PSL & ESA - The Review

I have deliberately left this review for a while, to let my thoughts simmer about what was said and what types of work were created. 

To be honest, I am more than a little mystified by the attitudes of the collaborators that were present at the PSL gallery. Dave Ronalds' work with two other collaborators seemed intriguing, until he discussed further "additions" that were made to increase the dramatising effect. Surely, if the topic that is being dealt with is not of great enough interest, or they feel it is not of great enough interest to others, there are slightly more subtle ways of dealing with the issue, than using smoke and lights. To me, his idea of what a collaboration "had" to be, took over the group in such a way, making it look like the outcome was guarenteed from the start. Furthermore, if they were not happy in the outcome at the time, why not alter it at the beginning? Still, the notion of one thing affecting another, and another, much like that of the Honda "Cog" advert, was somewhat intriguing, even if not original. 

Janis Rafailidou did have a more level approach. Openly admitting that her collaboration was not the easiest thing to work with, I believe her documentary effectively recorded the lives of a group of foreigners living in Greece. I found her work to be much more of an observation, that, although lost in way in certain places, did convey a very effective message. That of being in difficult circumstances, and having to make the best of a situation in order to survive. The way the two artists negotiated the collaboration was more to do with a spatial seperation, which, to me, ended up distracting one part from the other. Her justification from this seemed to only come from not being able to resolve differences with the other artist. 

ESA was home to the collective: Exp24. With Martha Jurksaitis as our host for the afternoon, we gained an insight into experimental filming, and the fruits of exploration that it can yeild. This is the first time I have ever been listening to someone talking about a collaboration, or, in her case, collective, who has actually been passionate and genuinely interested. All others have dealt with it as a boundary to be overcome. I feel that collaboration should never be forced upon anyone or seen as the way to pursue any one project. However, sometimes, these things do just form naturally. Anyone, a group of freinds can get together and enjoy themselves through a common interest. Perhaps that is why Martha used the word collective, since they are a collective of freinds, not a collaborative force, out to try and change the world with their individual earth shattering skills. The videos shown were visually exciting, although they are the type of things I have seen before from experimental film making. 

The whole day just made a few things much more clear to me. One being, if you are going to work collaboratively, make sure it is with someone you get on with. The other, is to be open with each other, not having any fixed directive about which way to approach any one thing. The third thing is to remember to visit gallerys before the project is well underway.

Roy Wood: royhalvard@btinternet.com