Filmmaker, artist and writer Harun Farocki has made a staggering 90 films during his 40 year career. He is best known for his experimental documentaries which explore and challenge the way we interpret visual language through subject matter as diverse as the making of bricks, the financial system, shopping malls and the Gulf War. An exhibition of his work will be on display at the CCA, Glasgow, 16 February – 3 March 2011. Here he talks to Central Station about his work and the new filmic literacy that he believes defines our era.

Tell me about your exhibition, Comparison via a Third, which will be taking place at the CCA, Glasgow this month.

Comparison via a Third is a title of a work I made some years ago. It shows how bricks are made and used in totally different societies, in rural Africa, in cities of India and in European high tech factories and constructions sites. A dual projection in which I try to compare without judging. We decided to name the exhibition so because all the works try to find approaches in which one has to compare images. A montage based on equality.

You have worked across several media: cinema, television and installations in galleries. Is there one that you feel most comfortable working in? If so, why?

Cinema is my ideal. But not the existing – quite marginalized – distribution system we find today. A quotidian and extraordinary cinema at the same time. When working for television I always tried to make works which referred to a cinema to come. Also in galleries or more generally: in art spaces I try to keep the options open. We are in a diaspora hoping for a return to Jerusalem. But I can’t imagine how this city will look.

You also are a writer, how do you see your writing relating to your work in moving image?

Film structure can profit from the textual legacy: from novels and essays. Also vice versa. The transfer is not an easy one though. One has to respects the moving image genre’s autonomy. Television was mainly a kind of illustrated radio and also the web is language based.

Today we see people in Egypt, filming the protests on their mobile phones, is everyone a filmmaker now? And what do you see as the implications of this new relationship with producing moving images?

It is the strength of the word based culture that every reader can write. In this sense already the vhs recorder was strongly influential. It was the first step to film literacy and the ubiquitous cameras are the next step. Although the cinema and television system is in a bad state, wonderful and innovative films are made worldwide. This is due to the new literacy. An audience has emerged which can “read” films far better than ever.

Which filmmakers working today do you find most exciting?

Over the last decades Godard was always the guiding figure. Due to the developments described above I could make a long list today. Claire Denis is a strong voice and Gus Van Sant too. I could also name the Iranian cinema. I try to give up the concept of the auteur and look at film from a more structural point of view.

Harun Farocki: Comparison via a Third is on at the CCA, Glasgow, 16 Feb – 3 March 2011.

Find out more about Harun Farocki at http://www.farocki-film.de/

Image: Mike Nelson Studio Apparatus, 1998. Courtesy and copyright the artist.

Acclaimed British artist Simon Starling talks to Central Station about Never The Same River (Possible Futures, Probable Pasts) at Camden Arts Centre. The show, curated by Starling, draws on the venue’s history and past exhibitions and includes work by over 30 celebrated artists and designers. It runs until 20 Feb 2011.

Never The Same River (Possible Futures, Probable Pasts) is centred on the history and space of the Camden Arts Centre. What is your own connection to the place and how did this influence your approach to the show?

I have a long history as both a member of the viewing public and an exhibitor at Camden Arts Centre. I started going to see exhibitions there in the late 80s and was invited initially in 1999 as an artist in residence and then in 2000 to exhibit. I installed a work entitled ‘Burn-Time’, which in part involved building a brick stove in one of the galleries to cook some eggs produced in a custom-built henhouse. The stove was built using bricks from one of the Centre’s walls and during the exhibition some architects arrived to start planning the refurbishment of the building – they drew my brick stove into the plans of the building as if it had always been there. This was doubly poignant as the architect of the original library that now houses was my great, great uncle, Arnold S. Tayler.

How did you go about delving into the history of the Camden Arts Centre and its previous exhibitions? What did you use as a starting point for the show?

Many of the works in the exhibition are things I’ve seen “in the flesh” over the years – things that left an impression or influenced my own practice in various ways. Added to this, I spent time rooting around in the archives, digging up works that push and pull at our understanding of time. Selecting the exhibition involved taping into the collective memory of the institution, too – talking with people who’ve been involved in one way or another over the years. I decided at a certain point that the works should be installed in exactly the same position that they had been positioned in the building the first time around – collapsing fragments of the exhibition history into a single moment.

Image: Katja Strunz, Untitled, 2009. Courtesy and copyright the artist.

Is there any one piece in the show that you feel you have a particular affinity towards or were particularly impressed by? If so what and why?

There are a number of works that were there at the beginning when developing the concept for the exhibition – things that I built the exhibition around. The film “The Relationship of Inner and Outer Space” by Argentine artist David Lamelas was made in 1969 at the moment of the first moon landings, and is one of these key works. This beautiful film starts by interrogating the infrastructure of the Centre but ends with science fiction-like musings on a future in space. Mike Nelson phantom ‘Studio Apparatus for Camden Arts Centre’ was also an important element and is perhaps the shows most disorientating déjà-vu moment. This hugely complex structure, initially built over 10 years ago, has taken Mike six weeks to rebuild, and is part of his ongoing interest in reiterating or redeploying previous works. The Studio Apparatus were a set of speculations or projections of future works and have now quite literally become that in their own right.

