That Was Yesterday: A Screening Programme about 'Value'

Lapdogs of the Bourgeoisie Film & Events Programme

To accompany the exhibition Lapdogs of the Bourgeoisie there is a series of events, talks, tours and film screenings during May & July.

Each film screening will be preceded by two commissioned trailers: The Freedom of Negative Expression by Chris Evans and Lapdogs by Neil Cummings.

Film

Sat 4 Jul, 5.30pm

£3.00/£2.00 Concs

There are certain notions that are determined by such sliding scales that they vary radically from situation to situation. ‘Value’ is certainly one of them – an ideal that is constantly reshaped with the changing dynamics of culture, as well as economic and material conditions. Yet the possession of value is still one of the more embedded explanations for legitimising cultural phenomena. Determining value can be a real antagonism, particularly with the creative class, the political elite and the market economy, all jostling to tell it as it is. In the arts especially, a definitive vocabulary has been assembled to determine the relative criteria of value through terms including: social use or function, meaningfulness, creativity, and economic potential. But is value always something so resolved?

This selection of video works reflects laterally as well as literally on this idea in different arenas, including art and culture. Also taking inspiration from German critic Diedrich Diederichsen’s recent essay On (Surplus) Value in Art, the programme considers today’s apparent crisis of valuation.

Introduced by Nav Haq, Exhibitions Curator, Arnolfini.

1. Michael Stevenson (NZ)
Introduccion a la teoria de la Probabilidad, 2008, 25min
Michael Stevenson’s recent work considers the age-old mathematical conundrum of ‘probability’. Taking as its inspiration the highly improbable presence of the exiled Shah of Iran, Manuel Antonio Noriega and Patricia Hearst all together on the tiny South Sea island of Contadora in 1979, the work proposes alternative ways to consider narrative. Combining black and white footage of playing cards (a common motif in probability exercises) with images related to the chance presence of these three characters on this island, the work contemplates the potential in the unpredictable.

2. Goldin & Senneby (SE)
After Microsoft, 2006-07, 3min
The most distributed image ever, an image of a hill in Sonoma Valley, California, used by Microsoft, is being phased out. Goldin + Senneby have re-photographed the hill and added a voice-over narrative that tells the story of a January day in the late 90s when the hill came to coincide with a global branding strategy. The work reflects on the value of the image, and the rhetorical nature of representation. Normally presented as a still photographic image projection with an audio soundtrack, the separate components are under a Creative Commons licence. The version presented here is a re-edit of ‘After Microsoft’ as a video work by the curator of the screening programme, using the artists’ original material.

3. Hamra Abbas (PK)
MoMA is the Star, 2004
Based on footage outside of Berlin’s Neue National Galerie on the last day of the blockbuster exhibition ‘MoMA in Berlin: the art event of 2004’, Hamra Abbas’ work records the marvel created by one of the world’s most renowned museums. The video always presents the façade of the institution, with the extensive queues of people waiting to enter contemplating the modern masterpieces within. The exhibition traded on the brand and reputation of MoMA as the legitimising factor for its contents, and for its declaration to be nothing other than the conclusive history of Western art. Cultural imperialism at its most spectacular.

4. Ed McHenry (UK)
$1,000,000 Ambition, 2006, 3min
Ed McHenry’s $1,000,000 Ambition is a short video inspired by Brian DePalma’s film Scarface. The lyrics of the song ‘Push it to the Limit’ (itself taken from the Scarface soundtrack) embodies the vision of 80s excess in capitalist America. The artist attempted to loosely calculate how much cocaine could be purchased at a street value of $1,000,000, and how long a line would it would make if it was to be consumed through the nose. The dimensions of the modest set, consisting of a long strip of Perspex, washing powder, vacuum, blood and lights, were calculated based on this premise to stretch 160 metres.

5. Zachary Formwalt (US)
At Face Value, 2008
At Face Value is a short documentary style video by Zachary Formwalt looking at the fluctuation in value of German postage stamps during the 1930s, due to the financial crisis and the instability of inflation. Curiously, the changing retail cost of the stamps was reprinted onto existing stamps, sometimes numerous times over, in order to keep up to speed with their changing financial value. Connotations with the condition of today’s economy are easy to draw, acting as a timely illustration of the changing ‘worth’ of reliant cultural artefacts.

Approx 1hr

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