Listening in the Dark
Steven Bode reflects on the intimate entanglement between the human species and the other life forms with whom we share the world, explored through Maeve Brennan's work Listening in the Dark (2018).
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Our projects are invariably accompanied by specially-commissioned texts, a selection of which are published here.
When will we need you
Writer Naomi Pearce reflects on themes of Death, the female archetype, and ideas of community in Lucy Beech's Me and Mine (2015).
The light plane over The Reflecting Pool
Steven Bode remembers the late Bill Viola through a rumination on his iconic The Reflecting Pool, one of the highlights of the FVU showcase of the artist’s work, ‘A Thoughtful Gaze’.
Memories of Memory Marathon
Read a newly developed text by FVU’s Associate Director Steven Bode reflecting on the production and timely context of Simon Pope’s Memory Marathon.
Another time. A different event.
Read author Sukhdev Sandhu's original text commissioned for Memory Marathon, reflecting on the impact of recollecting significant cultural events and the acoustic framework of memory
Some notes on proximity and distance
Originally commissioned in response to Webb-Ellis's For The First Baby Born in Space, writer Emily LaBarge expands on the work’s revelatory nature.
Encounters that Resonate: Foxfire Eins by Jayne Parker
Rosa reflects on Jayne Parker’s quartet of musical interventions in the present moment — exploring the power of non-verbal communication, gesture and dance.
Dangerous Transmissions: On Language, Agency and Voice(lessness)
Read Jinan Coulter’s new essay produced in response to our latest #FVUWatch feature Aphonia (2024) by Sophie Hoyle.
Excavating the Body
Awardee of the Michael O'Pray Prize 2023 Natasha Thembiso Ruwona explores Ashanti Harris’s Black Gold.
Sugar and Sand
Read Adam Bobbette's essay examining the granular connections explored through Gayle Chong Kwan's exhibition—bringing forth the historical and colonial ties between the Isle of Wight and Mauritius.
Training the Moon to Dance – A Meditation on Drumming
Antosh Wojcik's newly developed text draws on the visual and mechanical choreography performed in Sean Dower’s Automaton by the automated rig as it documents musician Steve Noble’s epic performance.
Circling Back
Read a newly developed text by writer and critic Martin Herbert, responding to the future-facing conspiracies of Daniel Cockburn’s recent FVU Commission Ahead of the Curve.
Calling for a permanent and immediate ceasefire.
We believe in justice, dignity, freedom and equality for all people and condemn the violence enacted towards Palestinian and Israeli civilians.
A Rustle in the Trees
Read a new text by Steven Bode reflecting on A Forest Tale by Ruth Maclennan two years on—now contextualised in the wake of Russia’s developing authoritarian regime and the war in Ukraine.
Dreaming Rivers
Winner of the Michael O'Pray Prize 2023 Leena Habiballa considers the physical reworking of a pioneering film’s 16mm print.
Queer Territories/Lesbian Lenses
Awardee of the Michael O'Pray Prize 2023 Aislinn Evans critically examines a lesbian relation to histories of the land and landscape cinema.
What we’ll always have is something we lost
Artist Reman Sadani expands on themes of grief, loss and memory presented within Myriam Rey's 2023 FVU commission absent landscapes.
Interludes: 20 Years Later
Writer and academic Mimi Howard considers Anne Bjerge Hansen’s Interludes against the ceaseless flow of video images in the present and the slower televisual rhythms of the past.
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No Ordinary Summer
Steven Bode looks back at Mikhail Karikis’ No Ordinary Protest through the discoloured lens of the extraordinary events of the summer of 2023.
No Ordinary Protest – 2018 exhibition text
Commissioned for the initial 2018 exhibition of Mikhail Karikis' No Ordinary Protest, artist and academic Cathy Lane considers the work in light of Karikis' broader artistic practice.
The Top Man in Paris
Published in the booklet accompanying the 1997 Passagen CD-ROM, the artists Ellard and Johnstone wend the creative and literary pathways within their work.
In Unison
Steven Bode tunes into the lingering resonances of Marcus Coates’ work, and how its ecological message reverberates in the present.
