Hello Stranger (again) - Recent Screenings featuring Madillah

Hi all,

Hello Stranger, a video featuring my feral creature familiar Madillah, is finally going to be making his on screen Vancouver debut in Moving Arts 2016, a short programme of silent moving images curated as part of  "As the Crow Flies", the 20th Anniversary exhibition of the Eastside Culture Crawl.

Hello Stranger has screened in places as far flung as India, Portugal, Bulgaria, the U.K. and Berlin and I'm excited that after loping globally for the last few years, Madillah will be able to do some local lurking! The exhibition opens tonight, October 21st from 6-9 pm @ the Arts Factory, 281 Industrial Avenue and continues at this location until November 6th. The Moving Arts programme will also be on view November 17-20 @ the Charles Clarke Gallery, 1345 Clark Drive. For more info on times etc. please follow the link http://culturecrawl.ca/events/movingart2016 .

If you're curious about the video, here's a short synopsis:

Hello Stranger features Madillah, a transcultural symbol, an obscurely iconic other, who haunts the interstices of the virtual and actual and the borderlands of urban spaces everywhere. Emanating from somewhere far behind the digital façade and set against the backdrop of an indefinable city, his image appears first on one side of a chain link fence and then on the other, facing away from us and then gesturing towards an unseen viewer. Is he seeking acceptance, bestowing recognition or asking for our help? 

Questions immediately arise about the nature of this character: what is his cultural background or species, where is his actual location? A hybrid refugee, folklore oddity, homeless human or an alien enemy? His guise and gestures are an unknown commodity, reflecting our uncertainties about the veracity or viability of cultural authenticity in the face of an increasingly manufactured ‘global’ citizenship. Is he something to be feared or pitied or, is he perhaps, someone who can be trusted to understand our deeper, stranger motivations?

In an age of dispersal and dissimulation, where geopolitical conflict, climate emergencies and the scrutiny of ever present security camera can script anyone as a potential threat to an increasingly fragile status quo, perhaps Madillah’s greeting is a signal to the outsider that may exist inside us all; a confirmation of our presence, an affirmation of our ‘likeness’.

His image reaching across the confines of the mediated landscape, asks us to do the same: to find a way to identify with the people who exist beyond the borders of our physical space or psychic comfort zones, to reach out and become engaged in the on-going and real time experience of acknowledging difference and finding connection in the world we share with others.

Hello Stranger.

Actually, it'll probably take longer to read the above than to catch the video, which clocks in at only 1 minute. The piece was originally designed to be displayed looped on monitors in the Sophia underground subway system. But oddly enough, it seems to work nicely in a variety of settings. If you're able to have a look, please let me know what you think!

And if you're curious to know more about the origins and/or various manifestations of Madillah, feel free to search for his back story in the pages of this blog, just look for the Madillah tag or label.

Hope the Autumn is being kind to you all x Scot

Sea Change: New images from either side of the Adriatic

Hi all, still in the thick of editing the documentation and interview footage from our time working at the Torre de Moro Migrant Centre. We hope to be able to share some of the stories we were fortunate enough to be entrusted with soon. In the mean time, here's another selection of images that explore the emotional landscape and/or political climate of some of the places we moved through on our recent travels. To paraphrase Miran Norderland once again, " ...when interconnected risks become the new normal, what can happen to 'them' can easily happen to 'us'.

New Work in Vancouver this September.

Hello all,

busy getting ready for three presentations of my work in Vancouver this September: a performance for LIVE 2013 International Performance Art Biennale, a collection of video works at the Liu Institute for Global Issues at U.BC. and a reading @ Word Festival. Looking forward to showing in the city and getting some feedback from you! Here's a little info about what to expect.

First up, the performance, a collaboration with Leannej called Human Identification at a Distance.

