Sea Oak
13 Sep - 05 Oct 2008
SEA OAK
"The Diamond"
SEA OAK (51 min) was developed from a series of interviews conducted with the left-orientated Think Tank 'The Rockridge Institute' in Berkeley, California. From 2001 until its closure in April 2008, this Institute researched contemporary political rhetorics with special emphasis on the employment of metaphor and framing.
The strict absence of images throughout the film is introduced by institute member Eric Haas . He describes how, in every person, the term “bird” suggests a similar imagined being .This prototypical bird exists only in common thought (...”we don’t think of an ostrich or a penguin...”) and provides the idea of an image to begin a film consisting of black leader and sound.
SEA OAK is the name of an industrial housing estate in a short story by George Saunders, a settlement where there are neither
oaks nor any view of the sea , just a hundred subsidized apartments and a rear view of FedEx.
The themes within SEA OAK range from The use of symbolism in politics to the methods by which emotional values and religious paradigms have been woven into Republican discourse. Concepts of commonality are looked at through Common Ground, Common Wealth with the history of Right Wing Think Tanks in America and their impact in structuring ‘Common Sense’, finally ending on the co-option of Progressive ideas by Conservatives within language and through metaphor – why this has been necessary and how it is hopeful.
The film SEA OAK puts trust in rationality, enlightened thinking and the frames of reference in which facts are made to appear transparent up for discussion.
In the sole spotlight of the space, only the apparatus can be seen, the film projector, staged like a sculpture
“This is a stand-in for Francine, Descartes’ daughter, who never washed up on the shores of Sweden. (...)” with this sentence, a mechanical sounding Swedish accent begins the film The Diamond (Descartes’ Daughter) (2008, 15min). Taking the mythical story of the death of Descartes' Daughter as a starting point to search for her again without the anchor of Rational thought, The Diamond (Descartes’ Daughter) is a disembodied wandering through scenes from a film where a diamond is protected by lasers , to images of a girl playing on a Nintendo Wii in a homemade version of the costume that Eitienne Jules Marey would dress his subjects in when conducting Chromophotography, through logic experiments, Ready Maids and words shattered like a crystal refacting light – the dispassionate reeling off of the text breaking up: sentence fragments are repeated, amended, the voice skipping as though trying to jump a programming error.
Emily Wardill was born in 1977 and lives and works in London. Recent Solo Exhibitions include 'Sick Serena and Dregs and Wreck and Wreck' at the ICA (London) , a show at STANDARD (OSLO) and 'Basking in what feels like 'An Ocean of Grace' i soon realise that i am not looking at it but rather I AM it, recognising myself' at Fortescue Avenue/Jonathan Viner . She is the first Laureate of the Follow Fluxus Award and will be showing at the NKV Weisbaden from September 2008 - May 2009 as well as working towards Solo Shows at De Appel and Spacex in 2009. Wardill is the co-organizer of the yearly event Itchy Park at Limehouse Town Hall and a Senior Lecturer at Central Saint Martins College of Art.
"The Diamond"
SEA OAK (51 min) was developed from a series of interviews conducted with the left-orientated Think Tank 'The Rockridge Institute' in Berkeley, California. From 2001 until its closure in April 2008, this Institute researched contemporary political rhetorics with special emphasis on the employment of metaphor and framing.
The strict absence of images throughout the film is introduced by institute member Eric Haas . He describes how, in every person, the term “bird” suggests a similar imagined being .This prototypical bird exists only in common thought (...”we don’t think of an ostrich or a penguin...”) and provides the idea of an image to begin a film consisting of black leader and sound.
SEA OAK is the name of an industrial housing estate in a short story by George Saunders, a settlement where there are neither
oaks nor any view of the sea , just a hundred subsidized apartments and a rear view of FedEx.
The themes within SEA OAK range from The use of symbolism in politics to the methods by which emotional values and religious paradigms have been woven into Republican discourse. Concepts of commonality are looked at through Common Ground, Common Wealth with the history of Right Wing Think Tanks in America and their impact in structuring ‘Common Sense’, finally ending on the co-option of Progressive ideas by Conservatives within language and through metaphor – why this has been necessary and how it is hopeful.
The film SEA OAK puts trust in rationality, enlightened thinking and the frames of reference in which facts are made to appear transparent up for discussion.
In the sole spotlight of the space, only the apparatus can be seen, the film projector, staged like a sculpture
“This is a stand-in for Francine, Descartes’ daughter, who never washed up on the shores of Sweden. (...)” with this sentence, a mechanical sounding Swedish accent begins the film The Diamond (Descartes’ Daughter) (2008, 15min). Taking the mythical story of the death of Descartes' Daughter as a starting point to search for her again without the anchor of Rational thought, The Diamond (Descartes’ Daughter) is a disembodied wandering through scenes from a film where a diamond is protected by lasers , to images of a girl playing on a Nintendo Wii in a homemade version of the costume that Eitienne Jules Marey would dress his subjects in when conducting Chromophotography, through logic experiments, Ready Maids and words shattered like a crystal refacting light – the dispassionate reeling off of the text breaking up: sentence fragments are repeated, amended, the voice skipping as though trying to jump a programming error.
Emily Wardill was born in 1977 and lives and works in London. Recent Solo Exhibitions include 'Sick Serena and Dregs and Wreck and Wreck' at the ICA (London) , a show at STANDARD (OSLO) and 'Basking in what feels like 'An Ocean of Grace' i soon realise that i am not looking at it but rather I AM it, recognising myself' at Fortescue Avenue/Jonathan Viner . She is the first Laureate of the Follow Fluxus Award and will be showing at the NKV Weisbaden from September 2008 - May 2009 as well as working towards Solo Shows at De Appel and Spacex in 2009. Wardill is the co-organizer of the yearly event Itchy Park at Limehouse Town Hall and a Senior Lecturer at Central Saint Martins College of Art.