THE FILM PROGRAMME
curated by Gilly Fox

The film programme for the Mulberry Tree Press, subtitled ‘Film in the House of the Word’, explored the idea of literature and words within artists’ films. The title is a reference to an essay by Hollis Frampton, whose film Zorns Lemma was the subject of a panel discussion before being screened in its original 16mm format.

What unites the film choices is that they all evoke something about the act of reading or writing, be it based in the physical or the philosophical. The films were shown on a small screen that was imbedded into an old school desk, where the viewer had to assume the physical position of the reader (or pupil) – bent forward, leaning in, to absorb the narratives unfolding beneath them. The screen itself became a book.

The true starting point of any literate endeavour, the humble pen took centre stage in Roderick Buchanan’s Traffic as we were taken on a trip around the world courtesy of gift shop ephemera. The basis of language, the alphabet and the linking act of word association was prevalent in Hollis Frampton’s structural masterpiece Zorns Lemma and John Smith’s Associations. A philosophical enquiry into the nature of words and their meanings pervaded George Quasha’s series I Don’t Understand Language, played out phonetically.

The role of the media in disseminating information – in contrast to their own ideologies – was the subject of two films, Martha Rosler Reads Vogue, by the titular artist, and Argument, by Antony McCall and Andrew Tyndall, the argument of which concerned an issue of New York Times Magazine and the meanings we appoint to words when confronted with a contradictory auditory commentary. Directly borrowing from literature, Maria Marshall’s Pinocchio, was a work whose darkness sat in the tradition of the Brothers Grimm, and Gary Hill’s Incidence of Catastrophe, based on the novel Thomas the Obscure by Maurice Blanchot, is a story of a man who loses himself more and more in the story of a book until he not only mentally but physically disappears. The film programme was curated by Gilly Fox.

FULL FILM PROGRAMME:

Roderick Buchanan
Traffic
2001
Video, 1 minute loop

Hollis Frampton
Zorn’s Lemma
1970
16mm film. 60 mins

Gary Hill
Incidence of Catastrophe
1987 – 88
Video, 43 mins, 51 secs

Maria Marshall
Pinocchio (2002)
Digital film, 4 minute loop

Anthony McCall and Andrew Tyndall
Argument
1978
16mm film, 81 mins, 50 secs

George Quasha
I Don’t Understand Language
2009
Video, 6 mins, 21secs

Martha Rosler
Martha Rosler Reads Vogue
1983
16mm film 26mins, 05 seconds

John Smith
Associations
1975
16mm film, 7mins