Human Identification at a Distance is an exercise in sousveillance or inverse surveillance, an attempt to subvert the self monitoring that conditions our public expectations and cloaks our private emotions. The goal of the performance is obliquely confrontational, covertly confessional;  two figures, co-opt the gestural guises and costumed coding of ‘Authority’ and ‘Activist’, setting out from opposing points, marching through the crowd, broadcasting individual monologues, probing, measuring, interrogating, exploring the  constructions and consequences of separation and connection. Their movements ultimately define a shared space and the figures converge, their individual voices blurred in an antiphonic chorus of recognition and misidentification.

While the namesake program developed by the U.S. Information Awareness Office (IAO), 'Human Identification at a Distance' employs biometric systems in order to: “… identify humans as unique individuals (not necessarily by name)…at any time of the day or night … possibly alone, disguised or in groups…”, with this performance, and the ensuing dialogue, Leannej & I hope to support the unguarded expression of personal traits and private thoughts and promote unprejudiced public encounters that occur beyond, or in spite of, the bounds of CCTV culture. 

Many thanks to Randy Gledhill of LIVE 2013 for inviting us to participate. The Performance happens September 21st @ Victory Square, 150 W Hastings (South West Corner) @ 2:30 PM sharp. For more info: livebiennale.ca

Next up is DIY, a collection of video works @ the Liu Institute. 

Part manifesto and part how-to manual, DIY is a series of linked video works that combine old fashioned recipes, the latest cultural theories, guerilla gardening tactics, situationist performance antics, wiki-wisdom and homespun logic to promote global biodiversity and local food sovereignty. Both a meditation on cultural and corporeal survival and a crash course in sustainable living, DIY gives you everything you need to start disentangling yourself from the corporate food chain and learning how to grow, sow and share in the place where you live.

One or two of these videos have been in online festivals, but most of these pieces have never been screened in the real world. Individual pieces are linked together into a programme of about 50 minutes and with titles like Selfish Gene Theory, Chopper, and The Race To The Bottom, I'm hoping there will be something that speaks to you! 

The Liu Institute for Global Issues is located @ 6476 NW Marine Drive @ The University of British Columbia. The opening reception happens Wednesday, October 16th, 4-7 PM. The show will be up until December 21st and regular hours are Monday - Friday, 8 - 5PM. For more info: liu.institute@ubc.ca

And finally, I've been invited to read from V6A: Writing from Vancouver's Downtown Eastside for the Word Festival ( formerly Word on the Street), which will be happening outside the main VPL branch @ Georgia and Robson.  I'll be reading a piece called Skid Row: Establishing Footage, which is composed entirely of language culled from Film Production notices posted in the DTES. Its from a series I call Shoot Me!, which explores the often uncomfortable narrative overlaps between what's being scripted and what's being played out for real in the neighbourhood. Look for me on Sunday, September 29th in the C.U.P.E. Poetry Tent, sometime around 11 AM.

If you're able to make it out to any of these events, I'd love to hear what you think.  At any rate, hope to see you soon.

New Video Work

... a lone, masked figure takes a stand in a disrupted landscape... defining her place, creating the space to inhabit her own body, looking for ways to construct new meaning. Fighting for the right to stand alone, the hope to be included, the freedom to say no, the freedom to say yes, over here, out there, anywhere, everywhere; Independence...

From the synopsis for my latest video, Independence, now playing at festivals this month in Beirut, Riga and Budapest and also viewable online as part of CologneOFF Vll- http://coff.newmediafest.org/ If you have a few moments please have a look and let me know what you think, wherever you are.

Re-Write

Re-Write

ACT 01

INT. LIVING ROOM – 03’S APARTMENT – CONTINUOUS – NIGHT

WE PULL BACK FURTHER

CLOSE ON CONDOM

CLOSE ON KLEENEX

CLOSE ON NEEDLE

CLOSE ON STYROFOME SOUP BOWL

03

( continuing)

Come on let’s get outta here.

02

(continuing)

Where? I got nowhere else to go.

Cut to:

03 smirks.

01 thinks a second.

02 laughs –( to herself)

03 cuts her off…

She pauses. She buzzes. She waits.

A beat of awkward silence.

FADE UP ON A BRIGHT RED SUN

ACT 02

INT. LOCKED ROOM SHED – NIGHT

He’s wearing street clothes. A tight tee shirt, ragged acid wash jeans, a bulky, oversize wool jacket, scuffed black runners, no socks and a faded Planet Hollywood baseball cap.

