A city is an eco-system and we’re going to explore it. Florence Wilkinson, author of Wild City: Encounters With Urban Wildlife takes us on the journey into why we should engage with our fellow urban species. Luke Turner of The Quietus, author of Out of the Woods describes his memoir on sexuality, shame and the lure of the trees on the cities edge and Roy Vickery of the South London Botanical Institute and author of Vickery’s Folk Flora discusses the lore of London’s urban plant life.
Plus short films curated by Video Strolls! (you can also watch below)
CBTR You Are Here: Your 2020 Highlights by Kevin Boniface
“Your 2020 Highlights: Wearing your anorak to protect you from doubt, The downy remains of a sparrowhawk kill, Creating a garden display by sticking some succulents to a wall with expanding foam, Recalling the time you paid 10€ for a Coke in Lanzarote, Checking the fire resistant credentials of your commemorative wreath…”
“The first lockdown unmoored time from any kind of schedule creating a perpetual present which, given the backdrop of the pandemic, provided plenty of time for feeling anxious. But it also gave space for different kinds of drifting, both intellectual and physical. Time to read and pursue whims with energy and enthusiasm and drop them without feeling guilty about “wasted” time and time to wander without aim. With human life on standstill and shut away inside my attention while out walking shifted to the more-than-human-world which, it was comforting to see, continued unabated. Even in the city more than humans are all around, a parallel world requiring only a slight perceptual re-shift, a tilt of the head, to be brought into focus.”
For 4WCOP we’ve gathered a collection of psychogeographical shorts reflecting this year’s theme “Wish We Were Here”.
You can binge-watch them all here or pace yourself as we’ll share them on Facebook (@videostrollsarchive)at intervals in the run-up to the Congress on 4th September 2022.
The films are divided into three subjects: The Seaside, Roads to Nowhere and New Towns / New Worlds
Wish We Were Here: The Seaside
Exploring the wish you were here, kiss me quick, saucy postcard ideas of the British coast.
Returning to the coastal town in which the artist grew up.
“This is a film about my home, and about ‘home’ in general. it’s also about moving away, moving on and growing up, and it’s my attempt at making something productive out of feelings of nostalgia and melancholy.”
“Eden, in Northern Ireland, shares few of the qualities of its namesake. It exists around the perimeter fence of one of Ireland’s largest power stations. This portrait of my hometown forms the basis of a video that explores a run-down half-forgotten place. Focusing on Eden’s residents, the work reveals a place filled with eccentricity, humour and beauty.”
Wish We Were Here:Roads to Nowhere
Failed transport links, demolished stations, abandoned roads and motorways never built. We wish were here, but how do we get there?
Give My Regards to Broad Street Station by WisGEMs
A little guide on the remains of Broad Street Station.
Why was this Essex motorway never built? by Holloway Tyre
“What or where is the M12? Where was it supposed to go, and why did it not get built? People were asking. I needed answers.”
Episode 2 of a series exploring some of the UK’s abandoned or disused roads. Old roads in the woods, motorway junctions or forgotten slip roads, this series has it all!
Wish We Were Here: New Towns / New Worlds
Visions of the future, from the past and from the present.
Inspired by games such as Myst, and a poem by Glissant of the same name, this is a dream-like short about the desire to find ‘negative islands’ from which the world might be unmade. Nisha Ramayya plays ‘S’, who circles between lime kiln tunnels, observation decks high above a future city, and the London clubbing scene, trying to find a re-beginning or a good way through this field of islands and into a world beyond.
Discover what remains of south London’s Great North Wood and revel in the revivial of the Deptford Jack in the Green mayday celebration. Complementary verdant short films from Video Strolls.
Caitlin Davies – Queens of the Underworld: A Journey into the Lives of Female Crooks Lara Maiklem – Mudlarking: Lost and Found on the River Thames Tom Chivers – London Clay: Journeys in the Deep City
For the Urban Tree Festival we have curated a collection of artists’ films that look at trees.
There is one a day for the duration of the festival – 15th to 23rd May – or you can binge them all in one go.
Day one – 15th May
Das Klang (Shaun Martin)
“My work revolves around the concepts of Hauntology and the recollection of a degraded image and sound. Each piece employs Hauntological mechanisms such as reintroduction of error and the haunting of ghosts, and uses techniques to reference Deleuze’s modalities of sensation, of vibration, resonance and forced movement. Utilising video editing and generative software built in Cycling 74 MaxMSP, I make visual documentaries from found image and sound that aim to re-invoke the spectres of a misremembered past and dislocate time”
Lichen
Day Two – 16th May
John Rogers
London-based film-maker and writer John Rogers, author of This Other London – adventures in the overlooked city. Find out more: The Lost Byway
Autumn Walk in Epping Forest
Day Three – 17th May
Sam Enthoven
Sound artist, ex-author and occasional filmmaker, now exploring the places where stories and sound meet. Find out more www.sinistermasterplan.com
Sam’s Plague Transmissions are a series of pieces begun while in coronavirus lockdown in London.