Clearing the Air
Steven Bode revisits Shona Illingworth’s Balnakiel in the light of her recent major work, Topologies of Air.
Portrait of the Artist as a Dust Wrangler
To accompany the remastered release of Adam Chodzko's Plan for a Spell, we shake off the dust from Chris Darke’s essay from the 2002 catalogue for the work, Plans and Spells.
Robert Beavers
Awardee of the Michael O'Pray Prize 2022 Siavash Minoukadeh explores the power of oblique suggestion in queer cinema.
Going on a Bear Hunt
Awardee of the Michael O'Pray Prize 2022 Dan Guthrie tries to imagine the experience of Steve McQueen's elusive artwork Bear.
I Am a Photograph
Winner of the Michael O'Pray Prize 2022 Evelyn Wh-ell examines two French trans icons’ focus on image as surface.
In Defence of the Small Screen
Winner of the Michael O'Pray Prize 2022 Laura Bivolaru presents an argument for viewing the moving image while moving.
Reprise: After Bani Abidi's 'The Song'
In this specially commissioned text to accompany The Song, novelist Kamila Shamsie picks up the bitter-sweet refrain of the film and visits its protagonist some years into the future.
Her Fantastic Voyage
From the scourge of illness to the succour of creativity and the solace of friendship, Jessica Moriarty’s essay charts a complementary companion path to Joanna’s Callaghan’s video.
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Why should our bodies end with our skin?
Intergenerational longings, dislocations and waiting in Soojin Chang's BXBY.
Riverrun
A re-run of Steven Bode’s introductory essay from the Portrait of a River accompanying publication.
Echoes from the Void
Writer and artist Gary Zhexi Zhang traces the underlying meanings and associations of Michael Ho’s Echoes from the Void.
Reflections on Ruth Maclennan’s 'Treeline'
Author and activist Ben Rawlence finds multiple points of kinship and connection with his own journeys around the arboreal zones of the Arctic in this essay on Ruth Maclennan’s film Treeline.
from a distance, you can make of the water what you will
Poet Zein Sa’dedin considers the complex emotions of homecoming and departure through the prism of Zineb Sedira’s Saphir.
Natural Error
Poet Jacob Sam-La Rose goes back to his Eighties childhood, lit up by its ever-changing parade of new computer-games but clouded by its anxious hints of environmental catastrophe, to crack the code of Rodell Warner’s Natural Error.
Home Bitter Unhome
Author Rob Young, chronicler of British TV esoterica in his compendium ‘The Magic Box’, lifts the lid on the myriad ‘wyrd’ influences lurking in Craig David Parr’s Wings of Love.
Tracks in the Forest
Steven Bode traces the journey Ori Gersht undertook to research and make The Forest in this catalogue essay from 2005.
Blank Space
Michael O'Pray Prize 2021: Ronnie Angel Pope enters a cinematic void.
Danielle Dean
Michael O'Pray Prize 2021: Rosa Tyhurst on Danielle Dean’s subverting of the vampiric strategies at work in brand marketing.
Out in the Open
Michael O'Pray Prize 2021: Sara Quattrocchi Febles explores how a film can no longer be fixed in time and place when screened outdoors.
An English Journey
Steven Bode follows the route of Andrew Cross’s 'English journey' in this catalogue essay from the time.
The Commodity goes on a Journey
In the aftermath of the headlong, headstrong English journey in pursuit of Brexit, Owen Hatherley considers the changing features of a mercantile and architectural landscape clearly signposted in Andrew Cross’s video 3 hours from here: an English Journey.
Beyond the Trees
In this essay on Ruth Maclennan’s Treeline, Mariam Zulfiqar and Dr David Edwards consider the wider botanical, cultural and geopolitical resonances that are opened up by the work.
A voice comes to one in the dark
Brian Dillon examines themes of the past, present and future in Patrick Hough's The Black River of Herself.
Pandaemonium
Nathalie Olah considers the intimate nature of the human-animal bond in Toby Parker Rees's film the great dog, Pan.
Interrupting the Pan: Marine Hugonnier’s 'Ariana'
In this essay, critic Michael Newman traces the evolution of the panorama and its importance as a motif in Marine Hugonnier’s beautifully rounded portrait of Afghanistan.
