OCATILLO AUDIOVISUAL

Cityzens, Bloomsbury etc

14/3/2019

Spring is springing fast here.
The recent screening at The Hundred Years Gallery went very well: good sound and image, thanks to filmmaker Alex McDonald.
Cityzens from Diversions completed the programme, and was followed by an enthusiastic discussion with the audience.
Really pleased.
Also, I.B. Tauris has joined the Bloomsbury Publishing Group, so here's to imagining a forthcoming paperback edition of Cinema and the Audiovisual Imagination !

Citizens and River at the Hundred Years Gallery

26/1/2019

Looking forward to first screening of Cityzens at the Hundred Years Gallery, with River, and films by Alex McDonald, and Kofi Boamah: Sunday 3 February, 15.30.
in the countries of the mind, and the audiovisual series are selling well at the Hundred Years Gallery.

Interview in Images of the Afterlife in Cinema

16/1/2019

At the end of Images of the Afterlife in Cinema by James Wilson, there's an interview: Eisenstein, Symbolism and Swedenborg. With thanks to an excellent interviewer, James Wilson, from the Swedenborg Society, London.

River release

8/11/2018

In London, the Thames is centrally there, a wide tidal river regularly flowing powerfully in two opposing directions simultaneously, when the tide comes in and the river flows out to the sea. In River you don’t see the river all the time – but it isn’t forgotten, as it’s there throughout, in the music. River is an audiovisual interweaving of memories, of finding wonder in the illusory everyday.

Announcing the audiovisual series from Ocatillo

15/9/2018

The trilogy of new titles in the audiovisual series is for anyone who is making films, as well as for those who work with music, photography, writing, theatre, dance, the visual arts, and architecture.
1. Audiovisual Rhythm
2. Eisenstein’s Audiovisual Attractions
3. Audiovisual Perspectives - Eisenstein and Frank Lloyd Wright

https://www.amazon.com/Robert-Robertson/e/B0034P9ETQ
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Robert-Robertson/e/B0034P9ETQ

in the countries of the mind

30/7/2018

Delighted that in the countries of the mind is now available at the London Review of Books bookshop. Where should it go? It was decided to place it in the Essays section. It may well be the only book in that section which has been ordered using the most random method possible: meteorological data!
ScatteringTexts

Memories, the recently completed documentary by Anna Bowman

23/7/2018

Please find below a link to Anna Bowman's excellent documentary about all the artists featured in the recent exciting Memories show at St Pancras Hospital in London. The documentary features interviews with the artists mentioned in my previous post.
Anna's documentary begins and ends with extracts from my music/film River, which was shown for the first time at the launch of my new book in the countries of the mind, which is also mentioned in this documentary.
Many thanks to Anna Bowman, the artist Jill Rock (who kindly invited me to participate in Memories, and Peter Herbert and Elaine Harper-Gay from The Arts Project, not forgetting the artists who also took part in the launch of in the countries of the mind: Jill Rock, Phil Baird, Maria Lusitano, Nicky Scott-Francis, and last but not least my wife, Claudette Robertson.
https://vimeo.com/279270612

Exhibition in London: Memories

15/6/2018

Here’s a selection of works by artists from the current wonderful Memories: there’s always tomorrow exhibition at St Pancras Hospital in London (UK).
The show was curated by the artist Jill Rock, and coordinated by Peter Herbert and Elaine Harper-Gay from The Arts Project, London.
As in the First Class Passenger Lists in the transatlantic liners of yore, the artists are in alphabetical order.
If a link isn't available via the caption, just click on the image.
Art is beyond life.
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- Phil Baird elongated line mind Bio - Phil Baird
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- Lorraine Clarke Cras and the Memory Keepers
http://www.clarke-art.co.uk

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- Jolanta Jagiello: MMM - https://www.axisweb.org/p/jolantajagiello/ http://www.apauk.org/jolanta-jagieo/ _____________________________

- Melanie Ezra
There are actually two artworks here. The torso is called We are All a Work in Progress. The shirt is called John, Alan, and Jane too. which is a reworking of a collective family memory from around 1955 in an attempt to connect with my own family tree. See also:
melanieezra.com

and below:
https://melanieezra.com/2017/10/29/sewing-circle-rethread/
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- Montse Gallego. The Tree: Memory is what links us to terrestrial life, to the sense of space and time and to all rational processes. Without it, we would only live in the present, discovering the world and its wonders at each and every breath, but making us incapable of survival. Memory creates and re-creates us constantly, adding pieces to its infinite puzzle every second. Being selective to avoid such overwhelming information, memory is also creative, building a different universe in each mind. That is why memory is both what unifies us and what separates us. In The Tree memory is presented in the form of pages from my diary being printed and blown up on different types of paper, joined together, painted over, written over, overlapping each other... These pages have transcended their primal purpose (personal reflections) to help me to find another type of memory that exists beyond me: the one of the archetypes and symbols, the one that belongs to the collective memory and in doing so, directly reaching the viewer. My own memories were not the subject of the painting, but they were the objects used to open the door : 'just forgetting, we are able to reach the essential knowledge'. http://hundredyearsgallery.co.uk/the-floating-world/ _____________________________

