curated screening presented at Red Barn Project Space, University of California Santa Barbara (UCSB), 13.07.2015
The appearance of a weathered VHS copy of Hellraiser atop a bus shelter on Old Kent Road in South London became a kind of urban legend, or at least a puzzle. Since this first occurrence in 2012, there have been other instances, other portals opening, visible from the upper level of double-decker buses. Copycats aside, the content of the bleached VHS case, Clive Barker’s 1987 film, has at
its core a puzzle box, the ‘Lament Configuration’. This box, when solved, can suture dimensions. From the other side, the ‘Cenobites’, demonic in appearance, claim the clever individual for a suturing of another kind, between pleasure and pain. A pop mystery, the VHS tape in its odd placement, now a different sort of analog puzzle box, offers a detour on a routine commute. Portals, mundane or not, need a here and there, a clever body to pass through.
Portal Atop a Bus Stop is a screening of international
artists’ films and videos (im)materializing in various constellations for a multitude of sites. This is its first incarnation.
Programme:
JUST DO IT, Avril Corroon, 2014, 6:42
The Eternal Quarter Inch, Jesse McLean, 2008, 9:00
Slow Fragmentation, Sam Smith, 2015, 5:30
∆ HS. FS. ZWN-BS. NC. BS, Paul Simon Richards, 2014, 14:00
Figure-ground, Jean-Paul Kelly, 2013, 4:46
Devil’s Gate, Laura Kraning, 2011, 20:00
Immortality,