Steven Eastwood Film Maker
Steven Eastwood intends to use the gallery to experiment with formats for a planned feature length film
He will make a series of tests and statements deriving from a written treatment which will be developed day-to-day in the space. These vignettes will draw upon prior research concerns including narratives of belief and the bringing together of actual and fictive elements. He aims to work with numerous key collaborators from previous projects including cinematographers, sound designers, artists and performers.
At the beginning of the exhibition a freestanding chalkboard will be positioned in the centre of the space and will act as a screen for the film installation 'Seminar in Film Sound'. The board will remain as a sculptural and notational feature throughout the duration of the show. Visitors may see or hear annotations, works-in-progress, discarded elements, rehearsals, off-cut film stock, an awful score, along with screenings of great and terrible films.
"My practice spans fiction, documentary and both single and multi channel moving image for the gallery"
"The films appropriate narrative and documentary tropes and apply them to conceptual and structural concerns, collapsing the vernacular of the cinema and the factual film. Conventions are misused, and the appearances of the cinema's habits are dragged into unusual contexts, where they are used to explore social and societal behaviour, physical space and mental relations."
"I am primarily interested in the lived situation of filmmaking – cinema as a social practice. This conceptual framework has involved taking filmmaking to specific communities and conducting cinematic drifts, through Dorset in the UK, Lithuania, Croatia and most recently Bosnia (Different Systems of Chaos 2003, The Film 2004, Come As You Are 2005, and Buried Land 2009, respectively). These films are encounters with a real place, where the event of filmmaking becomes a site for performing difference. My work also deals with the properties of the media
I incorporate (commonly 16mm film and digital video). Story burns in the gate, subjects become caught up in the interval of the edit, representation is made complicated or ruined, and something altogether less sensible and linguistic emerges."
Steven Eastwood studied BA (Hons) Fine Art, University of Plymouth (1991– 1994) and obtained a Practice-lead PhD in Fine Art/Film & Video at UCL, The Slade London in 2007. Recent exhibitions include: 'Interior Ritual', KK Projects Gallery New Orleans; 'Artists Vs Hollywood', Globe Gallery Newcastle and QUT Gallery Brisbane Australia; 'A Walk Through', The Stephen Lawrence Gallery, London; 'Cinemaniacs', MM Luka Gallery, Croatia; 'Killing Time', Tou Scene Centre of Contemporary Art, Oslo. International screenings include the ICA, BAFTA, EMAF, the Lux Centre, Anthology Film Archives NYC and Brief Encounters. Recent publications include Telling Stories: The Cinematic Essay (Cambridge Scholars Press); The Cinematic Fold (PleasureDome Press); PureScreen (Castlefield Gallery Manchester) and TANK TV Fresh Moves. Grants and Awards include: AHRC, for Buried Land (2008); Arts Council Grants for the Arts, for OMSKBOOK (2006); Arts Council Grants for the Arts, for The Film (2004).
Steven Eastwood founded Paradogs in 1997, producing documentaries, experimental fiction and artists' film & video. He is the Co-founder of the arts laboratory event OMSK, a member of the Octopus collective, and currently Programme Leader in Film & Video at the University of East London. He lives and works in London. www.cinemaintothereal.com