Visual art exhibitions and events with a platform for critical writing
Various venues, London
3 November – 17 December
Reviewed by: Paul O Kane
‘Single Shot’ is a touring film and video project arising from an Arts Council England collaboration with UK Film Council’s New Cinema Fund. The project curates specially commissioned works all filmed in a single take. The show is distributed to selected venues where it becomes an event. I attended a crisply organised showing at the friendly and versatile Café Crema, New Cross, South London. It attracted a substantial audience – including local Goldsmiths students – who pre-paid to both attend the event and enjoy some quality food. Once polenta plates were cleared, a blind turned the window into a screen, lights went off and a projector blinked ‘Single Shot’ into life.
All the films explored the virtues of brevity as the project’s strict criteria brought out wit in some contributors and technical prowess in others. Shane Davey, Sean Dower and Matthew Grinter all unfolded choreographed events made to appear casual within a rehearsed pan or tracking shot. Two films literalised the project’s title by showing things destroyed by projectiles. Julie Hill’s Glass Gun shattered a glass pistol, while Ori Gersht dwelled upon an approximation of Spanish still life in which an assassinated pomegranate dripped bloody juice on surrounding veg.
Two works featured moving monologues spoken by mature women. In Paul Rooney’s Dust a chatty Merseyside voice recalled container ships. The words accompanied the most arbitrary of all the ‘single shots’ made around the decks of a freighter, until a change of music got the ship underway with the captivated Crema audience aboard. Dark Glass by Clio Barnard utilised the therapy session of a woman’s late middle-age crisis as voice-over for reconstructions of childhood events. Tender humanity justified some stylish images, which in turn encouraged the shaky search for memory to sink in.
Ultimately Café Crema’s version of the ‘Single Shot’ event was a success, providing a good way of going out quickly and cheaply, eating and meeting, while critiquing a variety of current film and video work.
Writer detail:
Paul O’Kane is a tutor, artist, writer and musician, currently completing PhD at Goldsmiths London.
Venue detail:
Film and Video Umbrella
8 Vine Yard, London SE1 1QL
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