Your previous work has often been fascinated with the idea of circularity and transformation. Do you see this theme present in Never the Same River?

I’ve been very interested in trying to defy the temporal norms of contemporary life – turning back time, slowing things down – and that kind of interest has very much fed into the making of this exhibition.

Image: Oliver Godow, The art works that got cut away, Camden Arts Centre London, 2002 (part of the artist commission 2002-04). Silver gelatin print. Courtesy and copyright the artist.

How did the process of curating the show shed light on your own practice?

The curating of the exhibition, the hard graft was in large part taken care of by the team at Camden. I had the luxury of selecting the exhibition and my approach to this was something that’s very close to my own work – I’m often working with pre-existing artworks or design objects – finding ways to reinvent them as tools to think about the present and future.

Find out more about Never the Same River here.

New low-budget British film brilliantlove has been labelled one of the most sexually explicit films to come out of the UK in years. Central Station talks to its director Ashley Horner about the difficulties of casting such a project, his reasons for showing such graphic sex on screen and how he was influenced by queer cinema.

How would you describe brilliantlove?

As a love story that isn’t afraid to show all facets of an intense romance.

What has the reaction been to the sexual content of the film?

Outraged in the US, a little prudish in the UK, but generally it’s been considered a realistic and beautiful depiction of a young couple in love, making love.

What did you want to explore through the depiction of sex in the film?

At one stage the film was called EROTOLOGY and Sean Conway, the screenwriter and I were very interested in making a film that explored sexual love and lovemaking, within the context of what makes something erotic and the difference between the erotic and the pornographic. But actually in the film we wanted the actual ‘sex scenes’ to be about moving the narrative on and deepening the characterisation and relationship between Manchester and Noon. At the same time as providing motivation for the story, with Manchester documenting the affair with his photography.

British cinema has an uneasy relationship with sex onscreen was it your intention to challenge and explore that?

Absolutely, over the last ten years I’ve seen a lot of European and Asian cinema, and that European realist tradition never shies from all facets of a relationship or event. I was guilty of it in my first film, being coy about the act of sex in a scene. I felt it was time to make a film with a strong narrative, which also explored a sexual, loving relationship.

How did you go about casting? Was it difficult given the nature of the roles?

Almost impossible. The script was very explicit, in fact more explicit than the finished film. It scared agents and casting directors immensely. And consequently it made the casting process a lot simpler, as about 90% of the actors in the UK were immediately ruled out. I cast the film myself, via spotlight and casting call pro, I hid nothing and those that were interested were shown the full screenplay before they were invited to a casting. One agent called me up and said: “Now you can be straight with me, is it a porn film?”. It made me laugh out loud.

You use audio clips of the female character Noon telling explicit stories – how did you come up with this device and what did you want it to achieve?

When we were first writing the screenplay, my plan was to make a film that didn’t have a lot of dialogue in it, but at the same time we wanted to give both characters depth without having them talk all the time. The dictaphone diary became a way of adding another layer to Noon’s character at the same time as playing with the narrative, as the dictaphone voiceover jumps around in time. The idea came about during a session on the script in Berlin, where we were discussing things that you write about when you are really crazy over someone. Letters don’t work in movies and the dictaphone voiceover became a powerful device that frames the film.

What is your favourite scene in the film?

When I was shooting it was the scene where Manchester marks his territory by pissing on a fence, once he has spoken to Franny on the payphone. When I watch the finished film I really enjoy the scene where Noon goes to visit her Dad and he tells the story of his new penknife.

Were there any films that you were influenced by in the making of the film?

I looked at quite a lot of queer cinema, which is much braver than straight cinema when it comes telling love stories. I found a VHS at a car boot, about 3 months before we shot, it was a Japanese film called A Woman called Abe Sada made in the mid 70s by Noboru Tanaka, and while it wasn’t an influence, it was a fascinating take on what makes an erotic film, especially one shot in a confined space.

brilliantlove is currently showing at selected cinemas across the UK. Find out more at www.brilliantlove.co.uk

Image: Jez Burrows

This Friday, experimental music festival INSTAL 10 begins at Tramway in Glasgow. The 3 day event described as ‘an experimental festival of experimental music’ is organised by Arika who are also the name behind Kill Your Timid Notion and Shadowed Spaces.

We talk to Barry Esson, director of Arika about what we can expect from this year’s event.

How did INSTAL come about?

