Spectral Conjuring of a Cinematic Present by Sam Nightingale
The Cinemas Project
Published by National Exhibitions Touring Support (NETS) Victoria, 2014.
Edited by Bridget Crone.
To celebrate the culmination of the first iteration of The Cinemas Project, a book has been published that catalogues the commissioned artists’ work as well as highlighting some of the sites of cinema that were included in the project.Read More
Dr Chris O’Rourke & Sam Nightingale
29 – 31 October 2014
Exhibition Launch: 28 October 18.30 – 21.00
Opening Times: 29 – 31 10.00 – 20.00
UCL Cities Methodologies 2014
5th Floor, Slade Research Centre
Woburn Square, London WC1H 0AM
London’s Lost Cinemas brings together an interactive map showing London’s lost or forgotten cinemas and photographs of the spaces that they once occupied. Between 1906 and 1930, nearly one thousand cinemas opened in and around London. These ranged from converted shops and amusement arcades to lavish ‘picture palaces’. The exhibit showcases new research and creative responses to this early period of cinema history. It invites visitors to imagine the impact that cinemas have had on London’s streets and its people, and to consider how the relationship between moving images and the city has changed over time.
Sam Nightingale’s work focuses on the London Borough of Islington where he has photographed the many locations where cinemas once stood. The images articulate the latent (or spectral) presence of this history through photographing what remains: depicting urban spaces that are at once both in the present and out of time.
Interactive map presentation times:
Wednesday: 11:00-13:00, 17:00-18:00
Thursday: 12:00-14:00-17:30-18:30
Friday: 13:00-Close
Bio
Dr. Chris O’Rourke is a Research Associate in film studies funded by the UCL Centre for Humanities Interdisciplinary Research Projects (CHIRP). His research looks at the early history of cinemas and cinema-going in London. He also teaches on UCL’s MA in Film Studies and MSc in Urban Studies.
Twitter: @ChrisORourke1 / www.ucl.ac.uk/chirp/research/projects/filmland
Sam Nightingale is a London-based artist who works with photography and the moving image. Nightingale’s practice is concerned with enlivening and imploding the hidden spaces within and between built structures.He works in a research-based and site related way to reveal the multiple histories of cinematic spaces both real and imagined.
www.samnightingale.com / www.islingtonslostcinemas.com
Cities Methodologies is an annual exhibition and programme of events showcasing innovative urban research methodologies. Through peer-reviewed exhibits and events, it draws together undergraduate, masters, and doctoral research, alongside work produced by academics and other researchers and practitioners.
Work from Islington’s Lost Cinemas will be shown as ‘London’s Lost Cinemas’ as part of UCL Urban Laboratory, Cities Methodologies, taking place at the Slade Research Centre, Woburn Square, WC1H 0HB (map): 29-31 October, with a launch event from 6.30pm on 28th October 2014.
The work to be shown at Cities Methodologies is presented in collaboration with Dr Chris O’Rourke, who is developing an interactive map and resource detailing the early history of cinema in London.
Cities Methodologies is an annual exhibition and programme of events showcasing innovative urban research methodologies. Through peer-reviewed exhibits and events, it draws together undergraduate, masters, and doctoral research, alongside work produced by academics and other researchers and practitioners. Cities Methodologies promotes cross- and inter-disciplinary work and in 2012 showcased recent research on a wide range of cities including Detroit, Paris, London, Johannesburg, Mumbai and Beirut.
A Brooks Art Residency Programme
Artist Event and Film Screening: Resort Studios, Margate, Saturday 11th October 2014
A Brooks Art is delighted to present an artist event and film screening that coincides with the inaugural A Brooks Art residency project based in Marfa West Texas: Parallax Shifts: In Search of Imagined Landscapes by Sam Nightingale. The artist will talk about the residency in Marfa, show work in progress and screen a special Spaghetti Western film at the Resort Studios Gallery in Margate.
The artist residency, which takes place close to the border with Mexico, is an area of significant frontier history: charged with myth, fantasy and visual representations that the era of Spaghetti Western films sought to imagine and disrupt. Spaghetti Western films were made in the deserts and foothills of Spain and Italy, but conjured or imagined the landscape of the American West: a frontier where anything could happen. These films depicted a poetic vision of the West: morality was certain, and where the good, the bad and the ugly would battle! Join us for drinks and an evening at the wild frontier!
Details:
Saturday 11th October 2014
6pm – 8pm Private View & Meet the Artist
8pm – 9.30pm Special Film Screening: an artist selected Spaghetti Western!
Resort Studios, The Pettman Building, 50 Athelstan Road, Cliftonville, Margate.
I am currently on a residency in West Texas – you can read more about that in the post below. But to keep up to date with my adventures and the project I am working on there is a residency blog, which you can see here. I am updating it every few days while I am on the residency.