The second in a series of screenings that corresponds with a new book by Simon Payne, Experimental Cinema: Structures, Systems and Strategies. Jenny Baines' 16mm films are structured around her performances to camera. In the actions that she records – scaling a lamppost, holding a pose or hula-hooping, for example – she is challenging herself to achieve a goal, or sustain something, in the time it takes for the clockwork mechanism of her 16mm camera to wind down and the film to run out. As such, Baines' filmmaking takes the form of a competition. Irrespective of whether or not the task at hand is realised by the artist on screen, her films are always accomplished. Often comedic, they display an ingenious relationship between the composition of the action and its timing.
Jenny Baines will be present to introduce and discuss her work.
Programme:
- Victoria Park
Jenny Baines, 2007, 3 min
A performance for camera documenting unrehearsed attempts to climb up a lamp post.
- Tipping Point
Jenny Baines, 2009, 3 min
Repeated attempts to spin a China plate on a stick.
- Against the Tide
Jenny Baines, 2009, 3 min
Swimming against a current that is too strong and being repeatedly washed out of frame.
- Counterbalancing
Jenny Baines, 2020, 3 min
Trying to balance objects that were to hand. Part of a series entitled Berlin Directives, where an instruction a day resulted in a new work.
- En Pointe
Jenny Baines, 2025, 1 min
Attempt to go en pointe from each ballet position.
- Insertional
Jenny Baines, 2015, 3 min, 16mm double-projection
Skipping performed for two cameras filming simultaneously. No two projectors run at the same speed (unless conjoined) and hence there is a tension to do with whether or not the movement of the body and the rope, from one screen to the other, will ever connect.
- Untitled (#1, 25/25/x 10/4)
Jenny Baines, 2016–17, 3 min, 16mm double-projection
Another performance for two cameras filming simultaneously. Here the artist runs around the trunk of a tree that she is tethered to by a long rope.
- Slackline
Jenny Baines, 2018, 3 min, 16mm double-projection
The third in a series of films made for two cameras. In Slackline the artist attempts, unrehearsed, to walk through both frames and exit right before the camera mechanisms wind down
- Aligning
Jenny Baines, 2012, 3 min, 16mm
Aligning captures the repeated attempt of the artist/performer to keep a ping-pong ball afloat, in line with the horizon, using only her breath.
- Inflated (Double) Struggle
Jenny Baines, 2018, 3 min, 16mm
The artist and another person of equal strength wrestling with an oversized balloon; an absurd act that can seem at times tender and others violent.
- Unrehearsed Dance Moves #1
Jenny Baines, 2022, 3 min, 16mm
As in many of Baines' films, each take begins with her racing into frame. Off-screen, she has just started the camera rolling and hence she is up against the clock. The action performed is a breakdance freeze (and yoga balance).
- Method Over Matter
Jenny Baines, 2023, 3 min, 16mm
The headstands that are performed in this film are a means of engaging the frame: directly pointing to the top of the frame and intimating what's happening beneath the bottom edge.
- Gyration
Jenny Baines, 2023, 6 min, 16mm
The strong shadow that is cast in Gyration makes it look as if there are two figures competing with their hula-hoops.
- Traction
Jenny Baines, 2023, 3 mins, 16mm
Traction features the artist in a tug-of-war with an off-screen adversary who only appears by casting a looming shadow. Halfway through the film the artist appears to be competing against herself.
Screening as part of Experimental Cinema: Structures, Systems and Strategies
This screening is supported by the Centre for Media, Arts and Creative Technologies (MACT) at Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge.
