Schedule and cinema

by Alex Hetherington, 14 Feb 2008

We are now the proud producers of an event series at Park Gallery with a great (hopefully) confirmed line-up: Tut-Vu Vu, Jim Colquhoun, Fool for a Pretty Face and the House/Lights performance. The video and sound work for this piece will be finalized soon. And we are discussing all the work for the installation Meddle with the Devil. We also have to finalize the screens which we need to leave the team of arts officers to organize, we have an interesting set of works in already but it’s trickled away and we’d like to see more work in our in-tray. Communication seems to be an interesting development during this period, it’s difficult to reach some people which stalls and sways the continuity.

The appearance of cinema keeps being a theme, with Dog Day Afternoon, The Shining, Zodiac, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre among today’s long discussions. The Texas Chain Saw Massacre’s original print belongs to the Museum of Modern Art, and of course Kubrick’s King adaptation is genius. I re-enacted the last few scenes for Janie who hasn’t seen the film in its entirety. I started from the moment Wendy wakes up to see MURDER written on the bathroom door, in reflection, in the mirror, and Danny’s voice getting more high-pitched and quickened as he repeats: “redrum” over and over again. I ended on the long-take as the camera moves towards Nicholson’s face from the Overlook Hotel party. My favorite scene is in the men’s room with Dilbert Grady, the walls of the bathroom bright red. I think Janie is planning a performance to take a tricycle through Callendar House as a re-enactment of The Shining. I wonder where in Falkirk we can get three million gallons of fake blood and a bear costume. All this horror had me adding sellotape all over my face and the images for this will end up in the show alongside a vinyl lettering text – The New York Times. I think we both drank too much coffee today or maybe we just indulged ourselves in far too many references. I recommended Janie read The Monstrous Feminine by Barbara Creed and Men, Women and Chain Saws by Carol J. Clover. I can just see security at the House having a field day as we re-enact scenes from horror movies (with the House in the Woods theme) wielding axes and power tools.

I have also been thinking about horror movies, mainly The Tenant by Roman Polanski and the transvestite identity shift in this film in what is called his apartment series: Rosemary’s Baby and Repulsion being the others. (So we have isolated individuals going crazy in isolated places). I think The Tenant has some mirroring with House/Lights and the way I am playing it. It’s also a nice theme for the residency.

We also talked about Zodiac, David Fincher’s brilliant movie and the cryptograms the killer sent to the press. Maybe the new text will be San Francisco Chronicle. I am thinking about how people communicate with the press. We also talked about Ed Gein and of course Robert Bloch’s Psycho and Silence of the Lambs. Later when we show at the Hippodrome some of these film ideas will appear on screen.

What I wonder are your thoughts on horror movies?

More on Meddle with the Devil as it progresses. Please stand by.