It started off in 2001 with my friend Tiernan Kelly when we both worked at the Arches. I think we thought at the time that there was definitely a need for some kind of platform for more experimental forms of music in Scotland and in Glasgow. Since then it’s grown and we have more and more of a leading role internationally in the radical fringes of experimental music, not just with performance, but with the ideas behind it, with ways of engaging with it, ways for it to be more than just about sound, and ways for people and ideas and communities from outside of music to gain a purchase on it, and to change it. INSTAL started as a festival of experimental music. Now we hope it is an experimental festival of experimental music (and other things besides)

You have described the festival as ‘radical’ – how will this manifest itself?

Some definitions:

Radical: Arising from or going to a root or source; basic: proposed a radical solution to the problem.

We want to make an argument that there are important ideas at the route of music, and experimental music, which give us a unique purchase on the world. Not just ways of making music, but of thinking and doing, and which can be applied to everyday life. Which is to say – what mostly happens to new ideas is a kind of conservatism that incorporates them by divesting them of their political content so that they palatably reinforce the status quo. We want to insist on the possibility of experimental music to contribute to something other, more useful to us all, than the status quo.

Radical: Departing markedly from the usual or customary; extreme: radical opinions on education.

INSTAL is an experimental festival of experimental music. The way we structure it is increasingly informed by our engagement with unusual and uncustomary modes of collective engagement, thinking and doing. It is a set of un-average musical ideas, but importantly it is also structured so as to try and celebrate un-average modes of being together.

Radical: Favouring or effecting fundamental or revolutionary changes in current practices, conditions, or institutions: radical political views.

Music is stuck. Experimental music is too. But at it’s core there are ways it can be rethought. We want to make a modest contribution to this process, and to get at the ways and means by which (experimental) music can raise itself above the dull trajectory of entertainment that is forced upon it.

Image: Jez Burrows

As well as performances there are several discussions taking place – what sort of debates can we expect?

Well, we just want to intelligently think about radical music and how it engages with the world: what it can propose, what it is limited by, what its consequences are if it is to be more than just entertainment… We want to show how all music is a function of things bigger than music alone. And we’re not naïve about this: a lot of music can claim to be a-political but actually simply reproduces the ways in which our lives are dominated. So we’ll be chatting about the ways in which we think the music at INSTAL is influenced by and influences wider concerns with alternative ways to engage with the world.

INSTAL is located at the Tramway – how does this space influence the festival and the events?

A festival should be more than a series of gigs. So we have to think about how to allow for all kinds of divergent and dynamic social interactions to take place, between musicians, artists, audience members, us… Tramway is a large and complex building, so we’ve tried to use all the different spaces, with their different characteristics and capacities and feels to create a festival that has varied kinds of experiences: big gigs that we can all watch together, smaller intimate things that only a few people can see at a time, intense short performances which would be too much if they were more than 15 minutes, long and drawn out contemplative experiences…

Anything you’re particularly looking forward to this year?

I’m looking forward to continuing to not know what will happen, and to finding that out. Obviously we think all of it has a good chance of being amazing, but definitely the riskiest thing we’re doing is the Evacuation of the Great Learning project, which has already started with Glasgow Open School and who will be making up a large part of an autonomous group at the festival, also including the radical noise artist Mattin and philosopher Ray Brassier, who will investigate all kinds of ideas about music and art collectively, and then take over the last 4 hours of the festival on Sunday, to present their findings as a kind of re-imagined idea of what ‘performances’ could be. It’s a major thing for us, but we have no idea what to expect…

For the full programme and more information about Arika visit www.arika.org.uk

From 4-7 November Glasgow will become a global focus point for those working in the performing arts as it hosts the IETM plenary meeting. IETM is a European network representing over 1000 arts practitioners from 45 different countries. The IETM plenary meeting is held biannually at locations across Europe and attracts over 600 delegates. They will be attending a packed programme of events – open to the public too – with a varied and distinguished number of guests, speakers and performers.

Central Station caught up with Steve Slater, producer of IETM Glasgow, to find out more about this exciting event.

What has been your experience of past IETM meetings?

I became a member of IETM while programming Tramway in the mid 1990s. At the time Tramway was still very much involved in maintaining Glasgow’s international profile and maintaining the legacy following the success of Glasgow’s 1990 European City of Culture celebrations. I found that being a member brought me into direct contact with many of the major ‘players’ and arts institutions in Europe. It is a fantastic way of maintaining a consistent dialogue with the wider performing arts sector, allowing for a unique perspective on performance and it’s impact on the arts closer to home.

Because the IETM plenary meetings happen twice a year, in different locations, the constant unifying elements are the people who attend, the relationships that develop over time and the opportunities which are born out of this regular framework of meetings.

What aspect of IETM Glasgow are you looking forward to the most?

