Art Angel, London

BBC2

Billingham, Richard

Fishtank (47mins) was a commission for broadcast TV by Artangel in collaboration with film maker Adam Curtis and Illuminations TV for BBC2’s acclaimed TV series. The film was shot on Hi 8 and featured Billingham’s family - father, mother, and brother - at home in the claustrophobic confines of their council flat in the West Midlands.



 



Following Billingham’s acclaimed book of photographs Ray’s a Laugh (1996), Fishtank was Billingham’s first film and was considered a groundbreaking work for broadcast television.



 



A ‘natural history film of a dysfunctional family’, it alternated between alienation, altercation and affection.



 



Screens appear throughout the film, reminding us of their power to absorb and create opportunities for escapism whether it be through television or a computer game.



 



Dispassionately yet compassionately, Fishtank crafted a terrible beauty from the landscape of family life.



 



Louisa Buck for Artforum in 1998 wrote – “Billingham’s TV debut pushes you so close to his fighting, drinking, low-income family that it hurts. His photographs have always wrong- footed any neat interpretation, and now Fishtank uses a camcorder to up the emotional ante with an often excruciating, sometimes exquisite fusion of intimacy and objectivity.”



 



Fishtank was broadcast on BBC2 in 1998 and Arte, France in 1999. It was also screened in numerous film festivals including International Film Festival, Rotterdam (1999); 12th European Media Art Festival, Osnabruck (International Selection); Diagonale Festival of Austrian Film (1999, Special Jury Prize); 11th International Film Festival of Marseille (2000); Visions Du Reel - Festival international de cinema, Nyon, Switzerland (2000); New York Video Festival (2000) and the Electric Cinema, Birmingham (2000)

Fishtank, 1998, 47min broadcast documentary commissioned by BBC2 and produced by Art Angel and Adam Curtis

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