La La La La

La La La La is the result of open collaboration between University of Bristol and University of Newcastle, PEALS, Helix Arts and myself. The project focuses on the rights of the individual within the auspices of care: what rights do people have as citizens if they are no longer able to express themselves due to dementia and/or alzheimer's? How can people authentically and without prejudice express themselves while suffering from these diseases? What role does art-making play in these situations? The research will be conducted over a 9 month period by Professor Julian Hughes, a psychiatric nurse, the nursing staff and myself. The project features five residents, who live in a care home for people with dementia. Many hours of interviews and recordings have been collaged together to present multiple narratives simultaneously. Fragmentation, overlapping: a conflux of information visually and aurally collide in this work. Funded by the Wellcome Trust, this project in many ways is an experimental portrait of living with Dementia. The production of the film itself is a result of a scientific study exploring Citizenship and Authenticity with people suffering from dementia within residential care homes. La La La La will be exhibited at Fort Worth Contemporary Arts in Fort worth Texas in October 2018

Flat Death

Through photographic projects by Edgar Martins and Jordan Baseman, this exhibition presents two series of work that invite us to reflect on how we deal with death, as a society and individually. Edgar Martins attempts to understand our relationship to death and photography’s role in this process through a variety of images. Jordan Baseman’s exhibition of memorial images sits within a long tradition of photography being used by families to remember their loved ones after they have passed. In shaping the exhibition we have been in consultation with leading individuals & mental health organisations to ensure an open dialogue. Throughout the exhibition, we will be holding events considering the ethical responsibilities and systems of public beliefs around the work presented and sharing the findings. The exhibition’s title, Flat Death, is taken from Roland Barthes’ Camera Lucida which considers the photograph as a fixed record of a moment in time. Edgar Martins presents a selection of images from his project titled,Siloquies and Soliloquies on death, life and other interludes. Martins has worked closely with the Institute of Legal Medicine and Forensic Science in Portugal to create the work, which includes challenging images relating to death. Presented are photographs of forensic evidence, archival material and Martins’ own reflections. Whilst upholding respect for the deceased and the bereaved, Martins raises the importance of discussing why our depiction and understanding of death creates tensions when spoken about in public. Jordan Baseman presents one part of his 2013 exhibition, Deadness. Projected 35mm slides collected by the artist show images taken by families of recently deceased loved ones, or their funerals. The project explores the historical, cultural and sociological relationship between photographic portraiture and embalming. The embalmer’s attention focuses on preparation for the moment relatives and loved ones view the deceased, to leave the bereaved with a peaceful image and memory of the deceased. Interviews and discussion are central to Baseman’s creative process, this work focuses on the experiences of Dr John Troyer – Deputy Director for the Centre for Death and Society at the University of Bath

‘The Most Powerful Weapon in this World’

Baseman’s solo exhibition of three experimental portrait-based films was commissioned by the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead. The three films are unrelated but are brought together in the nexus of narrative methods and a site-specific installation in order to question the nature of documentary film and encounters with the subject. The works in the exhibition were developed from the lengthy and detailed interview process that is at the heart of Baseman’s practice. The visual element of the recorded interviews has been removed and replaced, leaving only the voice of the subject. The visual material of two of the films, ‘Joy on Toast’ (2007-2008) and ‘Inside Man’ (2008) were constructed entirely from footage held at the North West Film Archive (Manchester Metropolitan University). Baseman searched through over 600 pieces of archival footage during a two-year Fellowship at the Manchester Museum. The 16mm film footage used for the third film ‘Nasty Piece of Stuff’ (2009) [see Baseman REF Output 3] was recorded by Baseman and edited in-camera as he accompanied his subject in a walk through London’s Soho. Baseman wrote original soundtracks to accompany the voice and visual material of the films, a technique borrowed from cinema. Using the technique in this context, Baseman questions the boundaries between documentary content and narrative affect. This exhibition explores how the use of voiceover rather than the visual presence of an interlocutor, impacts viewers’ understanding of, and response to, narrative in fimed interview. Baseman gave a talk at the Baltic in correlation with his exhibition. The films ‘Joy on Toast’ (2007-2008) and ‘Inside Man’ (2008) were previously screened at The Manchester Museum; a book of transcripts was published in conjuction with these screenings. ‘Inside Man’ (2008) was also shown at the Aberystwyth Arts Centre, Wales (2008-2009)

