#DANIELLE HUMMINGS THE FOX IMAGES SERIES#

It’s a truly invasive, curiously beautiful sonic experience and a spooky exercise in visual denial but one nonetheless conveying a frantic sense of momentum. The other highlight of the night was Shepherd’s Bush (1971, 16mm, 15 mins), a remarkable film which begins in black (has the lamp blown?, you think), the soundtrack pulses mechanically, the black lightens to grey to slowly reveal barely discernable movement across rough ground, brightening to a glaring white, erasing the image, the beat intensifying. He tells me he has put them on DVD for study or reference.

#DANIELLE HUMMINGS THE FOX IMAGES SERIES#

Leggett explains in his catalogue that the rhythm of the screening was not the result of editing: “The projection of the footage was on a Spectro stop frame analysis projector (a scientific examination tool) running at two frames per second.” In 2003 he and Breakwell “digitally reconstructed the Unword film at 2 frames per second, with a married soundtrack of the compilation tape.” Leggett’s Unword series covers the years 1969-2003. Leggett filmed each performance, projected the footage as part of the subsequent one, and filmed that one in turn. The black and white shots with their photographic image intensity, staccato editing and sharply shifting perspectives against an instructional voiceover (language lessons and eyesight tests) create a curious visual rhythm but leave an incredibly strong mental imprint of the performance. In 1969-70 in London, Bristol and Swansea, Leggett filmed Ian Breakwell in performance as the artist moved amidst huge swathes of inscribed material. THESE FILM ENGAGEMENTS WITH PERFORMANCE WORKS SERVE AS ARCHIVAL DOCUMENTS AND CREATIVE ACTS IN THEIR OWN RIGHT. ONE OF SEVERAL PLEASURES TO BE HAD AT THE SCREENING OF FILMS BY MIKE LEGGETT AT ACP WAS THE SHOWING OF AN EARLY WORK FROM HIS UNWORD SERIES. Mike Leggett filming Ian Breakwell in Unword

Danielle hummings the fox images