studio 75 Blog

The last screening went with a treat – the most wonderful people came and Dan brought his Vodka mobile and after the screening we tasted his Vodka.

Thank you all for making Flat Screens special, thank you Gareth Evans for all your ideas and contributions and gifts to the audience; Alberto Duman, Lasse Johansson and especially Therese Henningsen for the most delicious food; Cathy Ward, David Roberts, Erica Scourti, Lasse and Sogand Bahram for taking pictures so we have a document of the evenings; Deepa Naik and Trenton Oldfield for suggesting food and making the first Flat Screens “High-Rise’ screening happen; Alisa Lebow, Dan Edelstyn, Gareth, John Smith, Sally Potter for coming and talking and stimulating debate; Dan Gretton for introducing us to ‘Talking Heads’, Steve Kuepper for his writing; Nazir Tanbouli for helping me set up the space, which is really his studio during the week, and all of you who helped clean it up after…. a space is only ever that which is made by the people attending and contributing to it, alas….

Gillian McIver and Naz are continuing to programme Studio 75, so keep checking back…

I will miss Flat Screens, but we are now preparing for the last of the buildings on the estate to be demolished, and we’re completely absorbed now in filming on the estate. For updates on the progress of the film you can see a blog/sample gallery etc on www.estatefilm.co.uk

The full documentation of the evening is here x

Andrea Luka Zimmerman

Lorena Balbinot makes collages and paintings that express her perception of global events that she receives through the mass media, processed and reified into “news product” and then re-authored into art.

Lorena exhibited her collages at Studio75 and has published a limited-edition book of the collages, ”Reality Show(N)” (2012)

Lorena’s recent series of painting continues her themes of the individual, yet shared, response to global issues. Her work insists on the personal perspective of these world events, images burned into the eye and ear by electronic media then reworked and considered, meditated upon through paint on canvas, making us see the subject matter paradoxically more “real” than the media image.

Lorena Balbinot, 2012 

The images of violence and despair expressed in the paintings are more disturbing as paintings than as photojournalism. Photojournalism, for al its wonderful qualities, only shows us what we didn’t experience. The clinical objectivity of the camera implies a distance between observer and observed. But there is no “them” in these paintings, there is only “us”. In this work Lorena puts “us” into the situation. We sweat, feel afraid, feel sorrow, anger. Feel.

Lorena Balbinot, 2012 

 - Gillian McIver, Studio75 London

Adrian Shephard presenting his work at Studio 75

 March 23 & 24 2012

We were very fortunate to be able to persuade Berlin-based artist Adrian Shephard to come to Studio75 to present his moving image work. Adrian makes Super-8 and video based films and performances, and has an extraordinary body of work in the moving-image which he presented at Studio75 as a kind of retrospective. “Getting to Know You” was a show of surprises, unexpected twists and turns, witty sometimes mordant humour and often sharp and poignant beauty.

Starting with some wonderful Super 8 loops made from old family films, the programme ranged from fascinating and unusual documentary films interviewing Sir Ralph Harvey, Britains leading Pagan Exorcist, and seminal Butoh performance artist Ko Murobushi - through to poetic films such as At Night I Sleep, a time lapse observation of the self during sleep. Adrian’s experimental approach to film making/video art, his use of lo-fi cameras, his interest in the extra-sensory and the spiritual, and his highly creative and haunting soundtracks, all make up a thoroughly original body of work that simply must be more widely seen and appreciated.

Adrian also presented some documentation of his recent Butoh performances in Berlin and Italy, heavily-charged and frankly astonishing performances that demonstrated both his philosophical approach to art and his deep exploration of the body in time and space.

