BLOCassembly#3: Film and Video
Friday 30 June, 7 – 9.30pm

BLOCassembly is a series of one-off events that provides a platform for new and emerging artists to show new work, experimental ideas or work in progress within the gallery and courtyard at Bloc.

With previous events focussing on live art and sonic art, the third BLOCassembly will include film and video work by a range of emerging artists, including screenings, installation and live performance.

Featured artists:

Jodie Goddard
Sheena Macrae
Edwin Rostron
Linda Bevan
Reactor
Niki Russell & Dan Williamson
Elizabeth Adams
Christianne Thalmann
Susanne Palzer
Shaun Armstrong
Dominic Mason

Link to image archive (flickr.com)

Showing in the gallery, courtyard and stairwells

CHRISTIANE THALMANN
I Can’t Dance But I Try (Accumulation No.1) (DVD, 12 minutes)
‘For some time I have interviewed people I know talking about their lives and shot surrounding foot­age. This also touches upon issues around documentary that I am dealing with: the work moves in the intersections of the understanding that I have with those people and is in that sense, at that stage, col­laborative; yet finally, through the editing process, I am the (decision) maker. The captured bits can come together in different ways of which this edit would be one. This is similar to my ever changing fragmented photographic installations.’

DOMINIC MASON
Head Piece (2006), 16mm film loop installation
The action appears ritualistic and systematic, however the object is both grotesque and slightly absurd. The two together hint at some kind of deeper meaning.

EDWIN ROSTRON
Untitled - work in progress (DVD,10 minutes)
A video scrapbook of images and ramblings loosely based around the journal of a man on an expedition into a strange land. The piece is a sketch for a more developed piece.

ELIZABETH ADAMS
Homagery (DVD, 6 minutes)
Short, silent and mildly violent stop frame animation from recent graduate from BA Fine Art at the Uni­versity of Leeds. Small commentaries on art, art education and the importance of either, with slapstick overtones.

JODIE GODDARD
Tap and Oil (from The Death and Disaster Series, DVD)
“In my work there always seems to be an almost pathetic aim, a desire that needs to be sated but ulti­mately never will be. This is what I find compelling, striving for the impossible and to be satisfied. When control is lost, chaos accelerates into a violent eruption, desire becoming all consuming and destructive.” In the film Tap and Oil a pair of disembodied feet dance faster and faster until they climax in motor oil gushing from the body.

NIKI RUSSELL/DAN WILLIAMSON
Plinths Cut-up (DVD)
A performance / video installation that occurred over a 52 hour period at RED Gallery in Hull. The result­ing footage has been manually re-cut-up from the three VHS tapes, and subsequently digitally edited into a triptych of the activity that took place in each of the three spaces at RED.

REACTOR
GHAOS DVD
Reactor launch their newly released DVD containing video documentation of the best of the GHAOS events from 2003 to 2005. The DVD will be available all night for those unfamiliar with these events to find out what all the fuss is about, and for dedicated followers this is an opportunity to explore the many bonus features and audio commentaries. Members of Reactor will beon hand to discuss life, the universe and GHAOS. www.reactorweb.com

SHAUN ARMSTRONG
Things are Queer (DVD, 7 minutes)
Stop-frame animation by recent graduate from the BA Fine Art course at Sheffield Hallam University.

SHEENA MACRAE
Drink (DVD, 7 minutes)
A response to the litany of drinking scenes that gave the 80’s TV serial Dallas its background setting. In this re-cut version, the day begins with a drink and carries on - following a cast of different characters as they ply themselves with this common elixir, into the oblivion of the night.

SUSANNE PALZER
Restricted View/I (digital video transferred to VHS(PAL)Stereo, 19 minutes)
‘Restricted View/I’ is an investigation into the concept of ‘absence’ and what happens if the heroes, ’the event’, is eliminated and the attention is drawn to what is left over. As part of a deconstruction and recon­struction of material from the original ‘Starsky & Hutch’ TV police series (1970s) in this episode all scenes with Starsky and Hutch in them have been removed in a raw cut. ‘Restricted View/I’ belongs to a group of ‘restricted view’ pieces in different media (work in progress) in which Susanne Palzer allows only chosen fragments to be seen or heard. The artist believes that we are attracted to that which does not fully reveal itself and are drawn to ‘the unseen’. At the same time very often we can never be completely sure of what it actually is that we are looking at.

Live performance in the courtyard:

LINDA BEVAN
A recent graduate from the BA Fine Art course at Sheffield Hallam University, Linda Bevan is a perfor­mance based artist focusing on performative experiments as formal exercises to be explored sculpturally and as a marker for the passing of time. “My art practice has included me using high heels, bubble wrap, cardboard boxes, and sheets of cardboard as important perpetual props to make my art. It is imperative to my practice that I don’t allow a prop to remain a trace left over from an event, but come back and perform a task that allows me to activate it again.”