No End In Sight
As the latest chapter of Afghanistan’s repeating cycle of history seems set to start, Steven Bode looks back at Marine Hugonnier’s Ariana and its resonance for the present moment.
words sketched onto the night's taut skin
Elhum Shakerifar reflects on Maryam Tafakory's film Nazarbazi, and the prohibition against touching in Iranian cinema that is the film's recurring motif.
The Fish Is Still Raw
Poet and artist Belinda Zhawi draws on her own unique experience of language and food in this essay on Kondo Heller's MU/T/T/ER.
The Young Dog at the Zoo
Stand-up comedian, writer and director Stewart Lee asks whether comedy can ever be art in his essay on Patrick Goddard's film Animal Antics.
Quarantaine: Taking Possession in Three Acts
Dominic Paterson (The Hunterian, The University of Glasgow) explores Georgina Starr's Quarantaine within the context of avant-garde cinema and theory.
So Far, and Yet So Near
Graham Gussin's Remote Viewer was made twenty years ago this year. From a distance of two decades, Steven Bode reflects on how much it resonates with the present.
Remote Viewer: Live Transmission
A conversation between Graham Gussin and Steven Bode. Interlocutor: Chris Darke
Marooned
With Paul Rooney's Dust and Bellevue available on FVU Watch, Steven Bode reflects on their themes of limbo and confinement one year into the global pandemic.
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Notes on 'The Bird Game'
To accompany Marianna Simnett's The Bird Game and Confessions of a Crow, Steven Bode adds some supplementary notes.
The Fluidity of Care
Writer Rebekah Taussig explores how caregiving is both a personal and communal experience in this powerful response to Kyla Harris and Lou Macnamara's It's Personal.
Together, Alone: Watching Sandra Lahire in Lockdown
Michael O'Pray Prize runner-up Rachel Pronger discovers in the experimental work of a pioneering filmmaker a familiar tension between the social being and the individual body.
Alberta Whittle: RESET
Harvey Dimond explores the historical resonances of this slavery-referencing artwork made during a suffocating pandemic
Lutz Mommartz’s Own Private Idyll
Winner of the Michael O'Pray Prize 2020, Mimi Howard finds that there are oblique ways to engage with tumultuous times.
"How do i no ur not false?”
Writer Jo Thompson explores Rachel Maclean's Feed Me within the context of surveillance capitalism, highlighting traces of the fairytale narrative in our online behaviours.
The Ghosts of Christmas Past
As Rachel Maclean's Feed Me shows on FVU Watch, Steven Bode reflects on what we can learn from the film at Christmas amidst a pandemic.
States of Being
Emmie McLuskey unpacks our modern dependence technology, substances and ritual, as well as what it means to belong, in Cal Mac's Agony to Ecstasy.
Reman Sadani
Artist and writer Adnan Madani explores the allegorical within Reman Sadani's Walkout 1.
Guy Oliver
Artist and performer Louise Ashcroft ponders the conflicting voices in her head as she watches Guy Oliver's You Know Nothing of My Work.
Great-ish: The Gaslighting of a Nation
Rianna Walcott responds to Exodus Crooks' Great-ish: The Gaslighting of a Nation, exploring the collective gaslighting of the Black community in Britain.
Unreal
Iris Long reflects on the machinations at play in Chris Zhongtian Yuan's Wuhan Punk, exploring the implications of restoring visual memory via the medium of film.
Wuhan Punk
Responding to Chris Zhongtian Yuan's Wuhan Punk, Steven Bode reflects on how the city of Wuhan was previously famous for being the hotbed of China's punk rock scene.
FVU Frames: Sophie Cundale
We sat down with Sophie Cundale to discuss the making of The Near Room and how she came upon the film's key concepts: Muhammad Ali's Near Room and Cotard Delusion.
Celebration (Cyprus Street)
FVU Director Steven Bode reflects on the making of Celebration (Cyprus Street) as well as its relevance for today.
MASS
David Kwaw Mensah considers how Nadeem Din-Gabisi's MASS can be categorised in the genre of Transcendental Cinema.
