I should also mention the film's impressive, largely abstract, title sequence, which establishes its basic premise in a delightfully oblique manner.  Perhaps most impressively, he imbues what might have been a simple exercise in weird escapism, with real insights into the human condition and a distinct feminist perspective on the nature of inter-gender relationships.

Still From: 'Under The Skin', 2014

If the money earned flogging Guinness allows Glazer to realise films like ‘Under The Skin’, perhaps it proves that, in the world we must all inhabit, things really aren’t just black and white.

[1.]:  Jonathan Glazer, 'Under The Skin', UK/US, BFI/Film4 Productions/StudioCanal/A24 Films, 2014

[2.]:  Sophia Coppola (Dir.), 'Lost In Translation', US, American Zeotrope/Tohokushinsha Film/Focus Films, 2003

[3.]:  Lynne Ramsey (Dir.), 'Morvern Caller', UK, Company Pictures/Alliance Atlantis/BBC Films, 2002

[4.]:  Nicholas Roeg (Dir.), 'The Man Who Fell To Earth', UK, British Lion Films, 1976

[5.]:  Glazer co-scripted 'Under The Skin' with Nick Weschler, basing it on Michael Faber's 2000 novel of the same name.  See: Michael Faber, 'Under The Skin', Edinburgh, Canongate Books, 2000

[6.]:  Ben Wheatley (Dir.), 'A Field In England', UK, Rook Films/Film4 Productions, 2013

Ben Wheatley: 'A Field In England'

Seeking both cinematic entertainment and some distraction from the toothache and neuralgia that currently plague me, I wandered along to Leicester’s Phoenix media centre yesterday to watch director Ben Wheatley’s latest film, ‘A Field In England’. [1.].  The film very much reflects the multi-platform media saturation of our current culture, having been released simultaneously on TV, DVD and digital download as well as in cinemas.  However, it also harks back to an era before ‘experimental’, self consciously arty, alternative film degenerated into a series of predictable slacker tropes, (that I sometimes think of as the Sundown effect).  Lacking a TV, and pushing up against my Broadband limit, I opted to view it in a big, dark room.

Director, Ben Wheatley

The film itself is a perplexing period tale, set in the English Civil War, in which four mismatched deserters escape a battle by literally passing through a hedgerow into the parallel reality of a large field beyond, where the remaining action unfolds.  Tricked by one of their number into the clutches of a psychopathic ‘alchemist,’ they are first drugged with  hallucinogenic mushrooms, then forced to dig for treasure, before acting out a graphically violent denouement.

Critical opinion seems divided over the film’s merits and I’ve no idea if it’s really a piece of brilliant filmmaking or a heap of self indulgent tosh but I’ve always been a sucker for this kind of thing and enjoyed it immensely.  Like most of my favourite films it resembled a dream or hallucination, (quite literally in the powerful trippy sequences), full of perplexing events and inexplicable behavior but also layered with multiple potential interpretations.  To criticise it in terms of believability or formal cinematic conventions seems as pointless as applying waking logic to a resonant dream.

(L to R): Richard Glover (Friend), Reece Shearsmith  (Whitehead), Michael
Smiley (O'Neill), Ryan Pope (Cutler), Peter Ferdinando (Jacob)

Reece Shearsmith Makes A Point As Whitehead

My only real objection on such pedantic grounds would be that the fungi ingested resemble field mushrooms rather than the ‘magic’ variety.  However, as they may also represent an immense ‘fairy ring’ into which the protagonists have blundered, it’s possible that the field represents a supernatural realm as much as a psychedelic arena.  As such, it may stand for an ancient, occult Britishness, far removed from the Christian factionalisation and worldly concerns of the skirmish they abandon.  Judged on these grounds, ‘A Field In England’ may certainly join other landmarks of ‘Dark Britannia’ (‘The Wicker Man’, ‘Children Of The Stones’, etc.) as a cult favourite.

Whitehead Is Driven Around The Field In Search Of Treasure...

...Then Takes A Completely Different Kind Of Trip

As usual these days, the film evokes numerous clear influences and I was reminded, amongst other things, of both Tarkovski’s ‘Stalker’ and the now, oft-derided films of Peter Greenaway, (particularly in the scenes where the actors are frozen in static, formally posed tableaux).  I was also reminded of a time, in the mid to late eighties, when I regularly visited Bristol’s Watershed Cinema to watch similarly self-indulgent, yet thought provoking, films.  For a time I happily went at least once a week, both in company and alone.

Michael Smiley As O'Neill Gets Back To The Land

As I waited in the dark for the film to start yesterday, I realised I was amongst only a handful of other viewers, several other of whom were also solitary male ‘enthusiasts’ of a certain age.  I appear to have unwittingly joined a group for whom I’ve devised the acronym ‘MALEs’, (‘Middle Aged Lone Eccentrics’), i.e. The kind of guys who when not watching art films, you also see obsessively photographing torn posters, derelict buildings and road junctions.

Richard Glover Digs In As Friend

Anyway, 'A Field In England' is one of the more memorable new films I've seen in a while, (during a period when many others have seriously disappointed).  It seems I can't see the dentist for another week so need to go now to find another painkiller...



[1.]:  'A Field In England, Dir: Ben Wheatley, Rook Films/Film4 Productions, 2013