02 enters an INDUSTRIAL SECTION of town. She sees the OCEAN in the distance. – and the GIANT CRANES that unload ships.

03 roars around a corner – fishtails – sideswipes a parked van and keeps going.

A Police Car pulls out of an alley and tries to block the road.

CLOSE ON – TELEVISION NEWS ANNOUNCER

REVEAL…

DESERTED INDUSTRIAL AREA (AKA –THE STROLL)

PAN TO…

BILLBOARD – grim faced City Coroner looks down at shrouded body lying on ground, tag line reads: 13 Fresh Ones.

WE PUSH IN CLOSE – ON DUMPSTER

A POLICE CRUISER pulls into the vacant lot – slowly glides around the perimeter – stops beside what looks like a pile of garbage.

COP – calls in to dispatch

We’ve got a problem

ACT 03

INT. CARGO VAN

03 looks backwards INTO THE REAR VIEW MIRROR

– only to see …

OVERHEAD VIEW – of run down street filled with cheap hotels

SECURITY GUARD

THE SECURITY GUARD’s P.O.V. of – caged off area behind boarded up building.

EXTREME CLOSE UP of an old TELEVISION with a smashed in screen.

MEDIUM CLOSE ON – FEET RUNNING – FAST.

REVEAL…

The light changes, car horns blow raucously as the girl runs out into traffic flow, dodging cars, just missing being hit by a bus and then slipping away down a dark alley.

A new angle REVEALS :

EXT. ALLEY – DAY – RAIN

CLOSE ON :

A young woman, looking old and chewed up in ratty clothes,

TITLES: ANGELA DAWN. DISAPPEARED NOVEMBER 11, 1988.

ACT 04

EXT. CITY STREET – DAY

Candace : How did she get there?

Candace’s POV of Angela ducking into dingy doorway.

CHARACTER 01

Dialogue…….

CHARACTER 01 ( CONT’D)

Dialogue…

(and then)

Dialogue…

CHARACTER 02

Dialogue……

(a moment and then)

Dialogue

EXT. CITY – SKY VIEW

Cut to:

SEDAN cruising city streets - NIGHT

ACT 5

FADE UP ON ALLEY – DUMPSTERS – PUDDLES FILLED WITH TRASH

NEW ANGLE REVEALS: Caged back porch of building backing on to alley.

Door opens, tired looking, middle aged woman steps out to light a cigarette, stops, looks down and fiddles with lighter, looks up and gasps.

EXTREME CLOSEUP of her face as she shouts the word – HELP!

WOMAN’S POV: Looking through WIRE CAGE to TALL, OLD TREE on edge of vacant lot behind building. Hanging from a branch in the tree is what appears to be a woman’s corpse.

PULL BACK as woman runs back inside building, doors slams shut. Signage on door reads: WOMEN’S SHELTER.

CUT TO: OVERHEAD VIEW Set Dressers on LADDER awkwardly removing prop of strangled corpse down out of tree. PULL BACK to reveal FILM TRUCKS, CAMERA further along alley. CREW milling around, Director throwing up hands, Principles shaking heads.

FADE IN : Busy Film Production Office, Location Manager - on phone looking rueful, Assistant - filing, listening to conversation and shrugging, Secretary - typing, rolls eyes…

EXTREME CLOSEUP of page coming out of printer –TEXT READS: … We realize your neighbourhood entertains it's fair share of filming and we are sensitive to concerns about filming in the area…

FADE OUT

ROLL CREDITS

Legacy 2010

Madillah loped through the Olympian streets of Vancouver last night, making it as far as Robson Square before he was taken down by a swat team of 5 callow thugs from the VPD. The interrogation began with accusations of being a threat to the stability of the 'Family' and ended in a one-sided discussion about performance art. Ultimately, Madillah's gentle nature and noble intentions prevailed and he was allowed to scamper off into the night, bloodied but unbowed and determined to lope another day. Be on the lookout!