The shifting physicality of the written word in the age of digital surveillance continuously warps and renegotiates notions of the personal and the political throughout this selection of films. Personal footage and self-interrogation are re-appropriated in narratives that blur the lines between documentary, manifesto and fiction.
With 40 years between them, John Latham’s Encyclopaedia Britannica (1971) and Andrew Norman Wilson’s Workers Leaving the Googleplex (2011) both interrogate the evolving physicality and accessibility of the written word. Helen Benigson’s The Future Queen of the Screen (2011) starts with an old-fashioned, echoing keyboard clang, never letting go of the seductive tactility of the digital interface. Equal parts futuristic dystopia and childhood holiday nostalgia, Daniel Mann’s Future Diaries (2011) creates an improbably seamless experiment in narrative dissonance from the artist’s father’s Hi-8 family video archive.
A discussion will follow the screening.
With thanks to Openvizor, LUX, and Angus-Hughes Gallery.