I think the thing I’m looking forward to most is the prospect of showing Glasgow off in all its creative glory! The combination of 500 or so international participants, mixed with our own contingent of artists and cultural facilitators over a long weekend, packed with great performances and locations can’t be underestimated – this city is a great place to be creative…

Which guests will you be welcoming to the city?

There are so many, but I guess I’m keen to meet our keynote speakers Mike Daisey and Todd Lester, Americans who are both from New York. Mike is a well known writer and performer, who is very outspoken and confrontational. Todd is very much the academic and activist. In bringing the two of them together for IETM Glasgow, I’m hoping we can really get the participants thinking in new ways about what our sector is engaged with on a broader level; what we can affect as artists and practitioners beyond the artwork itself in social and political terms.

Tell us about the theme of ‘voices’ – how will this be explored?

‘Voices’ is a vehicle for any number of themes and subjects to be dissected during the meeting. It allows us to enter difficult territory on race, integration, activism and equality. As a professional body, the membership of IETM need to keep talking to each other, to find common ground and understanding, especially when faced with difficult times such as these, when funding is being stripped back to the bare minimum.

IETM is an international event, how does it build/draw on Glasgow’s own history of performance?

Bringing IETM to Glasgow has involved a great deal of work and commitment over the past couple of years. Initiated originally by the Scottish Arts Council and continued now as a Creative Scotland project, IETM Glasgow has been able to mark the city’s 20th anniversary of the European City of Culture status. In hosting the meeting and it’s associated programme of performances, tours and events it marks a moment in time, allowing us to witness the living legacy of 1990 and hopefully add something to the ongoing development and enrichment of the arts in Glasgow and Scotland for the future. If I were asked to sum up IETM Glasgow, I’d have to say it was a ‘truly good thing’ in these times of uncertainty. I’d urge everyone involved to make the most of the opportunity to meet, talk, plan and create the future they strive for.

Make friends with IETM Glasgow, join the group and check out the IETM blogs by performance critic Gareth Vile.

Full programme details can be found here.

We grab 5 minutes with Paul Kerlaff, the man behind Central Station’s Shadow Screen competition. He’s looking for people from a variety of creative backgrounds to submit designs for his free-standing and fixed screens commissioned through With Kerlaff. There’s a fee and a licensing agreement for the winner.

How would you describe the competition in one sentence?

A chance to build new working relationships across design disciplines, with some hard cash thrown in for good measure.

What are your reasons for collaborating with Central Station on the project?

Central Station is the ideal place to run the Shadow Screen project, because it’s a new, open platform accessible by all disciplines. As a network, it has the reach and technical capability, but in the end it is the team that I’m working with and the people that make up the Central Station community that create the real value. Like any online entity, it’s nothing without the people.

What excites you most about the project?

I genuinely have no idea what the entries will be like, and that’s a great thing. Process that creates the opportunity for surprise can often yield the most valuable results.

Any areas you are more hesitant about?

My greatest fear is that the entries will play it safe.

What is it about past Shadow Screen designs that have stood out for you?

Jacqueline Poncelet’s designs are very successful because they evoke natural silhouettes in a synthetic material. The Maple Leaf design, for example, is great because it can be cropped to any size – but I’m looking for designs which compliment rather than imitate the existing range. I have a huge respect for the skill of textile artists and other skilled creative people, which is why I’m asking for their input rather than designing everything myself.

If you could give one piece of advice to applicants what would it be?

It’s better to regret something that you have done rather than something you haven’t. Take risks.

Find out more about the Shadow Screen opportunity here.

Donkeys is the debut feature from Scottish director Morag McKinnon. It tells the story of Alfred who on learning that he has a terminal illness decides to make amends with his estranged family. Heartfelt and poignant yet also very, very funny, Donkeys is a gem of a film that’s worth checking out. It’s currently on selected release across Scotland.

Morag talks to Central Station about the challenges of filmmaking, shooting in her favourite Glasgow locations and what advice she’d give to those trying to break into the industry.

Donkeys has been in production for a while. It’s recently had its first public screening at this year’s Edinburgh International Film Festival and has had some great reviews, what’s the experience been like?

It’s been absolutely wonderful. The gestation has been long but I think that’s symptomatic of the tone which is quite a difficult thing to achieve, that flipping between comedy and tragedy. There was an edit and then a rest period and then another edit which I think did us a lot of good. Everything just took a bit longer and I think it’s quite a good lesson because there’s a realism about that, some things just take longer than others. I have to say the response has surpassed what I would have expected. We wanted to make a film with real heart and if that’s what people feel then I’m really chuffed.

What was the public reaction to the film at the Festival?

It was great. I was absolutely blown away because there were people laughing at things I really didn’t expect. We’ve never had a big, full public screening so I don’t think we really could anticipate what the reaction would be and that’s been a lovely, delightful surprise.

