Medium practices

In this essay I develop a topic addressed in my book, Film Art Phenomena: the question of medium specificity. Rosalind Krauss's essay 'Art In the Age of the Post-Medium Condition' has catalysed a move away from medium specificity to hybridity. I propose that questions of medium cannot be ignored, since they carry their own history and give rise to specific formal traits and possibilities. The research involves close critical analysis of four moving image works that have not previously been written about: two made with film, and one each with computer and mobile phone. The analyses are conducted by reference to my ideas about how technological peculiarities inform and inflect practice: I see the work's material composition, its form and final meaning as intricately bound up with each other. Film, video and the computer give rise to specific forms of moving image, partly because artists exploit a medium’s peculiarities, and because certain media lend themselves to some methodologies and not others. I do not seek hard distinctions between these media, but discuss them in terms of predispositions. For example, I discuss a 16mm cine film in which the shifting visibility of grain raises ideas around movement and stillness. The aim is to develop a definition of medium specificity, in relation to the moving image, that is not essentialist in the way previous versions were criticised for being, that is, based on ideas of "material substrate" (Wollen). I argue that film is a medium of stages, in contrast to the modern tapeless camcorder, in which all functions of recording, storage, playback and even editing are contained in a single device. Supported by a travel grant, I presented a version of this essay at the International Conference of Experimental Media Congress, Toronto, in April 2011, along with a selection of works: http://www.experimentalcongress.org/full-schedule

Memoirs of the Queensland Museum.

v.35:pt.2 (1994

Inflammation and Immune Activation in HIV infection

Although widespread availability of antiretroviral therapy (ART) has markedly enhanced survival in HIV-1 infected individuals, its long-term use and cessation has been linked to an increase in non-AIDS morbidity and mortality. The pathogenesis of these complications is thought to reflect excessive immune activation and inflammation. The SMART trial showed that in chronic HIV-1 infection, inflammatory and coagulation biomarkers were predictive of all cause mortality, and that stopping ART lead to a rise in these biomarkers. The impact of interrupting ART started in primary HIV-1 infection (PHI) on these biomarkers is unknown. This thesis examines the effect of different stages of HIV-1 infection on markers of inflammation, coagulation and immune activation, and focuses on the effects of short-course ART in participants enrolled in the SPARTAC trial; a blinded RCT investigating the role of short-course ART versus no therapy in PHI. Baseline parameters associated with biomarkers of inflammation, coagulation, immune activation, endothelial activation and microbial translocation, and the effect of starting and stopping ART on IL-6 and D-dimer levels, were examined in SPARTAC participants. Viral dynamics on treatment discontinuation were compared in PHI (SPARTAC) to chronic infection (SMART). The majority of biomarkers were raised in HIV-1 infected individuals compared to healthy controls and highly correlated with HIV RNA levels. Viral and host factors, including age, HLA type and viral tropism, determined levels of T-cell activation. IL-6 and D-dimer fell significantly on commencing ART but rebounded to baseline levels within 4 weeks of stopping. Viral rebound after stopping ART initiated in PHI was lower than that observed in chronic infection. This work highlights factors associated with immune activation and inflammation in PHI, which could potentially be used to identify individuals at high risk of disease progression. Immune activation and inflammation are influenced by direct effects of the virus, ART and other variables. The clinical impact of these findings warrants further investigation

Peter Kubelka's Arnulf Rainer

In this essay I will look at Peter Kubelka’s classic film Arnulf Rainer (6 1/2 minutes, black and white, optical sound, 35mm, 1960) in terms of the way it can be seen to operate around a number of dichotomies, between dark and light and black and white, sound and image, balance and asymmetry, film-strip and projection, onscreen and in-brain, work and context. I will also consider some of the wider issues that arise about lightness and darkness generally, and about the scope and purpose of formal analysis

Networks of attribution: the cultural origins of meaning.

Despite the fact that we commonly refer to artworks as 'meaningful' things, this is not to say that meaning is an objective property analogous to size or shape. If meaning is not a physical property, then it follows that it can only be a way of using things, of treating them as if they were imbued with features that they do not actually possess. Meaning is thus an attribution in which we agree through social consensus to use objects as tokens of power, prestige, celebration, explanation, instruction and so on. I argue that such symbolic procedures originate in practices of tool-use in which tools are commonly employed in various different ways depending on context and opportunity. The purpose of this paper is to show that the ability to interpret artworks and more generally to ascribe meanings, is a highly sophisticated cultural capacity and, more specifically, a verbal skill dependent upon a network of symbolic resources and techniques that only a socially evolved linguistic culture can provide and enable

Wild interior

Text contributed to the exhibition catalogue for Wild Interior, Suky Best’s solo show, Danielle Arnaud Gallery, Lonodn, 23 May - 15 June 2014

What's wrong with cinema in the gallery?

This article builds on my earlier research (e.g. on William Raban's site-specific work) into the contemporary problem of showing moving image work in art galleries. The misfit between works' formal strategies and their mode of presentation is an ongoing issue. The essay is based on a review of two exhibitions held in London in 2011 of video works by Philippe Parreno, and Douglas Gordon. Parreno's show was praised as novel and exemplary for the way in which it marshalled its audience from room to room to watch the films, but I argue that the relationship between the work and the way it is presented is arbitrary. In the case of Douglas Gordon’s show I argue that the work is a conventional movie masquerading as an installation. In each case I conduct a rigorous analysis of the work itself and how it has been installed. My writing is informed by formalist and constructivist approaches, and considers the relationship between the work's form and its output / presentation, paying attention specifically to the relationship between these two aspects, which I see as equally important. The article analyses contemporary exhibition practices in order to arrive at new theories and working methods for showing moving images in galleries. It draws attention to the tradition of exhibiting in alternative venues, where filmmakers, as opposed to "gallery" artists, have been much more successful in making moving image installations. The research aims to help artists and writers to better understand the issues and histories surrounding the making and showing of film and video in 'art' spaces. In a context where most art critics are not specifically informed about the history and theory of experimental film and video practice, the research seeks to raise the level of debate around video, and latterly film, projections in art galleries

Nicky Hamlyn: Zoetrope

A prolific artist and filmmaker, Nicky Hamlyn is known for his precisely structured, observational 16mm films. Zoetrope includes work from the last decade of his artistic practice, some exhibited for the first time, and includes a new site-specific commission made for London Gallery West