- Maria Lusitano: now, paint me now! the amazing adventure of 2 atlantean explorers See also: www.marialusitano.org. http://instagram.com/marialusitano http://www.dreameconomics.com/ https://www.instagram.com/marialusitano/ _____________________________

- Elspeth Penfold: There is a beauty in unravelling See also: http://www.elspeth-billie-penfold.com. https://instagram.com/p/Bj9wr2nHG2iRSsyC2GGidOB_e-aZTW3OxT-IjA0/ _____________________________

- Jo Roberts: Diary to Mimir. This is my diary. It was started when I was invited to exhibit at the Memories exhibition last autumn and it ends on the day it was hung. It includes musings, sketches, childhood memories, descriptions of what I experience during epileptic seizures - which I often refer to as “turns” - stories from mythology, medieval monsters, hallucinations, lots of mentions of plants and insects and a recipe for getting rid of plant mites. Some of the pages had bleach accidentally spilt on them which has meant the text has disappeared, rather like a fading memory. I decided to call it a Diary to Mimir because he was The Rememberer in Norse mythology. _____________________________

- Jill Rock: The Memory Clinic The outer layer is the world outside here seen as a collection of other people’s ideas on memory; then there are the objects which carry memory igniting them in our minds signified by the mirrors which are in fact images of things past reflecting back to us in the present. In this process we re-imagine and use them for ways to act in the here and now. The dance ball - I have always seen it as one of my symbols - multi-facetted, continually receiving and reflecting with a dark empty centre - Buddhist friends say that the dark vacuum at the centre is not a personal aberration, but apparently central to Buddhist thought – but not being a Buddhist, I have never gone along with the idea of the single identity thing. https://rbs.org.uk/artists/jill-rock http://cargocollective.com/JillRock/CV _____________________________

Here is a detail from this 3D artwork by Nicky Scott-Francis (with thanks to photographer Tom Carter for these two photos). See also: http://www.youtube.com/user/automaticbiroart and https://www.facebook.com/Nicky-Scott-Francis-automatic-biro-watercolour-art-701348280000551 _____________________________

Wonderful website

2/6/2018

Just catching up with Chris Lynn's wonderful website - I've been enjoying his Walk and Potomac series of films, and there are lots of other gems there too - a perfect antidote to staring at likes on the cellphone or mobile, as one walks, impervious to the beauties of the outside world.

Arts festival launch: Memories - There’s Always Tomorrow

6/5/2018

We attended a wonderful and lively party, to kick off the arts festival on the theme of memories, at St Pancras Hospital, London. It also was the occasion for the first public screening of River, from the new music/film Diversions, and the launch of the new book, in the countries of the mind.
I was invited by the artist Jill Rock, who, together with Peter Herbert and Elaine Harper-Gay from The Arts Project, had brought together for the festival an exhibition of varied, dynamic and colourful paintings and installations by eleven artists: Phil Baird, Lorraine Clarke, Melanie Ezra, Montse Gallego Reyes, Gloria Garcia, Jolanta Jagiello, Maria Lusitano, Elspeth Penfold, Joanne Roberts, Jill Rock, and Nicky Scott-Francis.
Claudette and I set up the equipment, which due to our inexperience, suddenly became temperamental. Fortunately, we were able to fix it, with some assistance. Our nerves had subsided by the time the audience filled the conference space. After the various introductions, I presented River.
I started with a randomised game that involved 12 short extracts from in the countries of the mind. These extracts were read by Phil Baird, Claudette Robertson, Maria Lusitano, Jill Rock and Nicky Scott-Francis, who were themselves randomly scattered in the audience. Originally I was going to toss a 12-sided dice, but I forgot where I’d put it (ironic, considering the theme of the festival: Memories: There’s Always Tomorrow).
Fortunately that morning (just in case of the unlikely event that I’d forget the dice) I had randomised the 12 extracts using weather data, so I used these numbers for the game instead. Astonishingly (and a genuine coincidence) the last extract turned out to be about River.
I explained that this music/film was inspired by the Thames.
In this music/film you don’t see the river all the time – but it isn’t forgotten, as it’s there throughout, in the music.
River is an audiovisual interweaving of memories, of finding wonder in the illusory everyday.

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