Green Lady

Baseman developed and produced the film ‘Green Lady’ as an outcome of his residency at St John’s College, University of Oxford in 2011. ‘Green Lady’ is a 16mm film presenting abstracted images syncopated to the voice of an anonymous narrator. Baseman experiments with using in-camera motion techniques, relinquishing the boundaries of control within a process of image making in a collision of representation and abstraction. The narrator tells an emotive account of the death of her mother, tales of the mysterious ‘Green Lady’ that they both encountered in Oxford, and her thoughts on the afterlife and the paranormal. Arts Council England awarded funds for the production of an accompanying artist’s publication, titled ‘1973’ (2011). The narrative soundtrack for ‘Green Lady’ and the texts for ‘1973’ were produced using the same interview method: questions were asked, conversations were recorded over many hours, edited, distilled and then represented as continuous moments. The end result is a story being told, almost as if from a script, but spoken naturalistically because the origins are from spontaneous moments. The works retain the immediacy of the initial recordings, yet possess a narrative arc: a constructed tale from various conversations over a period of time. ‘Green Lady’ and ‘1973’ explore the ways in which interview-based narratives can be conjoined with visual abstraction within the structure of a film and an artist’s publication. The film premiered in association with Matt’s Gallery (London) in November 2011 at the Genesis Cinema, London. Baseman was invited by Michael Stanley, Director of Modern Art Oxford, to install the film and the publication in The Story Museum, Oxford (2012). ‘Green Lady’ was selected for the Oaxaca International Film Festival (2012), Athens International Film and Video Festival (2013) and Fargo Film Festival (Winner Best Experimental Film) (2013)

Veil

VEIL will feature two new works, Veil (2015) and Blackout (2016); both produced in part, as a result of a research residency in early 2014 at the Bemis Center for Contemporary Art, Omaha, Nebraska. Veil is a psycho-sexual film about sex, religion, guilt, ecstasy, free-will, cinematic pornography and love. We hear Dr. Patricia Lyons describes her relationship with masturbation, organized religion and the presence of the cinematic. We watch an abstract, evolving and fluid set of images pass before us: in scarlet red. Veil is a poetic, experimental expression/exploration of sexual identity clashing with religious doctrine. Blackout is a film about time, and the loss of time as experienced by a recently sober, 22 year-old woman. The narrator of the film discusses her history of experiencing black outs through drinking; covering a five year time period that culminated in a three-day time-loss, her last bender. Visually, the work stutters through black moments, punctuated by originally recorded, heavily-edited abstract and representational images. The combination of materials creates a visual upheaval that echoes the content of the narrative. These works adopt some of the methodologies (specifically the recorded interview) used by journalists, oral historians, anthropologists, criminologists and other social scientists and academics, and combines that approach with the literary device of creative non-fiction. The conceptual core of all of this new work is contained within voices, edited to operate as if the narrator is speaking directly to the audience. The timbre, pace, pauses and vocabulary of the narratives are constructed to emphasize and relate these personal accounts. The sources of these narratives are the result of hours of interviews that have been heavily edited, restructured and reduced to the length of a matter of minutes. The recorded interviews are edited, transcribed into text, and then re-edited textually to form a script. The final audio edit, follows the transcribed text-based script, creating narrative through a reversal of the conventional script-writing process. The constructed narratives within the artworks are positioned from the perspective of lived experience: anecdotal first person narratives, academic expertise and speculative opinion are represented within the films/ artworks and given equal weight in order to ask questions about the conditions and structures of both our religious and secular belief systems: our philosophical, social, political and academic foundations. Veil was shown in the Aesthetica Film festival in York in 2015 and as part of the film program at the Edinburgh Festival in 2016. Blackout has been shown in Aesthetica Film festival in York, Cork International Film Festival, Melbourne Underground Film Festival, New Orleans International Film Festival and the Oregon Independent Film Festival where it won Best Experimental Short Film, in 2016. In 2017, Blackout has been selected for the London Short Film Festival

