Sat 2nd - Sun 3rd April: Pilgrimage from Scattered Points by Luke Fowler
‘Pilgrimage from Scattered Points’ is a film about the English composer Cornelius Cardew (1936-1981) and The Scratch Orchestra (1968-73). Cornelius Cardew formed the orchestra with Michael Parsons and Howard Skempton in 1968 and published their draft constitution in “The Musical Times” in June 1969. The constitution set out the framework, which would dominate the orchestra’s musical work for the first half of its existence. It proposed a fluid community where students, office workers, amateur musicians and some professional composers would gather together for performance, music making and edification.
A film-maker and musician raised in Glasgow in the eighties, Luke Fowler is recognised as an artist, film-maker and musician who creates new grammar from old forms. A 2012 Turner Prize nominee who won the Jarman Award in 2008, Fowler produces, via sound, text and image, a layered portrait of the real life characters he focuses on, most of whom stem from a counter-cultural background. His structuralist
film essays contain sonic and visual fragments that intriguingly link diverse references, theories, views and notions, proposing more and more portals of viewing and understanding, rather than neat/limited summarisations. His brazen and bold use of archive and 16mm film, text and sound/music makes the media and the message fizz with possibilities. A new kind of portrait artist. Sat 2nd 11am-4pm + 6-8pm/Sun 3rd 11am - 4pm The Goods Shed
Thurs 7th April: All Divided Selves by Luke Fowler
The social and cultural revolutions of the 1960s were spearheaded by the charismatic, guru-like figure of Glasgow born Psychiatrist R.D. Laing. In his now classic text "The Politics of Experience" (1967) Laing argued that normality entailed adjusting ourselves to the mystification of an alienating and depersonalizing world. Thus, those society labels as 'mentally ill' are in fact 'hyper-sane' travelers, conducting an inner voyage through aeonic time. The film concentrates on archival representations of Laing and his colleagues as they struggled to acknowledge the importance of considering social environment and disturbed interaction in institutions as significant factors in the aetiology of human distress and suffering. All Divided Selves reprises the vacillating responses to these radical views and the less forgiving responses to Laing's latter career shift; from eminent psychiatrist to enterprising celebrity. A dense, engaging and lyrical collage- Fowler weaves archival material with his own filmic observations—marrying a dynamic soundtrack of field recordings with recorded music by Éric La Casa, Jean-Luc Guionnet and Alasdair Roberts.
Luke Fowler a filmmaker and musician based in Glasgow was a 2012 Turner Prize nominee and won the Jarman Award in 2008 8pm £4adv/£5otd 4 John Street
Sat 9th - Sun 10th April: Klipperty Klopp by Andrew Kotting
Shot by Leila McMillan, (ongoing collaborator and lover) with 8 rolls of Super 8 mfa, the film is perhaps my first. A post punk piece of pagan sensibility, complete with bestiality, buggery and boundless energy, the film combines frenetic performance in a field with a monotonous one take recital and tune full songs. Perhaps inspired by Beckett and as a reaction to some of the preciousness of the Land Art tradition as
exemplified by Richard Long and Hamish Fulton.Joseph Beuys meets Carry On in a Running-jumping-standing-still film. A post-punk piece of pagan sensibility, complete with bestiality, buggery and boundless energy, the work combines frenetic performance and Beckettian other-worldly rantings. An artefact, dug up and re-presented in the great-out-of-doors 11am-4pm Free The Goods Shed
Weds 13th April: By Our Selves by Andrew Kotting
By Our Selves documents a four-day walk made by the English Poet John Clare from an asylum in the Epping Forest up into Northamptonshire. Toby Jones, Iain Sinclair and a Straw Bear follow in his footsteps exactly 150 years after his death. En route they bump into Highland musician and poet MacGillivray, and graphic novelist Alan Moore. Captured in black & white photography, they discover the only truth of the road: whatever our hopes and delusions, we are always By Our Selves 7.30pm £4adv/£5otd 4 John Street
Sat 16th - Sun 17th April: Remembering Jelly by Joe Magee
Newly developed films using jelly as a medium to explore memory, identity and the contemporary human mind. This screening is in connection with Joe Magee’s exhibition for the Site Festival in the Line Gallery at SVA, John St, Stroud, GL5 2HA. Joe Magee is an award winning artist filmmaker living in Stroud 11am-4pm Free The Goods Shed
Weds 27th April: MOULD - The Short Show
The Short Show is a cinematic experience of exciting young film makers work showcased as an fantastic evening of film and sound as part of this years Site festival! MOULD, in conjunction with SVA, is a youth arts collective dedicated to bringing contemporary arts to a younger generation. The group is led by local
young people between the ages of 15 and 21, whose ambition for MOULD is to raise the profile of young aspiring artists by providing them with the means to develop ideas, and give them a platform to show their works to others 7:30pm Free The Goods Shed
Sat 30th April INDEX Presents 3 artists films
(5-8pm, The Baptist Hall, Union St)
Portrait of Ga by Margaret Tait (1952)
"A Haiku from one of cinemas true poets.” Tilda Swinton. An intimate and abstract portrait of the flm maker's mother ‘walking and skipping’ through the Orkney landscape.
Buoyed By The Irrelevance Of Their Own Insignifcance by Andrew Kötting (2014)
Buoyed By The Irrelevance Of Their Own Insignifcance’ sees Andrew Kotting wearing a cow's head whilst foundering around in the waves of the English Channel .‘A ridiculous attempt to re-enact moments from my past’ says Andrew Kotting of his flm which was inspired by the glimpse of a giraffe and an ostrich through the shop window of Get Stuffed a taxidermist shop on the Essex road - 'Animals all-
atsea; a cow’s head struggling to make for shore'.
The Green Ray by Tacita Dean (2001)
A beautiful flm in pursuit of the green ray of the setting sun, a phenomena that often eludes the naked eye and remains uncaptured by digital pixellation . Here it is revealed by the light of the transparent images of 16 mm film.
Pick up issue #13 April 2016 (out now!) for our feature on this year's SITE Festival and visit our event page here for a series of film screenings and live soundtracks brought to you by Good On Paper and the SVA. The free official festival programme is available in various venues through out Stroud and as a download via www.sitefestival.org.uk