Some of the reviews go ‘great characters’ and one other review said they’re not interesting characters and I’m thinking I wonder if that’s because they’re everyday ordinary characters? Actually for me that’s the whole point because film shouldn’t just be about exceptional people. I get a wee bit obsessed with death because I think it makes us realise how important and brilliant and funny life is, and so that’s why there’s the whole death theme in it. We go into black subject matter but in a way that has warmth so you can deal with it. To me everyday life is like that so why shouldn’t we celebrate everyday life and everyday people and everyday concerns?

Lots of people have said that the film has a very Glaswegian sense of humour, do you agree?

I’m going to be diplomatic and say that it’s possibly a very Scottish humour because myself and the writer are East Coast people! There’s obviously a big West Coast element in it but I think there’s a Scottish sensibility within all that. We quite like our swearing and we don’t go out of our way to say nice things! And if we say nice things we usually do it in an insult, you know?! I think the root of the whole thing is truthful emotions and truthful feelings so I’m hoping that over and above everything else that it can play abroad.

Donkeys is the second part of the Advance Party trilogy of films, following on from Red Road and initially devised by Lars von Trier. The idea was that three films would all be made under a set of filmmaking ‘rules’. Tell me a bit more about that…

At this point in time I can’t remember all the rules!  There was… you have to shoot on HD, it has to be shot in Glasgow, there can’t be any flashbacks, it’s all got to be present tense, you’ve got to use the characters you’ve been given and the idea was to have the same actors in the same parts. But the thing is, when Red Road came up our script wasn’t in the same state of readiness and so the casting was slightly more angled to Red Road. So when our script was ready it showed us the demands on the characters and we had to think about who can really play this and can the people who are already cast do that? I think the funders, producers and myself really felt there was a necessity to re-think that because the characters have different demands and that’s why there’s different actors in those roles. It would have been great to have kept the rules but the whole project would have to have been done in a different way to enable us to. I think filmmakers quite like to break the rules!

Because I read that Lars Von Trier said, whilst they wanted to feature the same characters, it was ok if one of them even just passed by on a bus, is that right?

Yes he did say that, and I thought that was brilliant, he’s got a good sense of humour has old Lars!

Donkeys has a great cast of Scottish actors including James Cosmo, Kate Dickie, Martin Compston…

Brilliant cast, love them to bits. Not only are they wonderful actors but they are just a delight as human beings, they’re just gorgeous! The whole lot of them are a hoot. I was very blessed.

Tell me about the locations you chose – I think I spotted a couple I recognised. Did you shoot in Nice ‘n Sleazy’s [the Glasgow bar]?

Yes! Because they were very sympathetic to filmmaking and I’ve always loved that place. They used to have some really amazing wallpaper and I think they changed it just a little bit before but I still loved it. I just thought why has nobody shot in there before?

And also the café in the East End which has the sign ‘Glasgow’s Best Fish Supper’…

Yes, and did you know that the opera singer is the real owner? The reason that is in there is because the writer was on his way home one day and he walked past and he heard this amazing opera being sung and he just wrote it in [the script]. And I went in and said ‘Would you like to be in a film?’.

I love the look of that place, it’s original fifties and you just don’t get that very often; it’s real Glasgow. It’s great that Glasgow is being modernised and rebuilt but these little pockets of exquisite character are just so beautiful and that’s what I love about Glasgow.

Donkeys is your first feature film, what advice do you have for young filmmakers?

I was having a conversation with some producers before I came here and I’ve actually developed ten feature film scripts and got one made, so the ratio is 10:1. Not only that, it’s a very small pot of money that everybody is after. Years and years ago when I was a student I went to see a talk by a guy called Iain Smith who’s from Glasgow but has done massive things in Hollywood and he said there’s three things you need to make it in the film industry and that’s tenacity, tenacity and tenacity. And I think that’s true. I think if you work at it and you love film and you’re able to take the knocks then you’ll get there, but it’s in no way, shape or form easy but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try because if you love it you will keep going.

Donkeys is now showing in selected cinemas in Scotland, check out the film’s Facebook page for more details.

Sarah Turner is an artist, writer and filmmaker. Her latest film, Perestroika, screened at London Film Festival and Edinburgh International Film Festival and is currently showing at the ICA in London. It juxtaposes two sets of footage, shot entirely from the window of a train during a journey from Moscow to Irkutsk, first in 1987 and repeated 20 years later. Against the backdrop of a transformed Russia, a personal narrative of loss emerges as we learn that two of the original group who made the trip have since died. Landscape and memory entwine to create an experimental and moving cinematic experience.
Perestroika is a very personal film – did you find the process of making it cathartic or emotionally draining?

To be brutally honest it was a really emotionally draining experience and it also made me very ill. I approached the film as a piece of art, the thing as an artist I’m interested in is pattern and resolution and making the piece work, so emotionally what was there I wasn’t conscious to but it was working unconsciously. It made me ill because I think I was holding all of the emotional tension in my body. As I edited the film I got chronic RSI from the experience and I see in retrospect part of the RSI was to do with the tension I was holding when I was editing it. So the blunt answer to that is yes it was emotionally draining, by the end of it I literally couldn’t walk.

