Output details

Ensemble:

The project critiques the formal relationship and traditions of music based film.

This practice-led research project extends the collaborative practices in my previous work The Solo to include a much wider body of musicians and performance contexts. The research focused on the 1970s cult group The Enid in order to explore the wider symphonic contexts of their music including their own collaborative projects with orchestras.

Outcomes include a series of film-based activities that focus upon the group’s activities in the recording studio and in concert with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. A further stage of the project examines in more detail the relationship between group and orchestra but in the specific context of music and cinema is currently in development.

Earlier screenings of the work were made for the Ikon Gallery, Birmingham October 2011 (as part of Super-sonic music festival) Crate/Limbo Gallery Margate December 2011. Following these screenings further developments took place, including the creation of new material. The final edit was shown at Vancouver Contemporary Art January 2012.

As a moving image work incorporating music, and as an observation about the production of music, the project critiques the formal relationship and traditions of music based film, including performance documentaries and promotional pop videos. Through formal construction and editing the work attempted to explore and redefine the subtle relationships between image and sound, whilst avoiding one becoming subordinate to the other. The work features interviews with The Enid’s eccentric leader Robert John Godfrey whose music blends classical music and literary references that work ‘against the grain’ of established rock music traditions. Extending research established with The Solo this work offers further re-evaluation of the ‘rock-star’ figure and its visual representations.

‘Ensemble 2011 – 2012’ was major feature of the 2012 PuSh International performing Arts Festival.