The 16mm projector has been shut down, its whirring has ceased. The lights have gone up and the chairs stacked away. The Studio is an empty room again, a blank canvas. But for two hours on Saturday night it was a den of thrills and horrors, a superlative experience in true film making in the tradition of  Bunuel, Deren, Jodorowsky, Madden and all of those who make film from the heart and the instincts. Where the Ego is banished to the abyss and the Id and Superego fight it out on screen until we al fall down with exhaustion and sated pleasure. Studio 75 would like to thank Duncan Reekie for presenting the film in all its 16mm glory. The film was shot on Super 8, and the screening print is 16mm, although a DVD is also now out in Germany. (We will be posting news of its UK availability.)

Maldoror is the film that we screened, and you can read all about it here:

http://bak.spc.org/maldoror/intro.html

MALDOROR
The Last Film Ever Made

“Les Chants de Maldoror is an essay and meditation about evil, rendered with sparkling wit and striking, strongly visual imagery.”
Gillian McIver
“…has a demented integrity”
The Village Voice, New York
“one of the strangest films to come out of Britain in years.”
The Guardian
“The implications of this kind of filmmaking are huge.”
Discorder Magazine
“…this is true underground cinema.”
Fortean Times
“…a wild and bewildering affront to common civilised cinema.”
Time Out

It was an amazing experience, a relentless and intense baptism and re-baptism in a font alternatively icy and fiery; a comedy filled with horror and recoil; a drama both touching and disturbing; a dream and a fantasy. One of the audience pointed out that Maldoror, the narrator/subject is “very male and very angry” - Duncan agreed and said “He is fighting with a male God” the film is about man vs God or to be more precise, Man against his own instincts. A fascinating story, it was written in 1869 by a young poet, Isidore Ducasse who took the pseudonym Comte de Lautreaumont. Born in Uruguay, be went to France as a teenager (the long ocean voyage described as a hallucinatory dream in Maldoror). Influenced obviously by Baudelaire and others, he embarked on Maldoror, a mediation on evil. His intention was to create a companion, a meditation on good, but he died before he was able to complete it. He died during the dreadful days of the Franco-Prussian War, when Paris was under siege and food and medicine was unobtainable. Yet the book lives on; it’s never been out of print; and the film Maldoror is a fitting tribute to his genius. Even in translation, the language is hypnotic and the imagery shocking. The film’s interpretation of this much-loved and very influential book does it justice.

The screening was accompanied by Nazir Tanbouli’s  new paintings “From the Jungle of the Soul” - an appropriate accompaniment as these paintings are nightmare visions that could have some from the reveries of Maldoror himself. (example below)

REVIEWS AND PRESS: http://bak.spc.org/maldoror/press.html 

FLAT SCREENS EIGHT - ‘ YES’ - SALLY POTTER - 2004 - UK - 100minutes
7th December 2011, Studio 75, Hebden Court, Laburnam Street, London E2 8BG

Thank you all for coming to the screening, and making the evening. Thank you Alberto for not only making pasta for us all, but bringing two huge pots of it on the bus. Thank you Therese for rescuing the mulled wine (which i have still gotta learn to do), and everyone for bringing such delicious deserts. Thank you Gareth for the cine-manga for everyone (i have spotted it on Amazon US for 30USD!!!!), for suggesting the film, and for bringing Sally Potter to our estate. Andrea

Samuel House resident and film critic Steve Kuepper writes about the event here

ALONGSIDE THE EXHIBITION “EYE CANDY” WE BROUGHT DJ MIXSPLATTER TO STUDIO75 TO SPIN SOME VINYL FOR A PARTY. IT WAS FREEZING OUTSIDE BUT HOT INSIDE: HOT COLOURS, HOT PUNCH  AND COOL TUNES ADDED UP TO A GREAT WEEKEND.

NAZIR’S “COLOURED LABEL” - DRAWINGS ON 12″ VINYL RECORDS - WENT FOR A SPIN

Nazir’s new show opened 25.11.2011 and he’ll be keeping an open studio right through till Xmas. A lot of stuff for sale in our pop-up shop: books, artworks etc.

above, detail from ”Civilians”  acrylic on paper