You intercut between two sets of footage – what for you was the most interesting thing that emerged from the juxtaposition?

On an emotional, conceptual level and literally in terms of the content, what was utterly shocking looking at that footage was to do with climate change. I knew the film for me was going to be an allegorical response to climate change and that would be one of the main themes of the work but it was utterly shocking properly looking at that imagery and the radical change in the landscape. There’s one of the sequences in the film where I cut in between the past and the present going through exactly the same piece of landscape and the same buildings are there, it’s just that the windows are bricked up now. It’s fascinating that exactly the same structures are there but the difference is in the snow coverage.

Because the second set of footage was shot at the same time of year as the first…

I made absolutely sure that it had to be repeated at exactly the same time and the nearest train I could get because what I remember from the first trip is that we were on the train on Christmas Day whereas this year we were on the train on New Year’s Eve and we arrived in Irkutsk on New Year’s Day, so 5 days difference. In effect it was later so it should have been colder, there should have been more snow.

You have said that you were particularly interested in how sound can hold memory…

I think actually the image is the least adequate thing in terms of memory. When I started really working with the archive footage what was shocking, and what was very painful and was constantly being absorbed in my body, was voice. When you’re hearing someone now they’re as alive to you as they were then but we’re hearing sound now. So there’s still life in the room whereas there’s a separation with the image and always an understanding of time that’s past. There’s something about how we receive sound in our body that it’s ‘now’, so there’s a constant re-enactment.

So much has been written about the relationship between time, photography and death, Roland Barthes work in particular, but very little has been written around sound in terms of technologies of memory, how sound returns and repeats and takes us somewhere. We understand it a lot from music you can be walking somewhere naff like Woolworths in Peckham and you’ll hear some music from your childhood and you’re taken with this wave of emotion, music utterly overtakes you because you position yourself in time. That’s understandable but there’s something about voice that I don’t think very much work has been done around and I really think that that is the most interesting thing. For me I really structured Perestroika through the sound and all of the sound design in it.

The film encapsulates a certain subjectivity, the narrator’s account is not entirely reliable for one. Is this a theme you wanted to explore?

Yeah, for sure. The film is a film about memory and about time, and memory in a sense is our subjectivity because without memory experience is unintelligible to us. And ideas around how memory is contingent on the present as much as it is the past, it’s never fixed, it’s constantly being re-narrated and reflected by our experience of the present and I guess ideas about subjectivity itself. The way we experience thought isn’t in anyway linear, it leaps and comes back at us.

Also, this idea that we are the others’ experience of us, that our experience of the present is always fed back to us by the people that we’re surrounded and engaged with and again that came through thinking about death and loss. When you lose people then both those experiences of yourself which is in memory is kind of lost. You can’t re-narrate it, you can’t revisit it in that way. So I started thinking about that but also in Perestroika itself, the reconstruction of the Soviet Union, in effect it’s a story that’s being retold.
Yes, because there’s an amazing sense of place. Were you conscious of the political impacts on the landscape that had happened in between the two shoots?

Oh yeah. I’ve been back to Russia a number of times but not since Sian died. In fact I haven’t been back since 1992 and the coup happened in 1991 and from that point on the whole project of perestroika was well in place, Russia had embraced capitalism. It was utterly, utterly shocking. Of course it’s a culture that we have a lot of access to because we live saturated in a time where Russian oligarchs own the Premier League, we understand the excess of that culture through the popular culture here, but to really feel those differences that was really something.

You originally trained as an artist, when you were making Perestroika did you always intend for it to be shown in a cinema space rather than a gallery space?

I did train in Fine Art but a degree called Fine Art, film and video at St Martins [which] at the time was quite famous because it was producing a particular kind of filmmaking which was kind of inspired by Derek Jarman’s work etc. In the UK it’s only since the Film Council that film culture has become so [polarised]… on the one hand you’ve got film that’s really populist and it’s about entertainment and on the other hand you’ve got art and that’s more troubling, difficult and that’s in a gallery. Well, 15 years ago Derek Jarman was releasing Blue in a cinema; it’s a 90 minute film of the colour blue and it’s a radical cinematic experience. Everything has become very polarised in this moment and I guess I’m still working to challenge that space.

For me cinema that’s interesting is work that challenges and makes me think and I think there is a home for that in the cinema and that’s just not happening very much in the UK which is why so many artists have moved into the gallery. The space of ideas is happening in galleries because the Film Council has made work which has been dominated by the Full Monty aesthetic, obviously there’s a place for that but the Film Council has fought to keep re-making this, it’s just product. It’s formulaic product. With Perestroika I felt that probably, ultimately, my life would be a lot easier if I was making work in a gallery.

