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Single
Shot
Lumen | 21 March 2007
Further
information »
Super 8 films and performance by John Porter
Lumen | 6 February 2007
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information »
Cinema of Prayoga
Lumen | 2 December 2006
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information »
Big Screen launch event hosted for Cornerhouse by Lumen
Lumen | 13 September 2006
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information »
Gastronomy
Lumen | 13 February 2006
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David Lamelas: Time is a Fiction
Lumen | 21 January 2006
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Something of the Night: Five film screenings curated by Lumen
Leeds City Art Gallery | 22 October
- 26 November 2005
Further information »
Found Footage
Leeds Central Library | 3-13 November
2005
Further information »
Lillian Schwartz: A Beautiful Virus Inside the Machine
Ocularis, New York | Lillian Schwartz
in person | 18 September 2005 | Further
information »
3 Films by Stan Brakhage
Leeds Central Library | 13 August
2005 | Further information
»
3 Films by Michael Snow
Leeds City Art Gallery | 30 July
2005
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LoVid at Lumen
Lumen, Monarch House, Queen Street,
Leeds | 19 July 2005
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Patrick Keiller:
The City of the Future
24 May 2005 | The Leeds Club
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Karen Mirza / Brad Butler / no.w.here
23
April | Leeds Central Library | 7pm
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information »
Margaret Tait:
Subjects and sequences
20 & 27 March 2005 | Leeds
Central Library
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Reverence: The films of Owen Land
25 & 26 February 2005 | Leeds
Central Library
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information »
Lillian Schwartz:
A Beautiful Virus Inside the Machine
21 January 2005 | PureScreen, Salford
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Antenna by Robert Whitman
29/30 October 2004 | Leeds
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information »
Evolution 2004
1-6 November 2004 | Leeds
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information »
It's all here and now and the future
5 March 2004 | Leeds
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information »
Evolution 2003
9-11 October 2003 | Leeds
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information »
Artists talk: Bill Fontana
22 May 2003 | Leeds
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information »
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David
Lamelas: Time is a Fiction
A Lux touring project curated by Jacqueline
Holt
21 January 2006| Lumen, Monarch
House, Queen Street, Leeds (directions)
| 7.30-9pm | £2.50/3.50 tickets available online soon,
space is limited to advance booking is recommended
Desert People film still
Time is a Fiction is a programme comprising five early 16mm films
by David Lamelas, best known as one of the pioneers of the Conceptual
Art practice that emerged in the 1960s and 1970s. Over the last
thirty years, he has produced an extraordinary body of films and
videos which consistently challenge our conventional understanding
of how meaning is made and information is imparted. In this programme
of some of his early films, Lamelas experiments with both the elliptical
constructs of fiction which frame and contain meaning, and the verité
qualities of durational documentation and straight to camera testimony.
Films
Reading Of An Extract From Labyrinths
By J.L. Borges
UK, 1970, 5 mins, 16mm, b/w, silent
The film Reading of an Extract from Labyrinths by J.
L. Borges shows a young woman reading an essay by Argentinean
writer Jorge Luis Borges titled Nueva refutación del tiempo
(New Refutation of Time) out loud. Her lips can be seen moving but
her voice cannot be heard. The phrases pronounced are actually shown
in subtitles, but the length of the presentation is too short to
permit them to be read and comprehended. This displacement and the
disorder it generates reveal different levels of information de-codification
in the work. The film makes the limits of our perception manifest,
and in this way echoes Borges’ rejection of both simultaneity
and succession, in other words, of the concatenation of deeds.
To Pour Milk Into A Glass
UK, 1972, 8 mins, 16mm, colour,
sound
Many of David Lamelas's works are exercises designed to test how
meaning is constructed in film. “I wanted to find symbols
for 'container' and 'contents' - to represent how the camera frames
- and what is shown on screen. ..I decided to use a glass and milk.
The eight sequences end with... the glass being shattered and the
milk splattering all over the table, which implies that there is
no way to contain information”.
Time As Activity (Dusseldorf)
Germany, 1969, 13 mins, 16mm, b/w
Time as Activity (Dusseldorf), made in 1969, is comprised
of three four-minute sequences, that register real time from a fixed
point, at three different places in the city (in the area surrounding
the Kunsthalle, a fountain and the city’s commercial center).
Part of the Time As Activity series.
A Study Of Relationships Between
Inner And Outer Space
UK, 1969, 20 mins 16mm, b/w, sound
David Lamelas’ first film, A Study of Relationships between
Inner and Outer Space analyzes the architectural, social, climatic,
or sociological data that make up the exhibition’s spatial
environment, that of the institution and its geographical location.
Beginning with the empty exhibition hall, the description is neutral
and analytical. It progresses in ever larger circles, placing emphasis
on all the important functional elements, from the electronic devices
in the exhibition space, to the city’s traffic regulation
to the communication and information media and finally, to the climatic
conditions of the London environment. The film concludes with six
interviews regarding the big news item of the day: the future “landing”
of the first men on the moon.
The Desert People
USA, 1974, 48 mins, 16mm, colour,
sound
David Lamelas describes it as “a study on American film production”.
The Desert People begins like a classic road-movie. The
setting is completely familiar to us: a car crossing the desert
with a group of people traveling on board. But as soon as the narration
begins, it is interrupted by documentary-style interviews. Passing
in this way from one film genre to another, Lamelas manages to blur
the boundary between fact and fiction.
The five passengers
describe their experience on a North American native Indian reservation.
Each member of the group has his or her own perspective on the Papago
tribe. One offers an anthropological analysis while another discusses
writing a feature article for a women’s magazine. They each
present their version of the ‘truth’ about how the Papago
live. Whilst they examine the tribe’s social behaviour, there
is little self-reflection on their own group dynamic. Ironically,
numerous cuts to their car journey reveal a complete lack of interaction
between the travellers.
The final
interviewee, Manny, a Papago Indian, comments on the way the American
influence on Native Americans is leading to the loss of his own
indigenous culture. His English drifts into Spanish and then Papago,
as if the meaning of what he wishes to communicate would be lost
in translation. For the English-speaking viewer this shift is confusing
and demonstrates the difficulty of knowing another culture from
the outside. The film ends unexpectedly with a jump cut back to
the feature film scenario.
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