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When will we need you

When will we need you

Writer Naomi Pearce reflects on themes of Death, the female archetype, and ideas of community in Lucy Beech's Me and Mine (2015).

The light plane over The Reflecting Pool

The light plane over The Reflecting Pool

Steven Bode remembers the late Bill Viola through a rumination on his iconic The Reflecting Pool, one of the highlights of the FVU showcase of the artist’s work, ‘A Thoughtful Gaze’, from 1988.

Memories of Memory Marathon

Memories of Memory Marathon

Read a newly developed text by FVU’s Associate Director Steven Bode reflecting on the production and timely context of Simon Pope’s Memory Marathon — a poignant record of the emotional impact that the universally celebrated event has on its local and global communities.

Some notes on proximity and distance

Some notes on proximity and distance

Originally commissioned in response to Webb-Ellis's For The First Baby Born in Space, writer Emily LaBarge expands on the work’s revelatory nature — highlighting the ordinary and spectacular aspects of our present life on earth and how we might convey this to our extraterrestrial counterparts in the future.

Dangerous Transmissions: On Language, Agency and Voice(lessness)

Dangerous Transmissions: On Language, Agency and Voice(lessness)

Read Jinan Coulter’s newly commissioned essay produced in response to our latest #FVUWatch feature Aphonia (2024) by Sophie Hoyle. Jinan takes the nuance of speech as a starting point to question broader themes of language and agency explored within the work.

Sugar and Sand

Sugar and Sand

Read Adam Bobbette's essay examining the granular connections explored through Gayle Chong Kwan's A Pocket Full of Sand — bringing forth the historical and colonial ties between sugar and sand, and the Isle of Wight and Mauritius.

Training the Moon to Dance – A Meditation on Drumming

Training the Moon to Dance – A Meditation on Drumming

Read Antosh Wojcik’s poetic response to Sean Dower’s featured work on FVU Watch, Automaton. Antosh’s newly developed text draws on the visual and mechanical choreography performed by the automated rig as it documents musician Steve Noble’s epic performance.

Circling Back

Circling Back

Read a newly developed text by writer and critic Martin Herbert, responding to the future-facing conspiracies of Daniel Cockburn’s recent FVU Commission Ahead of the Curve.

A Rustle in the Trees

A Rustle in the Trees

Read a new text by Steven Bode reflecting on A Forest Tale by Ruth Maclennan two years on—now contextualised in the wake of Russia’s developing authoritarian regime and the war in Ukraine.

Interludes: 20 Years Later

Interludes: 20 Years Later

Writer and academic Mimi Howard considers Anne Bjerge Hansen’s Interludes against the ceaseless flow of video images in the present and the slower televisual rhythms of the past.

The Top Man in Paris

The Top Man in Paris

Published in the booklet accompanying the 1997 Passagen CD-ROM, the artists Ellard and Johnstone wend the creative and literary pathways within their work.

In Unison

In Unison

Steven Bode tunes into the lingering resonances of Marcus Coates’ work, and how its ecological message reverberates in the present.

Clearing the Air

Clearing the Air

Steven Bode revisits Shona Illingworth’s Balnakiel in the light of her recent major work, Topologies of Air.

Portrait of the Artist as a Dust Wrangler

Portrait of the Artist as a Dust Wrangler

To accompany the remastered release of Adam Chodzko's Plan for a Spell, we shake off the dust from Chris Darke’s essay from the 2002 catalogue for the work, Plans and Spells.

View scans of the original publication below.  You can purchase a copy of Plans and Spells here.

Natural Error

Natural Error

Poet Jacob Sam-La Rose goes back to his Eighties childhood, lit up by its ever-changing parade of new computer-games but clouded by its anxious hints of environmental catastrophe, to crack the code of Rodell Warner’s Natural Error.

Home Bitter Unhome

Home Bitter Unhome

Author Rob Young, chronicler of British TV esoterica in his compendium ‘The Magic Box’, lifts the lid on the myriad ‘wyrd’ influences lurking in Craig David Parr’s Wings of Love.

Beyond the Trees

Beyond the Trees

In this essay on Ruth Maclennan’s Treeline, Mariam Zulfiqar and Dr David Edwards consider the wider botanical, cultural and geopolitical resonances that are opened up by the work.

No End In Sight

No End In Sight

As the latest chapter of Afghanistan’s repeating cycle of history seems set to start, Steven Bode looks back at Marine Hugonnier’s Ariana and its resonance for the present moment.

The Young Dog at the Zoo

The Young Dog at the Zoo

Stand-up comedian, writer and director Stewart Lee asks whether comedy can ever be art in his essay on Patrick Goddard's film Animal Antics

So Far, and Yet So Near

So Far, and Yet So Near

Graham Gussin's Remote Viewer was made twenty years ago this year. From a distance of two decades, Steven Bode reflects on how much it resonates with the present.

Marooned

Marooned

With Paul Rooney's Dust and Bellevue available on FVU Watch, Steven Bode reflects on their themes of limbo and confinement one year into the global pandemic.

