Beyond Language: The Films of George Barber (1983-2008)

Part of the Artist Film And Video

7:30 p.m. Wednesday 29 April 2009

Director:	George Barber
Certificate:	Guideline 15
Length:	60 min + Q&A
Format:	Other
Language:	Eng
Country:

George Barber/ Beyond Language is a video touring programme on the occasion of LUX's publication of the DVD George Barber: Beyond Language Selected Videos 1983 – 2008.

A pioneer of British video art, once described in Art Monthly as ‘the Henry Ford of independent video’, George Barber was a founding member of ZG Magazine and a leading figure in the Scratch Video phenomenon of the 1980s. Moving away from Scratch in the early ’90s, Barber created many lo-tech video pieces and was influential in defining the then emergent ‘slacker’ aesthetic. Narrative is at the centre of much of his work, whether deconstructing it as in Scratch, or creating humorous and absurd situations to find existential meaning in the margins of modern life. Beyond Language presents a broad selection of Barber's influential video work from past 30 years from proto-Scratch works of the early ’80s to his recent return to assemblage and appropriation.

‘…unless you have unlimited funds and time, it’s very difficult to say what you can offer the world that isn’t directly linked to your personality. Okay, so you live this particular limited life but no two lives are ever the same; with little funding it seemed to me that the biggest space left is really a novelistic one, a place where you can use your imagination and speak, confess, admit…’ - George Barber, “‘S’ap’nin’ Man? to ‘What Blow, Blud?”, Filmwaves

George Barber/Beyond Language is curated by Matthew Noel-Tod for LUX

More information about George Barber can be found at

www.luxonline.org.uk/artists/george_barber

Beyond Language is supported by the University for the Creative Arts Research Fund. LUX is supported by Arts Council England

PROGRAMME

Tilt 1983 5’ 37”

Scratch Video was the no-budget political video-collage movement of the early 1980s and Barber was always the most polished of these artists, and Tilt shows his ability to make seductive, easy-viewing pieces, while maintaining a subversive undercurrent.

Absence of Satan 1985 4’ 46”

Paul Newman appears eating salad and soon the famous sequence of Paul Newman closing a car door cut with a helicopter takes place. Absence of Satan is probably one of George Barber's best Scratch works and is a deft reworking of cinematic narrative and cliché.

Arts Council GB Scratch 1988 1’ 34”

‘Rodney Wilson commissioned this as a celebration of all the work that his section of the Arts Council did. It is the best thing Rodney ever did.’ GB

The Venetian Ghost 1988 13’ 25”

What's it like being a Renaissance man when your host is a jerk-of-all-trades? What's it like being obsessed with memory when your host lives in the perpetual present?

George Barber's The Venetian Ghost has as its hero a former ruler of Venice who, as a result of a semantic boo-boo, finds himself catapulted from the High Culture of Venice, Italia, to the High camp of Venice, LA. Barber plays up these oppositions in his usual offbeat style; having the figure of the ghost keyed in cartoon-like with Charlie and family - good-time Californians to a fault.

1001 Colours Andy Never Thought Of 1989 2’ 26”

1001 Colours Andy Never Thought Of takes the scratch genre to a postmodern extreme by processing and colouring Andy Warhol's Marilyn prints. Warhol's famous print undergoes intense changes of tone, as a whole spectrum of colours slowly slide across the screen to the lush, over- the-top muzak on the soundtrack.

Schweppes Ad 1993 2’ 19”

The longing created by advertising is satirised in this remix of Schweppes advertising.

Hovis Ad 1994 52”

Barber's witty deconstructions of advertising and product (like Schweppes Ad and The Story of Wash and Go), merge here with the voice of his monologue films. In Hovis Ad we're offered the inside story of the long running Hovis Ad as Barber's voice over highlights the psychological emptiness of the narratives delivered daily by consumer culture.

Passing Ship 1994 6’ 34”

As in earlier tapes, Barber appropriates popular film culture and engages with it on his own terms. He reclines in his bath narrating, in a loosely constructed monologue, an account of how he survived a plane crash over water and the events which led up to it. A montage of 1970s American disaster films accompany and interact with his tongue-in-cheek account. Passing Ship is concerned with ambiguity in the representation of events.

The Story Of Wash & Go 1995 2’ 54”

A lo-fi dramatisation of Vidal's Sassoon's momentous, groundbreaking invention of the shampoo Wash and Go.

The Weather 1995 1’ 29”

Barber's adventures with graphics are here exploited to the full as a TV weatherman commands a very exciting weather report. Actor Brian Hickey performs a parody of a TV weatherman in a film which reminds us just how mannered most weather presentations are.

I Was Once Involved In A Shit Show 2003 6’ 56”

I Was Once Involved in a Shit Show is a monologue recollection of an art event that tallies with what many artists experience when they are involved in putting on unfunded group shows.

