Re: Conference: The Real History of UK Artist Film & Video - Ha! Ha!

From: john porter (email suppressed)
Date: Thu May 10 2007 - 22:23:43 PDT


Thanks Nicky,
It all sounds very serious to me, but you're there and
I'm not.
I'm not too proud to ask: where's the clue that it's
all a joke? Is it obvious, or a UK in-joke, or a
Frameworks in-joke?
I guess I don't know enough about either the real or
the unreal history.
Is there a Bill Brown? Do you know him?
John.

--- Nicholas Hamlyn <email suppressed>
wrote:

> That's cos he's "joking".
>
> On 10 May 2007, at 17:55, john porter wrote:
>
> > Thanks Bill,
> > Any deatails online? I couldn't find Thin Air
> Films.
> > John.
> >
> > --- Bill Brown <email suppressed> wrote:
> >
> >> To coincide with the publication of David
> Curtis’s A
> >> History of Artist Film & Video in Britain, TAF
> (Thin
> >> Air Films) will be staging a one-day conference
> and
> >> associated screening. The conference will examine
> >> the
> >> trajectory of post war funding for artist
> >> experimental
> >> film & video in the UK and in particular will
> look
> >> at
> >> Arts Council funding under the direction of David
> >> Curtis and how through careful stage management
> >> funds
> >> were restricted to a small number of filmmakers
> and
> >> denied to many more. Key speakers will examine
> how
> >> following the setting up of the London Film
> makers
> >> Co-op and London Video Arts, the funding, making
> and
> >> distribution of avant-garde films and videos in
> the
> >> UK
> >> was effectively controlled for a generation by a
> >> small
> >> London based group of men. How this same group
> >> dominated experimental film & video in the UK for
> >> the
> >> next 40 years both by denying funding and access
> to
> >> anyone outside the group (through overt and
> covert
> >> censorship) but also through controlling non
> >> mainstream film education at institutions such as
> >> the
> >> Royal College. The conference will also examine
> how
> >> written debate and discourse on experimental film
> &
> >> video in publications such as Undercut was
> >> restricted
> >> to the same small group and finally how this
> group
> >> as
> >> it nears retirement now seeks to enshrine its
> >> position
> >> for posterity by the publication of numerous
> >> histories
> >> of experimental film & video.
> >>
> >> The screening entitled All The Films That Were
> Never
> >> Funded will not include seminal works by Peter
> >> Gidal,
> >> Malcolm LeGrice, Guy Sherwin. John Smith or any
> of
> >> the
> >> other filmmakers whose work has been funded and
> >> promoted by Curtis but will feature instead a
> blank
> >> screen lit by a single bulb in honour of all that
> >> films that were never funded and all the
> creativity
> >> that was suppressed.
> >>
> >> Conference to be held at the North Bank Centre on
> >> May
> >> the 16th 2007.

John Porter, Toronto, Canada
http://www.super8porter.ca/
email suppressed

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