Michael Curran and Lucy Gunning Anthony Gross Lilli Hartmann Pil and Galia Kollectiv Dafna Talmor Joseph Walsh
3 March - 18 July 2010 Across all galleries Beaconsfield, 22 Newport Street, London SE11 6AY
Opening Times: Tuesday – Sunday, 11am-5pm
In the time of YouTube, video cameras and home-editing suites, the creative process has become more democratic, enabling people en masse to become not only viewers but ‘creators’ and the gulf between cinematic and lo-fi film production to reduce.
TestBed 1 reflects popular practice by commissioning six new digital screen-based works, to be made through readily available modes of production but supported in the context of a spacious, professional art space.
>From March to late July commissioned artists will use Beaconsfield as a creative base in a series of residencies. During this time the public is invited to witness the act of making art as our galleries turn laboratories, turn performance and production sites. FlatScreen will provide a continuous interface with a programme of artists' films and linked material screening in Canteen Gallery 2 throughout the period.
Residency 3rd March - 21st March Anthony Gross
Upper Gallery 1 Kane’s Revolutions, 2010
Anthony Gross is occupying the site over three weeks and investigating local architecture and its cinematic implications. Themes of destruction and regeneration will be explored by looking at the changing faces of South London including The Heygate Estate and The Elephant and Castle and the long-standing industrial railway architecture around Beaconsfield’s Vauxhall premises. In the making of Kane’s Revolutions, the artist will experiment and test his own principles for film making, asking questions concerning the construction of filmic narrative.
On 19 March, from 8–10pm, you are invited to a special exhibition and preview of Kane’s Revolutions. The evening will include a live electronic performance by ZON ON.
Canteen Gallery 2: Flatscreen Anthony Gross: Columbo Eats Columbo, 2009 Duration: 28 mins. Single screen 16:9, HDV and computer animation
Columbo Eats Columbo, 2009 preceded Kane’s Revolutions and is the first film in which Gross uses live action sequences, mixed with computer animation. The film uses the Columbo detective series as a basis for examining a subject close to the artist's heart, the era of early computer technology and graphics coinciding with Gross’ teenage years. In the film, Columbo becomes anxious as he fears the loss of the analogue world he inhabits, but he can also sense the liberating possibilities of the dawn of a new age.
Arch Gallery 3 Earlier 3D animation works by Anthony Gross are rotated in Arch Gallery 3.
TestBed 1 Residency Dates: Anthony Gross, 3 - 21 March Michael Curran and Lucy Gunning, 23 March - 11 April Pil and Galia Kollectiv (virtual residency with screenings), 13 April – 9 May Joseph Walsh, 20 April - 30 May Lilli Hartmann, 4 May – 4 June Dafna Talmor, 22 June - 18 July
Check website and Facebook for project updates and related links.
The full programme of new commissions produced for TestBed 1 will be screened on 18 and 19 September during Open House weekend http://www.londonopenhouse.org
TestBed 1 is produced as part of Beaconsfield’s curatorial mentoring scheme for emerging artist-curators. Mentees: Dafna Talmor and Joseph Walsh.