Notes on 'The Bird Game'

Notes on 'The Bird Game'

To accompany Marianna Simnett's The Bird Game and Confessions of a Crow, Steven Bode adds some supplementary notes.

The Fluidity of Care

The Fluidity of Care

Writer Rebekah Taussig explores how caregiving is both a personal and communal experience in this powerful response to Kyla Harris and Lou Macnamara's It's Personal.

Alberta Whittle: RESET

Alberta Whittle: RESET

Harvey Dimond explores the historical resonances of this slavery-referencing artwork made during a suffocating pandemic

"How do i no ur not false?”

"How do i no ur not false?”

Writer Jo Thompson explores Rachel Maclean's Feed Me within the context of surveillance capitalism, highlighting traces of the fairytale narrative in our online behaviours.

The Ghosts of Christmas Past

The Ghosts of Christmas Past

As Rachel Maclean's Feed Me shows on FVU Watch, Steven Bode reflects on what we can learn from the film at Christmas amidst a pandemic.

States of Being

States of Being

Emmie McLuskey unpacks our modern dependence technology, substances and ritual, as well as what it means to belong, in Cal Mac's Agony to Ecstasy.

Great-ish: The Gaslighting of a Nation

Great-ish: The Gaslighting of a Nation

Rianna Walcott responds to Exodus Crooks' Great-ish: The Gaslighting of a Nation, exploring the collective gaslighting of the Black community in Britain.
 

Unreal

Unreal

Iris Long reflects on the machinations at play in Chris Zhongtian Yuan's Wuhan Punk, exploring the implications of restoring visual memory via the medium of film.

Wuhan Punk

Wuhan Punk

Responding to Chris Zhongtian Yuan's Wuhan Punk, Steven Bode reflects on how the city of Wuhan was previously famous for being the hotbed of China's punk rock scene.

The Near Room

The Near Room

Katrina Black explores themes of grief in Sophie Cundale's The Near Room.

Celebration (Cyprus Street)

Celebration (Cyprus Street)

FVU Director Steven Bode reflects on the making of Celebration (Cyprus Street) as well as its relevance for today.

MASS

MASS

David Kwaw Mensah considers how Nadeem Din-Gabisi's MASS can be categorised in the genre of Transcendental Cinema. 

MASS: Artist's Statement

MASS: Artist's Statement

Nadeem Din-Gabisi, writer and director of MASS, articulates the thinking and process behind his film.

Critical Mass

Critical Mass

FVU's Director Steven Bode reflects on our first film to premiere on FVU Watch: Nadeem Din-Gabisi's MASS.

Patrick Staff: On Venus

Patrick Staff: On Venus

Laura Jacobs on hostile environments, both social and natural, in Patrick Staff’s ‘On Venus’ exhibition. Winner of the Michael O'Pray Prize 2019.

Image Abrasion

Image Abrasion

Cassandre Greenberg considers Derek Jarman’s Blue as a celluloid artefact in an age of portable digital media. Winner of the Michael O'Pray Prize 2019.

Something New

Something New

Writer Ellen Mara De Wachter looks at the potential for newness within open source materials in the work of Open Music Archive.

The Sentiment is in the Title

The Sentiment is in the Title

Writer and broadcaster Paul Morley discusses the history of the UK charts, sampling and music distribution in the work of Open Music Archive.

Implicated

Implicated

Goldsmiths CCA curator Natasha Hoare explores the work of Richard Whitby and asks who is implicated in the UK immigration act.

Tipping Points

Tipping Points

FVU's Steven Bode discusses the cultural and historical contexts behind Elizabeth Price's FELT TIP.

Unintended Consequences

Unintended Consequences

George Vasey looks at the concept of the 'unintended concequence' in the work of Maeve Brennan and Imran Perretta.

Don't Look at the Finger

Don't Look at the Finger

Director of FVU Steven Bode explores the concept of the 'first impression' in the work of Hetain Patel.

We Put The World Before You

We Put The World Before You

Film theorist Erika Balsom takes a close-up of Jane and Louise Wilson's 2016 work We Put the World Before You.

A Half-Open Door

A Half-Open Door

Writer Laurence Scott considers temporality in the 21st century, looking at the work of Alice May Williams and Karen Kramer.

Too Big To Miss

Too Big To Miss

Steven Bode picks through the postmatch data of the Rugby World Cup 2015 alongside Ravi Deprees' The Gain Line.

Thoughts about Things

Thoughts about Things

Read Patrick Langley's response to Ben Rivers' Things, commissioned for FVU's Stay Where You Are project.

Part 4: Sacred Hospitality

Part 4: Sacred Hospitality

Jay Griffiths embraces the confines that her work often leaves behind in its pursuit of the wider, wilder world outside.

Local Time

Local Time

Patrick Langley considers the concept of travel and its representation in Layla Curtis' Antipodes

Dust

Dust

The monologue from Paul Rooney's Dust, as featured in his anthology 'Dust and Other Stories'.

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