So you don’t think it’s easy for artists to make films for a theatrical release?

No, not at all, it really isn’t. With Perestroika I’ve been lucky. It’s really, really difficult raising the funding. I had a feature film commissioned by BFI and Film 4 and obviously you’re working with teams of people [who] have all got a differing agenda and aesthetic of what they want to see made. Mostly that agenda and aesthetic is informed by ideas of market, and very conflicting ideas of market, and anyone is going to get lost in that. I certainly got lost in it, although I found the experience really useful. I learnt an awful lot from going through that process. When the money men get involved everything is being constantly mediated, you’ve got to be really strong to hold yourself.

Perestroika is process based filmmaking; I had an idea and a conceptual framework but the film was made in post-production. I wrote that narrative in response to the experience and the difficulty of this experience and the narrative movement for me was one that best encapsulated that experience. That took a lot of time and a more commercially driven set up wouldn’t have tolerated that mode of production.

The film was funded by the Arts Council of England and Film London’s Artist Moving Image Network, so it did receive funding but really unless you’ve got the whole branding and marketing behind you it’s practically impossible to put a film into cinemas. With Perestroika I’m lucky because I think a lot of people have responded very powerfully and emotionally and critically to the work so the kind of critical discourse has created a framework for  the work to be seen but I think that’s quite rare and I think I’ve been lucky.

How do you feel about the future of film funding given the plans to close the UK Film Council?

I don’t want to join the chorus of people slagging of the Film Council because I think it’s a really dangerous moment. It’s important that everyone who works in film culture is really making the argument to defend that area and to defend state funding for the arts. I think the Film Council did some really valuable things particularly around exhibition in terms of the digital screen network and digitising all of these cinemas. But certainly their cultural agenda has been really, really problematic so I feel genuinely ambivalent.

I think it’s really important that everyone is defending the intervention of the state around cultural production but at the same time I am very critical of the Film Council’s agenda because they haven’t supported cultural film or innovative or experimental work in a way certainly the BFI did [and] with a fingernail of the money. BFI production only had half a million a year but they’ve made film after film of critically, world acclaimed cinema and certainly the Film Council haven’t achieved anything like that.

Perestroika is showing at the ICA, London until the 16 September 2010.

Image: Front cover of Sarah Lowndes’ book Social Sculpture: The Rise of the Glasgow Art Scene

One of the closing events of this year’s Edinburgh International Book Festival saw visual artist Martin Boyce, curator Adam Szymczyk and author Sarah Lowndes discussing the factors that have contributed to the rise of the Glasgow arts scene since the 1970s. Lowndes is the author of Social Sculpture: The Rise of the Glasgow Art Scene which provided a basis for the discussion.

Central Station spoke to Martin Boyce before the event about his experiences of studying and working in the city. He was born in Hamilton and studied at Glasgow School of Art. His work includes sculpture and installation and is often inspired by modernist design and explores its role in a contemporary setting. He represented Scotland at the 53rd Biennale di Venezia in 2009 with his exhibition No Reflections.

Do you think there’s been a resurgence of interest in Glasgow’s recent cultural history?

I don’t think there’s a resurgence of interest but I think as the history has continued to accumulate there’s more and more evidence that it wasn’t just a burst of activity; it is an ongoing situation that continues to be incredibly strong and healthy. Now you can definitely say that the situation in Glasgow and the art production, culture and music really has solidified as an important centre and I think it continues to attract people into it rather than it just being something happening within it.

What do you think it is about Glasgow that has led to it being such a fertile ground for artists in recent years?

It’s difficult to know because I certainly, as an individual, didn’t feel as though I was at the forefront of saying ‘Come on let’s build a situation here’. There were more vocal people around me that would articulate that and then through being in that situation it allowed you to reflect and think yeah of course, this could be a good situation, a situation that we stay in rather than flee from.

For me Transmission Gallery was a very central thing because it was basically an HQ for people, even if you weren’t on the committee it was a gathering point. And I think that kind of thing was important, but that can be a bar or a café or somebody’s house, just a place that becomes a natural gathering point.

And you enjoyed your time at the Art School?

Yeah, it was all I’d wanted to do even though I probably didn’t even know what happened at Art School. Particularly Glasgow School of Art, I don’t know exactly for what reasons, I guess [because] I was brought up in Hamilton, just outside Glasgow, so it was just this sort of beacon of hope. I really thought it was going to be much wilder. I was a bit nervous, [thinking] ‘what if there’s going to be an orgy on the first day?!’ but of course it’s just a bunch of other people like you.

Were you inspired by the artists who went before you?

