We had a guest lecturer Owen Davey come in to talk to us about Psychogeography in relation to our project maps and networks. He is a graduate of DFSA back in 2009 and since then has gone on to do extensive video pieces all relating primarily to the idea of Video Strolls. He not only makes his own Psychogeography based pieces know as video strolls but he curates a website where they publish other artists work too related to the same themes. They do things such as film screening through out the country and are really pushing this idea of Video Strolls as much as possible. I feel like he is very much someone who likes to look at work and produce work in a way which focuses heavily on the themes of psychogeography and the whole idea of piece rather than getting bogged down with technical features such as the visuals. He explains to us that he has discovered his own way of making work which is down in a very obvious DIY style and then he focuses on the narration more to depict the story the piece is telling. We got shown a lot of work by him and other artist that he likes and I have resisted and looked into it because I feel like it could potentially really influence my idea of people watching which is closely linked to Psychogeography:
Owen D. Davey - The making of Godard and others (2012)
The Making of Godard & Others from Owen D. Davey on Vimeo.
The idea behind this film is really quiet confusing yet interesting. He is following this film crew round documenting their shoot but actually doing so in quiet a bleak manner and this at time creates humour for us as the viewer. I feel like this piece heavily focused on the narration to explain the visuals otherwise it really wouldn't have made sense. Owen explained that it was his own narration on this piece but he used a voice changer to make it unrecognisable. We asked him why this was and he said it was to do with the idea that even though the voice does represent hi he is doing it because it is a performance. He also aid he wanted the voice to sound much more mono toned and glum and he didn't think his natural voice fitted the role too well. I liked this concept of a fake voice a lot. He explained that this was one of his earlier pieces and after watching this piece back he began to actually push his focus in later pieces more towards making sure there are quiet moments rather than having full on narration through out.
Owen D. Davey - Rising (2013)
Rising from Owen D. Davey on Vimeo.
This piece began focusing a lot more on the quiet of the scene and having some quiet in the narration just like he said he wanted to try and focus on. This piece was him looking at and into the landscape a lot more and the beginning of him finding his stride with Video Strolls. This is the piece that sparked him to start his online website/archive of Video Strolls. This piece is a good example of the DIY style that he spoke to us about. It matches the piece in a strange kind of beautiful way because it looks homemade and therefore becomes a lot more reliable to a larger audience. Again he narrates this piece with his characters voice but it has a much smoother tone and pace to it which works well with the way the video has been edited so it has a really nice flow overall. I really like this piece because the idea works really effectively but in such a simplistic way. Almost like he knows not to overcomplicate things and just let people appreciate this landscape for what it is.
Owen D. Davey - Robey (2015)
Robey from Owen D. Davey on Vimeo.
For this piece Owen explained to us their wasn't a set in stone idea at first. With these kind of piece himself and similar artist prefer to think of the kind of journey or place they want to explore and then depending on what happens in that place and who they find that dictates the piece. For this piece they went exploring the areas in Hackney and found this man Tim Wells who had a lot of stories about the area and poems he had written about it. This then was what was chosen as the focus of the film. They got him to share his poems about this place and in particular the Pun called the Robey hence the name of the piece. Then they captured visuals to go with his narration. Because this piece was funded he used a much higher quality camera than usual so it doesnt match his DIY style yet the visuals are still really effective. This piece was really powerful at focusing on the urban landscape of this area and looking at the stories that happened in this place effectively.
Having looked at Owens work and his style he then showed us other interesting pieces of work from other artists that he liked:
Andrea Zimmerman - Estate, a Reverie (2015)
Estate, a Reverie, 83mins, 2015 (Trailer) from Andrea Luka Zimmerman on Vimeo.
Owen told us about this piece but because it is a feature length film there wasn't time to watch it however we watched the trailer together to get an idea about it. I personally really like the trailer and I think it works as a powerful short film in its own right. I think the music choice is so appropriate and the visuals work really powerfully at telling us about all these people that live on the estate. She made this piece because this estate is where she lives with all these people and they are being moved out so it can be knocked down so she decided to make a piece about the estate and the people there so she could remember them and show how important this estate actually is to all of them. Here film never had a set in stone storyline and again she just worked in a similar way saying that it depended on what all the people were like on camera and what was captured. then she looked back and fried a story. I would actually be really interested to when I get a chance watch this film in full and it seems like it would be a very interesting powerful piece of film.
Emily Richardson and Iain Sinclair - Memo Mori (2009)
This piece was made all about the land that was going to be lost due to London building the Olympic Stadium. An important part of land that would be lost are these allotments that have been there for years. This is almost like a protest film talking about everything that will be lost. It actually seems so basic as a piece and explains everything to you as the viewer so fourthly that it almost doesn't seem film like anymore. It is just so focused on the point they are making that the film elements are over looked. The visuals are basic with these long shots of the sheds but this is actually really powerful because its almost like each shed is representing a person that owns it and that really makes you empathise. this is their way of standing up for these people who will lose their allotments.
John Rogers - City of the Future, Milton Keynes (2016)
This piece is very strange in its concept because it is this Video Stroll artist John Rogers making a Video Stroll about him trying to get to a film screening of Video Strolls to talk about his work. He films the whole thing through two of his own cameras. One is a Go Pro on his head and the other is a hand held camera which again gives it the typical DIY Video Stroll feel. He even videos his talk at the screening. It is very weird to watch because its about his work and you know he is also making work from it. He hanse background in art apart from his love for Video Strolls and I feel like he has thought of this very unusual way to produce one.
Andrew Kotting - Jaunt (1995)
JAUNT from andrew kotting on Vimeo.
I really like the look of this piece as it has been done in a way which makes it appear like a piece of stop motion/time lapse film. It has this very jolty quality about it and plays with speed in a really interesting way. It seems very fast paced and constantly changes subject almost making it overwhelming which in a sense might be a reflection on the place. He has these voices which don't match with eh characters filmed and this means you can't tell weather this was the real sound captured or if it is voices he added himself in post. Either way he manipulates these voices in ways like speeding them up which adds a comedic aspect to the piece which I really like.
Finally we finished up looking at work with Owen by going back to one of his more experimental pieces. He was asked to direct a music video for musician Kathryn Joseph and her song Outtakes. He decided to use this as an experiment and asked all her fans to make 30 second abstract videos to do with eh song and send them to him. He reviewed the footage and rearranged all this to go with the music and was really happy with the amount of unique and interesting imagery they got sent. Here is the finished music video:
I really liked the finished product because not only is the process of how he made it really interesting but this finished piece is so powerful and works with his song so well. I am particularly interested in music videos myself and the making of them so this one has opened my eyes to how artistic and experimental you can be when making a music video.
This talk by Owen Davey has really helped open my eyes to psychogeopgraphy from the perspective of someone who actually makes it and produces it successfully. It has also shown me all the posiibbilties of different things you can do when you graduate such as curation and making your own archives and websites etc. I feel a lot more inspired with his topic now.
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