BLAST
Watch the film (click the image)
BLAST. 14 very short films for handheld devices.
Part of 111 Not Out: The London Group (1913-2024).
2 March – 27 April 2024.
Quay Arts Centre, Newport, Isle of Wight.
I wonder what Wyndham Lewis would have made of Instagram…
A ‘new’ vision. Forged and bullied into shape by the onset of WW1.
Somehow prescient socially and politically for what was to come in the 20’s and 30’s…
“Out with old / in with the new”.
A LOUD SCREAM in the face of the establishment / academia / the middle classes…
And now… over a 111 years later?
I made BINARY VORTEX to begin with. A new vision, perhaps…
Strip things back to primal basics. A scream punctuated by silence.
‘Framed’ by Instagram and the iPhone. Perhaps this is what Wyndham Lewis would have done?
These four screaming heads. 4 Apostles? 4 Horsemen of the apocalypse?
From 4 corners of a room? Or a wrestling ring?
The fab 4? A ‘back 4’…(impossible to get through).
Black or White. Binary. ON / OFF.
Screaming into the digital ether. Is anyone really listening?
“The new vortex plunges to the heart of the present”. From BLAST!
Let’s call this a scream in the face of all that is surrounding us now in 2024.
All the horrors, the inequalities, the ignorance and anger.
But it’s all theatre isn’t it? Artifice, keyboard warriors, manufactured outrage and angst.
What followed was a compulsive, almost manic month of story boarding (loosely), making and buying (crap) props and performing for camera - which was hilarious at times, if a little worrying at others! The editing process was at times incredibly intricate and painstaking.
BLAST.
14 very short films for handheld devices.
BINARY VORTEX. FORWARDS AND BACKWARDS AT THE SAME TIME.
PERPETUAL MOTION. KILLING ME SOFTLY. MARTYR FOR ANY CAUSE IN DUB.
PROGRESS IN LEAD BOOTS. NATIONAL ANTHEM. SECOND THAT EMOTION.
FUCK ART LET’S DANCE. WHO’S THE FAIREST OF THEM ALL? THEATRE.
YOU’RE SHIT AHHH. TO ME TO YOU. THE KING OF NOTHING.
Take a very DEEP BREATH. Lift your face to the CROWD. Now SCREAM with all your might.
BLAST.
Stephen Carley. LG.
January 2024.
EXHIBITION DETAILS.
The LONDON GROUP were founded in October 1913. The inaugural exhibition by the group was in March 1914. 111 years later, we have 111 Not Out: The London Group (1913-2024).
45 London Group members have made work in response to one of the 32 founder members of the London Group. BLAST is my response to WYNDHAM LEWIS and his BLAST MANIFESTO.
111 Not Out: The London Group (1913-2024)
2 March – 27 April
Open Daily: 9:00 – 17:00.
Quay Arts Centre
Sea Street,
Newport,
Isle of Wight PO30 5BD.
