Monday 6 October 2008

NOTES ON THE IMAGE: ON DIARY FILMS







John Smith. Images from the video series Hotel Diaries (2001-7)





Inseparable from the self 


this camera when filming 


the world at its most extreme...


diary films have an X that keeps 


in place the tension between:


Joke  ⇔  World Events


Self  ⇔  World Events




In realization of itself 


as a performance, diary film


turns everything into STORY


every story into FABLE


so we have this awareness  


it gives all our speech 


a comic timing it looks 


everywhere for the ironic 


juxtaposition we cannot


be more than a prosumer 


now it is October


The performance promises 


significance the performance 


guarantees irrelevance




So, try something else:


A Diary film free of the self


A Diary of the world


to do this we will have to 


look at looking at what 


we do not look at:


An Impossible Diary


the self and world events


past and present




all X, the film 


attempts to make a future


for itself and for


the film maker but


camera won't focus




it is far too busy


making history and


our own past into other


peoples pasts its


alchemy destroys us with 


connection catharsis 


when all that matters:




to watch the film and


to be embarrassed to


watch the film not


recognizing myself








____



Throughout October the Curzon Soho has organized Notes on the Image: A Season of Diary Films. It began this weekend with a screening, followed by a Q&A, of John Smith's Hotel Diaries, and an evening session juxtaposing the diary informed work of Tracey Emin and Ian Breakwell. It was after these screenings that the above notes were written. 


The season progresses toward screenings of Terence Davies' Of Time And The City and - another! - evening of Jonas Mekas In Conversation. Mekas' concept-manifesto of a CINEMA NATION is also the theme of a new strand of programming at the cinema, which invites both the submission of short films and proposals for future events at Cinemanation@curzoncinemas.com