The third event in a series of screenings exploring how our changing relationship to an unclear present opens up speculative imaginaries in which to explore uncertain futures. Our third screening presents two short films by Max Colson - ‘The Green and Pleasant Land’, 2017 and ’Construction Lines’, 2017.
‘The Green and Pleasant Land’, 2017 is set in a ‘post-Brexit environment’, combining online comments and articles regarding the British countryside, with related visual material drawn from google. On a 3D Model of the UK, the material is collaged into a scene that is evolved and enacted using a ‘live’ animation technique resulting in an absurd, but simultaneously sincere portrait of the UK.
Brexit has made the nation question their national identity and collective history. Through a accumulative layering of digital material, ‘The Green and Pleasant Land’ becomes a site where identity and history are given form through the nostalgia and memory of multiple temporalities. These signifiers of history brought into an uncertain, pastoral future, are given narrative through homogeneous voice overs, similar to that of audio tours.
Similarly, ’Construction Lines’, 2017, uses a 3D model as a departure point as well as creating a scenario which is played out using found material about the lives and lifestyles of the super-rich. The iceberg home - a home where the sub-ground levels are larger than the house above - uses the original architectural plans for a house that not developed due to many objections from surrounding neighbours in Knightsbridge, West London.
This will be the first time the two films have been screened together.
Curator: William Noel Clarke
Max Colson (b. 1985, London) lives and works in London. He has a BA in English Literature from the University College London and an MA in Documentary Photography & Photojournalism from London College of Communication. Colson has had solo shows at Arebyte, London, UK and Royal Institute of British Architects, London, UK. He has also been exhibited at: SPACE Art + Technology, London, UK; La Condition Publique, Roubaix, FR; Republic Gallery, London, UK; Showroom MAMA, Rotterdam, NL; Noorderlicht Gallery, Groningen, NL.
Film festivals and screenings include: Werkleitz Centre for Media Art, DE and UK; Arebyte on Screen, UK; Shortwaves Festival, PL; World Architecture Festival, NL; Rendered Cities, Apex Art, US; Sheffield Doc Fest, UK; Hamburg International Short Film Festival, DE; Aesthetica Short Film Festival, UK; Chicago Underground Film Festival, USA; Tenderflix Shortlist Screening, UK.
Awards and residencies include: Film London FLAMIN Fellowship 2019, UK; Tenderflix Artist Video Prize 2017, UK; SPACE Art and Technology Residency 2018, UK.