MASS: Artist's Statement
Nadeem Din-Gabisi, writer and director of MASS, articulates the thinking and process behind his film.
Critical Mass
FVU's Director Steven Bode reflects on our first film to premiere on FVU Watch: Nadeem Din-Gabisi's MASS.
Patrick Staff: On Venus
Laura Jacobs on hostile environments, both social and natural, in Patrick Staff’s ‘On Venus’ exhibition. Winner of the Michael O'Pray Prize 2019.
Image Abrasion
Cassandre Greenberg considers Derek Jarman’s Blue as a celluloid artefact in an age of portable digital media. Winner of the Michael O'Pray Prize 2019.
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Something New
Writer Ellen Mara De Wachter looks at the potential for newness within open source materials in the work of Open Music Archive.
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The Sentiment is in the Title
Writer and broadcaster Paul Morley discusses the history of the UK charts, sampling and music distribution in the work of Open Music Archive.
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Radical archiving, parallel universes and déjà entendu
This interview with Open Music Archive explores collective cultural consciousness and pop music.
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Everything We Have Goes Round
Steven Bode reflects on Everything I Have is Yours by Open Music Archive.
Implicated
Goldsmiths CCA curator Natasha Hoare explores the work of Richard Whitby and asks who is implicated in the UK immigration act.
Some notes on proximity and distance
This creative-critical text responds to Webb-Ellis’s installation For The First Baby Born in Space.
Tipping Points
FVU's Steven Bode discusses the cultural and historical contexts behind Elizabeth Price's FELT TIP.
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No Ordinary Protest
Professor Cathy Lane looks at the relationship between noise and narrative in Mikhail Karikis' No Ordinary Protest.
Unintended Consequences
George Vasey looks at the concept of the 'unintended concequence' in the work of Maeve Brennan and Imran Perretta.
Don't Look at the Finger
Director of FVU Steven Bode explores the concept of the 'first impression' in the work of Hetain Patel.
Something Along the Lines of Desire
Chantal Faust responds to Rob Crosse's Prime Time with a creative prose-poem exploring desire, intimacy and touch.
We Put The World Before You
Film theorist Erika Balsom takes a close-up of Jane and Louise Wilson's 2016 work We Put the World Before You.
A Half-Open Door
Writer Laurence Scott considers temporality in the 21st century, looking at the work of Alice May Williams and Karen Kramer.
Too Big To Miss
Steven Bode picks through the postmatch data of the Rugby World Cup 2015 alongside Ravi Deprees' The Gain Line.
Thoughts about Things
Read Patrick Langley's response to Ben Rivers' Things, commissioned for FVU's Stay Where You Are project.
Part 1: The Built Moment (Winter to Spring)
A series of texts drawing on Lavinia Greenlaw's experiences of the immediate, everyday world as it unfolds through the present moment.
Part 2: The Built Moment (Spring to Summer)
A series of texts drawing on Lavinia Greenlaw's experiences of the immediate, everyday world as it unfolds through the present moment.
Part 3: The Built Moment (Summer to Autumn)
A series of texts drawing on Lavinia Greenlaw's experiences of the immediate, everyday world as it unfolds through the present moment.
Part 4: The Built Moment (Autumn to Winter)
A series of texts drawing on Lavinia Greenlaw's experiences of the immediate, everyday world as it unfolds through the present moment.
Part 1: Hearth: A Thesaurus of Home
Jay Griffiths embraces the confines that her work often leaves behind in its pursuit of the wider, wilder world outside.
Part 2: A Beggarly Account of Empty Boxes
Jay Griffiths embraces the confines that her work often leaves behind in its pursuit of the wider, wilder world outside.
Part 3: Seven Degrees of Homing
Jay Griffiths embraces the confines that her work often leaves behind in its pursuit of the wider, wilder world outside.
Part 4: Sacred Hospitality
Jay Griffiths embraces the confines that her work often leaves behind in its pursuit of the wider, wilder world outside.
Local Time
Patrick Langley considers the concept of travel and its representation in Layla Curtis' Antipodes
Dust
The monologue from Paul Rooney's Dust, as featured in his anthology 'Dust and Other Stories'.