London, with its eternal agitations, the ceaseless ebb and flow of its “mighty heart” – De Quincey (1823). After one of the most hectic days of the year so far, I had some hours to kill in London before meeting a friend for an exhibition at the Royal Academy. The day had been frantic, with large amounts of strangely powerful coffees being downed around New … Continue reading Wanders: Thomas De Quincey’s Soho.
Above is the trailer for a very short fragment of film made in collaboration with the writer, Iain Sinclair. Though I had been thinking about doing something with the poems of Harold Pinter for the some time, I had left it to stew away rather than properly organise it as with other, simpler films. With initially failing to get in touch with Iain, I had … Continue reading Trailer – A Walk By Waiting (Pinter/Sinclair).
This is an edited version of the paper given at Spirits Of Place in Calderstones Park, Liverpool 02/04/2016. My thanks to John Reppion and Leah Moore for organising the event and for to the other excellent speakers (Gill Hoffs, David Southwell, Gary Budden, Kenneth Brophy, Richard Macdonald, Ian “Cat” Vincent and Ramsey Campbell). Here’s to the next one. There is strange landmass on the opposite … Continue reading “Wyrd” Wirral – Spirits Of Place (02/04/2016)
Dear Joe, I’d like to walk with you From Clapton Pond to Stamford Hill And on… – Harold Pinter Harold Pinter liked walking around London. It is easily forgotten how vital walking around the capital was for him when considering how claustrophobic much of his theatre work is. Yet there is still a sense of place in his work, often highlighting many of his characters’ … Continue reading Walking On and On with Harold Pinter
The BBC Science-Fiction anthology series, Out Of The Unknown (1965-1970), was famous for producing a wide range of intellectual sci-fi drama, exploring ideas and concepts more than spectacle and scale. With adaptations from a range of writers, including John Wyndham and J.G. Ballard, the surviving episodes of the series are both stimulating and useful in terms of 21st century aesthetic philosophy. The feeling that the … Continue reading Hauntology Of The Dead Past (1965) – Out Of The Unknown.
‘When I was not confined to the house, I would spend my days and my nights on the Edge.’ – Alan Garner On a frosty but sunny January morning, I was steadily making my way along the M56 towards Macclesfield. I was on my way to Alderley Edge in Cheshire, the stalking ground of writer Alan Garner. In 2015 I had made this journey in … Continue reading Alan Garner’s Edge
On finishing W.G. Sebald’s novel The Emigrants (1992), it felt as if some loose connection to a recent film or book was left hanging mid-air. The narrative of Sebald’s novel is split into the stories of four émigrés, all seemingly interconnected by a multitude of strange images but chiefly by their fleeing from the rise of Nazi Germany. The connection didn’t seem to be so … Continue reading Ghosts in the Ice
Debris degrades and degradation can be measured but can art be this measurement? Orford Ness in Suffolk, a former atomic weapons mechanism research and testing facility, doesn’t ask these questions but the place has attracted such a huge number of artists to its shores that the question of creativity and its role as a reaction to such politically doused spaces cannot help but be evoked. … Continue reading Responses: Blind Landings (2013) – Jane And Louise Wilson.
In October I released a ghost story for Halloween. It was partly inspired by Algernon Blackwood’s The Willows, but the majority of its actual narrative structure (especially in terms of character) came from a short story of my own inspired as well by Blackwood’s story. As it’s near Christmas, the original story is presented below. It’s very typically Jamesian and should be read late at night … Continue reading Salthouse Marshes (Ghost Story).
Above is a showreel built from footage I’ve shot over the last twelve months. Compared to last year’s showreel, this one feels far more defined and less haphazard with the visual ideas I want to play with. Gone are the mixtures of stop-motion, digital and film, instead replaced entirely by different stocks of super-8 footage. This year has felt like a much more defined trajectory … Continue reading Showreel 2015.
Celluloid Wicker Man 