Plague Transmission 14
Plague Transmission 23
Day Four – 18th May
Chris H Lynn
Chris H. Lynn is a moving image maker, sound artist, educator, and curator from the United States. His digital images and Super 8 films capture the subtle rhythms of movement, light, and sound in urban and rural landscapes that vary from the Eastern shores of Maryland, U.S. to Nanjing, China. Find out more: https://vimeo.com/chrishlynn
November Afternoon
part of an ongoing series called The Journal of Drifting Hours
Day Five – 19th May
Bill Newsinger
Bill Newsinger is an award winning freelance filmmaker based in Leicester, UK.
Treetops
Day Six – 20th May
Chris Welsby
Welsby began making landscape films and installations in the early 70s, and although he has worked across a range of media he has always concentrated on one particular theme: how do we see ourselves in relation to the natural world and how should we position our selves and our technologies within it? His art practice was heavily influenced by Structural Materialist film theory at the London Film Makers Co-operative and by cybernetic and systems theory at the Slade School of Fine Art, where as a student and later as a faculty member, he came into contact with some of the pioneers of interactive technology and computer-driven art forms. Find out more: https://chriswelsby.uk
Trees in Winter (extract)
Day Seven – 21st May
Liberty Rowley
Liberty Rowley makes short films and take photographs, mainly while walking, or travelling on the bus. She is one of the curatorial team at Video Strolls
Spinning Treetops (Winter)
Day Eight – 22nd May
O D Davey and Liberty Rowley
Owen Davey is a writer, director and performer, working in song, film and the gallery. In 2014 he founded Video Strolls, a nonprofit that curates art and film events that explore place and journeying. Currently an AHRC North West Consortium funded and Disabled Students Allowance supported PhD candidate at the University of Salford, doing practice-based research into ‘The Enfoldment of Song and First Person Filmmaking‘. Find out more: https://oddavey.com
Liberty Rowley makes short films and take photographs, mainly while walking, or travelling on the bus. She is one of the curatorial team at Video Strolls
The Crystal Wald
Day Nine – 23rd May
John Rogers
London-based film-maker and writer John Rogers, author of This Other London – adventures in the overlooked city. Find out more: The Lost Byway
Flatpack Festival have kindly invited us to put together a programme for their Home Entertainment Edition. It’ll be live from 14-17 May.
At a time when movement is so greatly reduced, the simple act of going for a walk takes on a new significance. While many of us are still able to take a stroll close to home, the act of venturing further afield to explore other cities or even countries is fast becoming a distant memory. We’re here to help. With this selection of ambulatory themed shorts, we invite you for a wander around a conflict zone in Iraqi Kurdistan, a back-alley pilgrimage in Islington and a cross-city odyssey in Birmingham, all without leaving the house.
Join Video Strolls curator Owen Davey and other Manchester artists/filmmakers for a FREE screening of music/place/films this Thursday, details on the flyer!
Additionally, Owen’s work and that of 500+ other Mancunian artists and filmmakers, place’y or otherwise, can be viewed at the first ever Manchester Open Exhibition at HOME MCR over the next couple of months. Enjoy!
Come and observe the shortest day of 2019 with a four-mile walk from Bordesley Henge to Witton Cemetery via Spaghetti Junction and the Grand Union Canal. We’ll watch the sunrise at the standing stones of Kingston Hill Park before following the canal northwards to the dramatic Witton Cemetery, a fitting spot to mark the dying of the year. Ceremonial embellishments will be provided by Hipkiss and Graney.
Meet at Bordesley Station* at 7:45am or if coming from Stirchley meet at Artefact at 7am for a taxi-share. If you’re planning on coming please email andy@videostrolls.com so we don’t leave anyone behind.
We’ll go ahead whatever the weather although we may cut things short and seek shelter if necessary. Wrap up warm!
*No trains will be operating; it’s just a handy start point.
Video Strolls presents a collection of artists films made in, through and about Quiet Spaces.
Alleyways, back gardens, front rooms, lay-bys, meadows and public toilets – these short films range from documentaries, narrative fiction to more experimental, abstract works. As with all Video Strolls screenings there is plenty of humour along with the thoughtfulness.
Join us for a pre-screening stroll. Meet at Leytonstone Tube Station at 7pm we’ll take in the Churchyard, the Matalan carpark before heading to the library.
Wednesday 3rd July / 7pm – walk, 7:45pm – film screening /Leytonstone Library, 6 Church Lane, Leytonstone, London E11 1HG
Video Strolls presents a collection of artists films made in, through and about Quiet Spaces.
videostrolls.com 