Weave, Warp and Woof

The dialectic of word and image seems to be a constant in the fabric of signs that a culture weaves around itself. What varies is the precise nature of the weave, the relation of warp and woof. *

The Annexinema programme at ScreenLit** provides a rare opportunity to see a number of films and videos on an unusual theme. Whilst there has been a marked interest in language by artist-filmmakers (prominently since the 1960s) little attention has been given, either academically or in exhibitions, to how writing, specifically, is engaged with the artwork. Similar themes have been touched on in the last few years, such as Piktogram’s “Image/Text” programme (Tate Modern, 2006), and Kill Your Timid Notion’s “Words” (Dundee, 2007), but it is evident from the titles alone that those programmes had a different, broader scope. In this respect, Annexinema’s “Writing” programme is the first UK exhibition that looks at the process of writing, and the role of the writer, in relation to artists’ film.

Annexinema has an eclectic approach to event programmes, aiming to include works that experiment and excite both formally and conceptually. All works are time-based but without restriction to a given medium (though the tendency has been toward image-based works). The aim of this programme is to maintain this diversity of content, but specifically focusing on the theme of writing. Consequently, we have taken an open-minded approach in our selection of works, interpreting “writing” in several ways. Perhaps the most obvious relationship between film and writing is found in the role of the screenwriter. To this end Rachel Reupke reverses the traditional role of the script, from direction to description, as images that we do not see are described in minute detail; the mise-en-scene seems to be “read” as if a narrator’s text. In a move from his more familiar written works, renowned twentieth century experimental novelist B.S. Johnson’s film You’re Human Like the Rest of Them is included. The lure of film was strong for Johnson, keen to explore the possibility of narrative and his perennial theme of mortality, in a new medium. As we might expect, Johnson carries over his experimental approach with an unusual editing technique and script (which is written in blank verse). In a conscious move away from the writer as arbiter of meaning, Owen Land foregoes voiceover, and writes directly onto the image, telling us in his film Remedial Reading Comprehension that (as Roland Barthes similarly stated two years earlier) “this is a film about you … not about it’s maker”.

This more literal approach, of writing directly onto film, is taken up in the work of Frederique Devaux, who uses the film-strip as surrogate paper; different languages flash before our eyes, comprehended not as words, but images alone. Similarly, Paul Sharits’ film Word Movie, moves at an impossible pace to read with words appearing at 24 frames per second jarring against a soundtrack where one word is read alternatively from two texts: this is a beguilingly complex film from a master of structuralism.

The complexity of language draws us into Peter Rose’s The Pressures of the Text, which presents a journey from the seemingly comprehensible, through the frustratingly difficult, to the amusing gibberish of text. This misdirection is also a deliberate strategy of David Lamelas, who makes the already terse prose of J.L. Borges even harder to understand by eliminating sound in the reading of his text. Getting back to basics, Volker Schreiner attempts to teach us the alphabet, through a montage of Hollywood films, though the images representing letters become increasingly complex, offering dramatic irony as we link King Kong, Lassie, and Marilyn Monroe to ‘K’, ‘L’, ‘M’, etc.

Elsewhere in the programme, we see early computer experiments in Stan Vanderbeek’s Poemfield, in which dazzling coloured pixels make lush digital poems, and haunting abstract narratives evoke Tarkovsky’s home-movies in Der General by Schmelzdahin. Alongside these films in the showreel, we also present Marysia Lewandowska and Neil Cummings’ Tearing, a humorous montage of scenes from films in which pages are surreptitiously torn from books; from Chinatown to Terminator, no sources are sacred.

Each of the works have been chosen for their unique approach to the subject. The programme stands as testament to forty years of experiment and innovation in both writing and film, with each process invigorating and testing the fabric of the other.

* Mitchell, W.J.T (1986) Iconology: Image, Text, Ideology Chicago: University of Chicago, p43

** The Annexinema show forming part of Broadway's ScreenLit Festival will take place at Surface Gallery, Southwell Street, Nottingham at 8pm on Friday 3rd July, admission £3. For more information about ScreenLit go to www.broadway.org.uk/festival