 |
| Portrait of David Lamelas |
Time is a Fiction is a new touring programme featuring the early films of the Argentinian-born conceptual artist David Lamelas. You can read more about David Lamelas, including a recent interview, in the Feature by Nick Fitch on the work of David Lamelas.
TOURING VENUES AND DATES
6 December 2005, Side Cinema, Newcastle (UK) www.sidecinema.com
10 January 2006, Kunsthalle, Basel (Switzlerland) www.kunsthallebasel.ch
21 January 2006, Lumen, Leeds (UK) www.lumen.org.uk
30 January 2006, Ocularis, New York (USA)
www.ocularis.net
7/8 February 2006, Cinema Spoutnik, Geneva (Switzlerland) www.spoutnik.info
25/26 February 2006, Outpost, Norwich (UK) www.norwichoutpost.org
28 March 2006, Centre for Contemporary Arts, Glasgow www.cca-glasgow.com
5 April 2006, Musee d’Art Moderne et Contemporain Strasbourg (France) www.musees-strasbourg.org
23 April 2006, Centre de Culturia Contemporania Barcelona (Spain) www.cccb.org
20 June 2006, Redcat, Los Angeles (USA) www.calarts.edu/redcat
7 September 2006, Gene Siskel Film Center, 164 State Street, Chicago, IL 60601 (USA) www.siskelfilmcenter.org
5 October 2006, Malba.Cine, Buenos Aires, Argentina www.malba.org.ar
25 March 2007, Università di Udine, Gorizia, Italy www.uniud.it
6 March 2007, Kino 46, Bremen, Germany www.kino46.de
BIOGRAPHY
David Lamelas is best known as one of the pioneers of the Conceptual Art practice
that emerged in the 1960s and 1970s. Over the last thirty years, he has produced
an extraordinary body of films and videos which consistently challenge our
conventional understanding of how meaning is made and information is imparted.
In this programme of some of his early films, Lamelas experiments with both
the elliptical constructs of fiction which frame and contain meaning, and
the verité qualities of durational documentation and straight to camera
testimony.
Born in Argentina, Lamelas was originally a sculptor, but came to prominence when he represented his country at the Venice Biennale with a piece called Office of Information about the Vietnam war on Three Levels : The Visual Image, Text and Audio. It was here that he met Antwerp-based gallerists from Wide White Space and Marcel Broodthaers, and the contacts he made helped to precipitate his later move to Europe. After Venice he moved to London, where he studied on a sculpture scholarship at St Martins School of Art which was still in the grip of monolithic abstraction under the direction of Anthony Caro. But it was during his time in England, whilst using photographs and text as material, that Lamelas began working in film. Through a desire to “produce sculptural forms without any physical volume”, the core concerns of his work emerged: time, space and language.
During the subsequent years Lamelas has lived and made work across Europe and in America, each location exerting its specific influence on his work. And it is this personal experience of relocation and his efforts to understand and assimilate new cultures, that gives his conceptualist concerns a warmth and humour. For Lamelas, location and place are primary: ”space has a reality, it exists'”. Yet about time he asserts, “Time doesn't exist, our consciousness constructs it. Time is a fiction.”
PROGRAMME DETAILS
Time is a Fiction is a programme comprising five early 16mm films
by David Lamelas, curated Jacqueline Holt: Reading of an Extract from Labyrinths
by J.L. Borges, To Pour Milk Into a Glass, Time as Activity (Dusseldorf), A
Study of Relationships Between Inner and Outer Space, and The Desert People.
Reading Of An Extract From Labyrinths By J.L. Borges
UK, 1970, silent, B&W, 5 mins, 16mm
The film Reading of an Extract from Labyrinths by J. L. Borges shows
a young woman reading an essay by Argentinean writer Jorge Luis Borges titled Nueva
refutación del tiempo (New Refutation of Time) out loud. Her
lips can be seen moving but her voice cannot be heard. The phrases pronounced
are actually shown in subtitles, but the length of the presentation is too
short to permit them to be read and comprehended. This displacement and
the disorder it generates reveal different levels of information de-codification
in the work. The film makes the limits of our perception manifest, and
in this way echoes Borges’ rejection of both simultaneity and succession,
in other words, of the concatenation of deeds.
UK, 1972, sound, colour, 8 mins, 16mm
Many of David Lamelas's works are exercises designed to test how meaning is constructed in film. “I wanted to find symbols for 'container' and 'contents' - to represent how the camera frames - and what is shown on screen. ..I decided to use a glass and milk. The eight sequences end with... the glass being shattered and the milk splattering all over the table, which implies that there is no way to contain information”.
Time As Activity (Dusseldorf)
Germany, 1969, silent, B&W, 13 mins, 16mm
Time as Activity (Dusseldorf), made in 1969, is comprised
of three four-minute sequences, that register real time from a fixed
point, at three different places in the city (in the area surrounding
the Kunsthalle, a fountain and the city’s commercial center).
Part of the Time As Activity series.
A Study Of Relationships Between Inner And Outer Space
UK, 1969, sound, B&W, 20 mins, 16mm
David Lamelas’ first film, A Study of Relationships between Inner
and Outer Space analyzes the architectural, social, climatic, or sociological
data that make up the exhibition’s spatial environment, that of the institution
and its geographical location. Beginning with the empty exhibition hall, the
description is neutral and analytical. It progresses in ever larger circles,
placing emphasis on all the important functional elements, from the electronic
devices in the exhibition space, to the city’s traffic regulation to
the communication and information media and finally, to the climatic conditions
of the London environment. The film concludes with six interviews regarding
the big news item of the day: the future “landing” of the first
men on the moon.
 |
The Desert People still |
The Desert People
USA, 1974, sound, colour, 48 mins, 16mm
David Lamelas describes it as “a study on American film production”. The
Desert People begins like a classic road-movie. The setting is completely
familiar to us: a car crossing the desert with a group of people traveling
on board. But as soon as the narration begins, it is interrupted by documentary-style
interviews. Passing in this way from one film genre to another, Lamelas manages
to blur the boundary between fact and fiction.
The five passengers describe their experience on a North American native Indian reservation. Each member of the group has his or her own perspective on the Papago tribe. One offers an anthropological analysis while another discusses writing a feature article for a women’s magazine. They each present their version of the ‘truth’ about how the Papago live. Whilst they examine the tribe’s social behaviour, there is little self-reflection on their own group dynamic. Ironically, numerous cuts to their car journey reveal a complete lack of interaction between the travellers.
The final interviewee, Manny, a Papago Indian, comments on the way the American influence on Native Americans is leading to the loss of his own indigenous culture. His English drifts into Spanish and then Papago, as if the meaning of what he wishes to communicate would be lost in translation. For the English-speaking viewer this shift is confusing and demonstrates the difficulty of knowing another culture from the outside. The film ends unexpectedly with a jump cut back to the feature film scenario.
TOURING EXHIBITION – INFORMATION FOR
VENUES
Time is a Fiction is a touring programme of early films by
David Lamelas, launching in summer 2005. It consists of a single programme
of 16mm films which runs to approximately 90 minutes. It costs £100
for UK venues and £150 for international venues (excluding VAT
and shipping) – the price includes both the films and programme
notes / posters for audiences.
David Lamelas’ recently completed feature, The Light at the Edge of a Nightmare (90 mins), is also available and if hired along with the Time is a Fiction programme costs an additional £40 (normal rental is £80).
Preview materials are available on request.
A DVD of David Lamelas’ early films will be released by Bureau des Videos in summer 2005: www.bureaudesvideos.com
David Lamelas is featured in Issue 11 of the journal Afterall. out now: www.afterall.org