Refusing Potatoes 20035’ 45”

Barber constructs a curious biography around his father’s relationship to his nephew Alan Rickman who he dislikes one Christmas for refusing to eat potatoes – and the Barber family are later shocked at the Premiere to find that Rickman has ripped them off and used their father’s speech in the movie Michael Collins.

Following Your Heart Can Lead to Wonderful Things 2008 6’ 03”

Following Your Heart… uses off-air adverts, minor films and manipulates them into a new artistic experience. The adverts all relate to the ‘heart’ in some way, either through health or in the usual capitalistic fashion asking people to consume by appealing to their emotions. A variety of adverts are used, ranging from mobile campaigns, credit cards, bread, new DVDs, to Fantastic Voyage, the classic film about a miniature craft inserted into some poor soul’s blood stream.

Other films in the Artist Film And Video:

06 Film: Hexen 2039 The Movie (2006)

6 Feb 2007, 7:30 p.m.

New military-occult technologies for psychological warfare. A Rosalind Brodsky research programme.

09 Film: Presenting Filmmakers: Guy Sherwin (1970'S-Present Day)

9 Feb 2007, 7:30 p.m.

For the first in our series of 'Presenting Filmmakers' we have the great privelege of hosting Guy Sherwin.

09 Film: Presenting Filmmakers: Guy Sherwin (1970-Present)

9 Feb 2007, 7:30 p.m.

For the first in our series of 'Presenting Filmmakers' we have the great privelege of hosting Guy Sherwin.

13 Film: Single Shot (2006)

13 Feb 2007, 7:30 p.m.

Artist Video Compilation

14 Film: Xxx - Another History Of The Avant Garde (The Sixties, Yeah!)

14 Feb 2007, 7:30 p.m.

A little bit of arty crumpet for Valentine's night - not the athena poster of the man holding the baby, but some psychadelic 16mm closeups of people getting it on, including macho bikers and bohemian couples.

17 Film: Eyes Wide Open (Open Submission Night)

17 Feb 2007, 7:30 p.m.

Eyes Wide Open - This is the night for you to submit your films and for the audience to submit to the films you have submitted. They can of course vocalise their feelings because we run a participatory cinema, so heckling and shouts of approval are encouraged. If your film will slice across the audiences eyes like Un Chien Andalou, or make eyes close through boredom or lack of endurance, we the anti-seletors donmt care, because as long as the film is shorter than 15mins we'll take it. On this first EWO at the Star and Shadow, watch out for opportunities to win FREE super 8 and 16mm film and processing. We encourage movie-maker's hollywood attempts and avant-garde ramblings, commonly known as Artist's Film and Video. (£3, free for film makers)

21 Film: Bata-Ville (2005)

21 Feb 2007, 7:30 p.m.

We are not afraid of the future

18 Film: Films From The Civic Life Series & Daydream (Various)

18 Apr 2007, 7:30 p.m.

The Civic Life series began in July 2003 and includes seven films, each one shot in a day, that capture different places and communities in daring long takes. Daydream follows on from the Civic Life series and is a half hour film shot over four days using multiple locations.

19 Film: Lone Productions Aka Simone Bennett

19 Apr 2007, 7:30 p.m.

Simone Bennett is a filmmaker/video artist from the Netherlands. Since graduating in audio-visual art from the Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam, she has made severals shorts in Berlin and the Netherlands. She'll present and talk about 10 works that combine experimental film with narrative story telling, from 70s gangster movies with women dressed as sleazy men, to 'Trilogy' which uses as source material dark, sensational stories from tabloids.

08 Film: Home Suite (1993)

8 Jun 2007, 7:30 p.m.

By John Smith

08 Film: Home Suite (1993-4)

8 Jun 2007, 7:30 p.m.

A personal video work that starts in a humorous post structuralist analysis of video making and John Smith's dank bathroom, and soon becomes a beautifully measured protest film about the M11 motorway developments.

05 Film: No More Pictures Babe (2006-07)

5 Sep 2007, 6 p.m.

Reception & screening of autobiographical films. By artist, secret photographer, writer and filmmaker Zuzana Lola Hruskova. The author’s films speculate about the desperate feelings of photographer to satisfy her needs, which are unlike the real world in various important ways are insane or hysterical.

13 Film: Light Bulb 08 Presents: Love And Anarchy - The Wild, Wild World Of Jaimie Leonarder

13 Sep 2007, 8 p.m.

Filmed over a six year period, this film explores the life and multi-layered passions of Sydney counter-culture personality, Jaimie Leonarder.

26 Film: Basement Basement

26 Sep 2007, 7:30 p.m.

Basement Basement is a collection of films celebrating Ayton Basement, the artist run space that opened on the Quayside in 1976.

09 Film: Cory Arcangel: Untitled Translation Exercise (2006)

9 Dec 2007, 7:30 p.m.

New York-based artist Cory Arcangel will give a special performance / lecture at Star and Shadow Cinema on Sunday 9 December 4:00pm followed by a UK film premiere of a new work at 7:30pm.

