Output details
34 - Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory
University of East London
The Hiss of the Blow
The Hiss of the Blow (S16mm/16mm/HDV, 17.40mins loop) is a two screen installation with a field monitor featuring two boxers Marianne Marston and Angel MacKenzie. Eastwood’s research adopted the Situationist strategy of the derive, or drift, achieved by reacting to chance encounters around the East End. This tactic brought him to St Mungo’s Homeless Charity and ultimately Rooney’s Gym, a boxing gymnasium in London Bridge. Eastwood got to know the Gym’s boxers, particularly two women boxers on the cusp of progressing from amateur to professional status. Both women had taken up boxing in their 30s having had major illness or suffering significant physical injury. Eastwood adopted a non-representational, highly structural, and formally innovative approach to filming the two boxers, transcribing their interview testimonies into song lyrics, entering the ring to film their boxing bouts and ultimately sparring himself.
This multi-screen film installation was the product of a residency at Jerwood Space, London (29 July-31 August 2009). Eastwood received a £2,000 commission to produce and exhibit a new artwork within one of the three Jerwood Gallery room-studios. Exhibited in a show curated by Sarah Williams as part of the 'Jerwood Encounters' programme that aims to use the space as a testing ground for new works, it offered Eastwood a chance to work on a larger-scale piece. There were opening and closing events at which visitors were invited to observe the development of each artist's work. The exhibition catalogue, produced in conjunction with The Partners Design Studio, was printed on site with new pages added each day.
Hiss of the Blow was reviewed in Art Monthly, the Artists’ Newsletter, Time Out (http://www.timeout.com/london/art/laboratory) and Animate Projects on-line
The artist was interviewed in online arts and moving image journals including, AN (http://www.jvalab.co.uk/), and AP Engine (http://www.apengine.org/2010/02/steven-eastwood-the-hiss-of-the-blow/ / http://www.apengine.org/2010/02/steven-eastwood/).
For online exhibition catalogue, http://vimeo.com/10606301