Essex Road II

Essex Road II is a project in which eight artists make short films in response to the mile-long road. The Tintype gallery's large window becomes a public screen for six weeks over Christmas and New Year. This second edition followed last year's highly successful first Essex Road moving image event. Essex Road II is comprised of eight specially commissioned short films by critically acclaimed artist-filmmakers: Jordan Baseman, Helen Benigson, Sebastian Buerkner, Jem Cohen, Ruth Maclennan, Melanie Manchot, Uriel Orlow, John Smith, Baseman makes experimental portraiture, “I think of it as creative nonfiction”– how we visually and conceptually represent our lives and our relationship to the world around us. Over the course of a week, Baseman walked up and down Essex Road at night with a 16mm camera, taking near random, long exposure shots. Each time he reached the end of the film, he rewound and filmed over what he had already recorded. His aim is to create a psychedelic portrait of the street at night, with multiple exposure visuals that collide, overlap, compliment and disturb one another

Mycoplasmas: sophisticated, reemerging, and burdened by their notoriety.

Mycoplasmas are most unusual self-replicating bacteria, possessing very small genomes, lacking cell wall components, requiring cholesterol for membrane function and growth, using UGA codon for tryptophan, passing through "bacterial-retaining" filters, and displaying genetic economy that requires a strict dependence on the host for nutrients and refuge. In addition, many of the mycoplasmas pathogenic for humans and animals possess extraordinary specialized tip organelles that mediate their intimate interaction with eucaryotic cells. This host-adapted survival is achieved through surface parasitism of target cells, acquisition of essential biosynthetic precursors, and in some cases, subsequent entry and survival intracellularly. Misconceptions concerning the role of mycoplasmas in disease pathogenesis can be directly attributed to their biological subtleties and to fundamental deficits in understanding their virulence capabilities. In this review, we highlight the biology and pathogenesis of these procaryotes and provide new evidence that may lead to increased appreciation of their role as human pathogens

Boundaries to Belonging: An Ethnography of Refugee Resettlement in Washington State

Borders are places of contention. In the twenty-first century nationalism and xenophobia of the non-citizen are driven by the securitization and surveillance of spaces between nations. As the rate of crises causing people to become forcibly displaced increases, opportunities for migrating groups to access security across borders decrease. Resettlement, one of the only legal pathways to citizenship offered to displaced groups, is granted to individuals who qualify as a refugee -- someone unable or unwilling to return home based on a well-founded fear of persecution. In the United States, refugee resettlement agencies (RRAs) are federally contracted organizations that support displaced clients integrate into local communities by connecting them to core services. Service providers in resettlement are unelected political representatives for the clients they are contracted to support, acting as gatekeepers and social links to services, their actions and interactions with their clients reinforce or refuse the structures of violence and injustice they work within. This project uses ethnography to focus on the subjective experiences of service providers (employees, caseworkers, and volunteers) and clients (those resettling in the U.S.) in order to understand the relationships between the personal and the political in resettlement. RRAs are operated by service providers who act as intermediaries between domestic policy and local practices. As the first point of contact for refugees in their new communities, service providers are integral to the resettlement process, how they understand their work affects how their clients are resettled. Inquiring how the individual effects and is affected by institutions is an opportunity to dissect the assumed aggregate of power and emphasize the avenues to redirect it for more just, and equitable systems in resettlement