29 Film: She Should Have Gone To The Moon (2007)

29 Oct 2008, 7 p.m.

The astonishing story of the pilot and pioneer, Jerri Truhill, who trained in NASA’s top secret Mercury 13 programme, 1961, to become one of the first women astronauts. The film will be introduced by artist-filmmaker Ulrikke Kubatta.

29 Film: The Short Films Of Anna Biller

29 Oct 2009, 7:30 p.m.

American feminist film-maker Anna Biller is a true auteur. Writer, producer, director, actor, musician and art director. When we showed her sexploitation feature, VIVA, earlier in the year, it was one of our most controversial nights. Tonight we show Anna's short films, and she joins us in conversation from Hollywood (via the miracle of Skype).

11 Film: The Wooden Lightbox - Alex Mackenzie

11 Nov 2009, 7:30 p.m.

"the wooden lightbox: a secret art of seeing" is a hand-processed black and white film created partially with some hand-made emulsion, and presented on a hand-cranked 16mm projector which Alex constructed out of cast off pieces of projectors and rewinds and then encased in wood. Image of projector and info on the piece: http://www.alexmackenzie.ca/lightbox.html You can see a sample of it here: http://www.alexmackenzie.ca/lightbox_sample_clips.html and stills here: http://alexmackenzie.ca/images/lightbox_1.jpg http://alexmackenzie.ca/images/lightbox_2.jpg http://alexmackenzie.ca/images/lightbox_3.jpg

02 Film: Kenneth Anger's Magick Lantern Cycle (1974-1981)

2 Dec 2009, 7:30 p.m.

Film-maker and writer Kenneth Anger was a seminal figure in both gay and experimental film, and influenced rock and roll, theatre and dance almost as much as film.

22 Film: Cgi Fridays! King Kong (2005)

22 Jan 2010, 7:30 p.m.

Come for the launch of the first in a series of Friday night screenings celebrating the wonder and horrors of computer-generated imagery! Tonight: King Kong, the 2005 remake of the 1933 classic.

09 Film: Cgi Fridays! James Hutchinson Chooses The Fifth Element (1997)

9 Apr 2010, 7:30 p.m.

Come for the second in a series of Friday night screenings celebrating the wonder and horrors of computer-generated imagery! Tonight local artist James Hutchinson will show some of his short animations and following that he has chosen The Fifth Element for us to see, on 35mm.

06 Film: James Holcombe Super 8 Films

6 May 2010, 7:30 p.m.

James Holcombe makes amazing films made on Super 8 and 16mm film. He's well placed to master these magical materials, - he works at No.w.here lab, an artist's film lab in London, where he passes the alchemy on - teaching processing and printing techniques at regular workshops.

08 Film: Selected

8 Jun 2011, 7:30 p.m.

Selected brings together some of the best new artists’ moving image. Shortlisted artists for the 2010 Film London Jarman Award have selected work by up-and-coming film-making talent, to develop an invigorating new programme that's touring the UK in May/Jun. Filmmakers will be present for Q&A. Produced by videoclub and Film London Artists’ Moving Image Network. www.videoclub.org.uk

02 Film: Richard Tuohy - New 16mm Works (Various)

2 Nov 2011, 7:30 p.m.

Richard Tuohy is in the UK from his native Australia presenting work at Leeds International Film Festival. Luckily for us Star and Shadow have managed to nab him for a late addition to our always brilliant, irregular series of artists 16mm film screenings.

10 Film: Richard Tuohy - New 16mm Works (Various)

10 Nov 2011, 9:15 p.m.

10 Film: Richard Tuohy - New 16mm Works (Various)

10 Nov 2011, 9:15 p.m.

30 Film: Selected 2 (2012)

30 May 2012, 7:30 p.m.

Nominated by the shortlisted artists for the Jarman Award 2011, Selected II brings together some of the best emerging film and video artists from the UK in a dazzling programme of new artists’ moving image. Artists will be present for Q&A. Only North East screening!

14 Film: Best Of Punto Y Raya Festival

14 Nov 2012, 7:30 p.m.

The best picks of the Punta Y Raya Festival last year in Madrid. This festival, which has been called the "most abstract in the world", explores the creative possibilities of dots and lines in various spheres of science, art and thought. No representation, just dots and lines as ends in themselves!

13 Film: Films Of Rei Hayama And Makino Takashi

13 Nov 2013, 7:30 p.m.

Two experimental filmmakers from Japan pay us a visit to share their work

09 Film: One Hundred Foot Ii

9 Jul 2014, 7:30 p.m.

A collection of works by leading film artists, presented by artist compiler Jim Hobbs. 100 feet (166 seconds) is the standard length for a small spool of ﬁlm and remains an interesting limitation and a pertinent format.