Return of the Gothic

In this seminar we will discuss a return to the Gothic in a number of recent moving image works (by artists such as Emily Wardill, Mark Leckey, Ryan Trecartin, Laure Prouvost, among others). Such a return to figures OF monstrosity, vampires and identity crises arguably comes as a response to technology, and specifically everyday forms of technology such as YouTube videos, home videos and camera videos. In order to test the validity of this thesis we will ask whether we can identify a separate category of ‘everyday technology’ and the extent to which it has impacted on moving image practice.

We will look closely at Trecartin’s Any Ever, Wardill’s Fulll Firearms and Leckey’s Made in ‘Eaven to discern Gothic themes and potential slippages between the character’s body and the formal structures of the film/video itself, and finally discuss the demand of self-representation at play within these films and fora such as YouTube and Facebook.

Melissa Gronlund is an editor of Afterall and a writer based in London. Focusing on artists’ film and specifically on female filmmaking of the past 15 years, she teaches on the MRes: Moving Image course at Central Saint Martins and on artists’ film at the Ruskin School of Drawing & Fine Art, University of Oxford, where she is a visiting lecturer.

Mark Leckey Is a British contemporary artist, working with collage art, music and video. His found object art and video pieces, which incorporate themes of nostalgia and anxiety, and draw on elements of pop culture, span several videos. In particular, he is known for Fiorucci Made Me Hardcore (1999) and Industrial Light and Magic (2008), for which he won the 2008 Turner Prize.