On Lyndsay Mann, A gesture seen in a half-light
Lyndsay Mann’s work inhabits a range of hybrid indefinite dichotomous forms from the physical gesturing of language structures and evocative text display: cut-out, floating, high-pitched, the screen as an annotation on voice (dysfluencies, utterances, inflections, hesitations, unconscious, involuntary noise), the voice-over and subtitle as suggestions of the sensory, as theatre, as character, as action, felted fabric sewn over an articulated sculptural mechanisms becoming a manifestation of brain work, a thinking object. These membranes of practice (scripting, dubbing, documentation, nar¬ratives and memories, properties and functions of materials, rehearsal and repetition) flow and overflow to create a vivid portrayal of visual artist as dramaturge.
The Slow-Work is a project on Mann’s current practice, and functions as kind of screen-capture to speculate on her current research and its displacements across a number of themes mediating between character, narrative, the theatrical, the confessional and the intimate. This project extends into a present tense and a public staging conversations between Lyndsay Mann and Alex Hetherington on the formation of Modern Edinburgh Film School and its observations, as a kind of prism, on how one thing can be seen through another and how the poetic, voice, gesture, sound, choreography of space, touches upon how artists might work with the screen and its rationale, with the camera and its gaze, and in turn to its presence in sculptural works, in objects and things, and how they are seen, viewed, dispersed and displayed. It is also a consideration on the spaces, historical too, of the Georgian Library, an invocation of study and its private inner conduct and contact of the language of science and law and art, in perpetuity.
Mann’s film 60 seconds the release, commissioned for a screening event The Hand that Holds the Desert Down, ESW, March 2013 is an indicator of some of these dialogues, these connections. The description, the utterance, words shaping actions, repetitions shaping form, form shaping space, space shaping memory.
The title, The Slow-Wave refers to a sleep state, of which there are many, that consolidates memory, placing it sometimes haphazardly within our brain cells and synapses, making the real unreal, it is also the stage where sleepwalking, including the performance of, or gesturing of simple everyday tasks, repetitive actions and spoken utterances, is most likely to take place. And for those with more severe somnambulism, a portrayal of life, and its habits, actions, responses and feelings, dramas, tragedies are mimicked or sometimes fully expressed with unspeakable consequences under dream conditions, under illusion, under hallucinatory motivations.
And then a synecdoche.
Mann’s appearance here establishes the notion within Modern Edinburgh Film School’s motivation of where one small part of something reveals the whole thing, but in turn in the making, in the seeing, and in the conversations, of which this is another, has become a kaleidoscope.
I want to express my gratitude to Lyndsay Mann, to all the staff at Talbot Rice Gallery, the University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh College of Art and Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop, as well as New Media Scotland and Creative Scotland, for supporting the making of this particular project.
Alex Hetherington
The Slow-Wave, 24 May 2013
Ute Aurand, introduced by Dr Sarah Neely, August 2013
The Slow-Wave, 24 May 2013, Talbot Rice Gallery, Edinburgh
Portmanteau, a film screening at Product, ESW, Edinburgh Art Festival, 3-17 August 2013
June 2013
Alt-w | Modern Edinburgh Film School | New Media Scotland
Niven_bird room 2.jpg Saturday 25th May 2013, 8pm. Inspace, 1 Crichton Street, Edinburgh EH8 9AB Modern Edinburgh Film School presents an expanded cinema event with a preface by Alex Hetherington. Claire Denis’ masterpiece ‘Beau Travail’ will screen
Modern Edinburgh Film School, August 2013
Modern Edinburgh Film School is extremely proud to present The Slow-Wave, a project on the practice of Edinburgh-based artist Lyndsay Mann.
Designed as an observation on Mann’s current work and research The Slow-Wave, a talk and film screening, draws on aspects of the confessional in artists moving image through mediation between character, narrative, the theatrical, and the intimate. It traces a number of conversations on Mann’s work, and her various appearances during Modern Edinburgh Film School and considers, in detail, her sensitive and meticulously drawn approaches to the text, screen, performance and sculptural form.
The Slow-Wave refers to a sleep state that consolidates memory, it is also the stage where sleepwalking, including the performance, or gesturing, of simple everyday tasks, repetitive actions and spoken utterances, is most likely to take place.
Films in the programme include works by Mann, Chris Dyson & Katherine MacBride and Mark Chapman.
you are what you think about most of the time, Chris Dyson & Katherine MacBride, 9:14, TRANS, Mark Chapman, 7:00, Lyndsay Mann, 60 seconds the release, 1.00.
The Slow-Wave, Lyndsay Mann, with films from Katherine MacBride & Chris Dyson, Mark Chapman and Lyndsay Mann’s 60 seconds the release (2013). 24 May 2013, Georgian Gallery, Talbot Rice. Free.