I don’t know if this happened in every other department but I was in environmental art and the way the studio was laid out… everyone mixed quite a lot. When I was in the first year I was part of the fashion show which used to be a bit less about fashion and [more] a big theatrical thing and I remember Douglas [Gordon] had some sort of performance and Roddy Buchanan and all those sorts of people so I think I met them then. So by the time [Gordon] was in fourth year and then left there was a bunch of people in different years who were all friends.

You were not influenced by their work necessarily, it was definitely people’s attitude, how they spoke about their plans for the future, what might be possible, what they wanted to do and their ambitions. There definitely were a few people whose level of, not ambition in as much as they wanted to be famous artists, but just that idea that it would naturally continue, it wasn’t that sense of ‘ok what do we do now?’ All of that seeps in and stays with you.

Is it different for graduates now?

I do think that with art schools there’s a funny thing where people who are a couple of years before you are really influential to other students, rather than other artists that are out there. I remember feeling that quite a bit and I see it when I’ve done some teaching at the art school, you do get this frustrated feeling that people’s levels of ambition are quite restricted. There are always one or two people who set their sights much further, way beyond what’s happening in the art school. It’s not about slotting into the success of someone 2 or 3 years ahead of you.

You’ve also spent time in Berlin, what was that experience like?

It was really fantastic, it just came at the right time I think. I’d always lived here [in Glasgow], I’d done an exchange in LA when I was studying in ’95 but apart from that I’d never really lived anywhere else so this opportunity came up and it seemed like a break. We put everything in storage and basically went to this new studio with virtually nothing.

Even at that time [2005] it was very popular with artists but in the last five years it’s transformed as well, so many artists and so many galleries have moved there so it’s kind of overloaded, it’s changed quite a lot. It really felt like it was still on the end of its glory period since the wall came down, a real city of possibility.

Did it give you a new perspective on Glasgow and working in the city?

There was definitely a sense of being able to view Glasgow from another viewpoint and looking at what had been built up and think about whether it’s still important to go back and be part of that.

There were lots of pros and cons, it’s just a very different city. And it’s different when it’s home. Berlin really felt like anything was possible because it’s really new to you. Also living in a city where I didn’t speak any German, you’re living in your own kind of bubble, socialising with other artists, so there was kind of a reality chunk that was missing which was very attractive for a short period of time.

Social Landscape: The Rise of the Glasgow Art Scene is out now in paperback and published by Luath Press Ltd.

Credit: NVA

Central Station talk to Angus Farquhar, the man behind NVA, the politically driven public arts organisation who are hosting this weekend’s Glasgow Harvest event which celebrates urban growing.

How did NVA become involved in Glasgow Harvest?

The idea behind the Glasgow Harvest was simply that although Glasgow has a large community growing their own food it often takes place in the secret world of allotments, or in back gardens or balconies and I thought it would be good to bring all that activity out into the open to expand people’s sense of being part of something larger than themselves.

How does the project fit in with NVA’s broader philosophy?

It was a very conscious decision to work with the politics of food production and we got involved with Rolf Roscher (who runs an innovative landscape architecture practice ERZ), in delivering SAGE – Sow and Grow Everywhere, a region wide strategy to encourage the productive re-use and transformation of private and public land to grow food. The Harvest itself, has no audience, you participate by bringing food you have grown within a recipe or a pot of jam, so in this sense everyone has a productive role to play, with the only consumption being the food itself! We have made more and more works which are completed by the creative or physical actions of the public and horticulture is another way to extend and make visible a really vital and necessary part of urban living.

Credit: NVA

NVA takes a collective approach to its projects – tell us a bit more about the other groups you’re working with for Glasgow Harvest.

It’s a great eclectic mix, 20 schools growing tatties in rubble bags to make the best chips they can, (there was a horrific stat a few years ago that in one London primary school less than half a class knew that chips came from potatoes…)

85A have created their wonderfully surreal punk herb caps as an esoteric solution to lack of growing space in the city environment.

Acreative containers competition relies on the imagination of anyone who brings an unusual growing receptacle….all in all I think a village fete on acid, probably sums up our approach!

Central Station also recently did a project for Glasgow Harvest (called ‘twEATs’) – how did this partnership come about?

We were really excited by the way social media tools were used to extend the understanding and ownership of the White Bike Plan that we created for Glasgow International. We set another challenge to CenSta to come up with a lively way of allowing people to share an aspect of food growing or consumption and ‘twEATS’ was born, the booklet of donated recipes and graphic representations that we will give away on the day looks pretty sharp.

What do you think is the most interesting aspect of the use of social media in a creative project such as Glasgow Harvest?

It allows a group of people for whom those tools are a part of their everyday communication systems to explore a personal act (growing or cooking) in a collective context.

What aspect of the Glasgow Harvest project are you most excited about?

The hair clippings from the Herbaceous Barbershop being swept into allotment soup and tasting delicious…

Glasgow Harvest took place on 28 August 2010. Find out how it all went here.

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To find out what Tasty twEATS & Harvest 2010, click here.