So, Brighton Festival has been and gone for another year. Another cycle now of vaguely thinking: should've made more effort to see more things, take part in events, savour the focus on arts in the city. Personally I felt that this year when I was in town there was a tad less liveliness to it than I can remember, less people on the streets with arty-spends on their agenda; belt-tightening all round, a firmer grip on purse-strings, reducing the public appetite for things less essential. A blazing hot weekend just now, and the long queues for ice-cream and the ladies loos on the beach, put the efforts of the rest of an arts-focussed May in perspective. The Sun God rules this town.
The first, 'Berlin Horse' at the Lighthouse, 8 or 9 mins of video set to some ambient plinky from Mr Eno. The visuals are not Eno's, the film is a piece by Malcolm Le Grice originally made in 1970. A horse trots round and round. This simple footage and the central image is abstracted by various effects, degrading the picture quality: filtered flaring colour, superimposed negative-positive tonal changes, solarised over-saturated colour changes. A different older newsreel sequence of another horse tearing round pulling a cart is edited in; shifting tones, colours and abstraction continue. I loved it. Beguiling, beautiful, profound, a lovely example of film art dealing with the fleeting sense of image, time, movement. And reminds me too that horses without jockeys look ace.
77 Million Paintings at Fabrica. Big number, big art. A digital light-show mosaic of changing abstract colours and images. The mosaic tiles are essentially flat screen tellies of different ratios, HD of course, twelve slots in a geometric sun/flower pattern. The overall effect of the installation aims towards Zen, but the instant reference is stained glass window. The space and setting bring religion (the Fabrica gallery occupies a deconsecrated regency church), not the monumentality of a cathedral-cavern (St Paul's London, Siena, St Peter's Rome etc) that a scale up for the Tate Modern's Turbine Hall could supply, more like the reverence and intent that Larkin reflects on in his Church Going: a serious house on serious earth.
When I popped in, it was perhaps too brief a visit. It is intended to be an immersive experience; there was an array of comfy seating in the dark: Stoner TV. I stayed for a 10 minute sequence of iterations, and found its ever changing stained glass a beautiful thing. A selection of fondant fancies on Burberry. An abstract collage inspired by Carle's Very Hungry Caterpillar (a watermelon and salami montage). Stade Francais rugby jerseys prismatically referenced by Roland Garros' fanciest TV directors. It was slick, tuned to consumer tasteful, where even an apparent potential for clashing colours doesn't result in anything that really clashes. Ad colours: acid yellows (shiny cars) unreal caramels and plastic purples (new biscuit promos). The fluid changes after a while wash over you, the mosaic composition was static, and I felt I needed more (or maybe I just got the un-analog munchies), it lacked drama. A digital sleeping aid for a 21st century Howard Hughes in his senility. Mr Eno's version of those screensavers linked to your media player that bounce-slide-morph around in response to the changing frequency of the music being played, or a bouncing graphic equalizer display panel, the LED green bars piling up and down. (Eno does actually flog it as just such a product).
Overall made we want to dig out one of those old school cardboard kaleidoscopes, reset via a shakeable tube of glass beads and a turnable lens.
77 Million Paintings at Fabrica. Big number, big art. A digital light-show mosaic of changing abstract colours and images. The mosaic tiles are essentially flat screen tellies of different ratios, HD of course, twelve slots in a geometric sun/flower pattern. The overall effect of the installation aims towards Zen, but the instant reference is stained glass window. The space and setting bring religion (the Fabrica gallery occupies a deconsecrated regency church), not the monumentality of a cathedral-cavern (St Paul's London, Siena, St Peter's Rome etc) that a scale up for the Tate Modern's Turbine Hall could supply, more like the reverence and intent that Larkin reflects on in his Church Going: a serious house on serious earth.
When I popped in, it was perhaps too brief a visit. It is intended to be an immersive experience; there was an array of comfy seating in the dark: Stoner TV. I stayed for a 10 minute sequence of iterations, and found its ever changing stained glass a beautiful thing. A selection of fondant fancies on Burberry. An abstract collage inspired by Carle's Very Hungry Caterpillar (a watermelon and salami montage). Stade Francais rugby jerseys prismatically referenced by Roland Garros' fanciest TV directors. It was slick, tuned to consumer tasteful, where even an apparent potential for clashing colours doesn't result in anything that really clashes. Ad colours: acid yellows (shiny cars) unreal caramels and plastic purples (new biscuit promos). The fluid changes after a while wash over you, the mosaic composition was static, and I felt I needed more (or maybe I just got the un-analog munchies), it lacked drama. A digital sleeping aid for a 21st century Howard Hughes in his senility. Mr Eno's version of those screensavers linked to your media player that bounce-slide-morph around in response to the changing frequency of the music being played, or a bouncing graphic equalizer display panel, the LED green bars piling up and down. (Eno does actually flog it as just such a product).
Overall made we want to dig out one of those old school cardboard kaleidoscopes, reset via a shakeable tube of glass beads and a turnable lens.
