The work of Juliette Blightman (born Farnham, 1980, lives in London) demands that the viewer refocus his or her attention. Using film and slide works, and direct yet subtle interventions in the gallery space, Blightman’s work frames and enacts a certain kind of unadorned reality. Within a structure marked out by deliberately simple gestures, the marking of time gradually gives way to a sense of epiphany.
In a series of 16mm films made since 2005, Blightman uses the basic parameters of the medium to emphasise the reality of what is in front of her camera. Each work consists of a single shot, the length of which is dictated by the standard three-minute duration of the film stock. In as a period in which nothing happens (2007), the shot frames a domestic living room. Central to the composition is a single armchair directed towards a television, upon which can be made out the fl ickering image of Agatha Christie’s Poirot. The shot lingers, a still composition in which the only evidence of time passing is the movement on the television screen, an occasional car on the road outside, and the pattern of sunlight falling through a pair of French windows. The vignette concludes when the camera pans unexpectedly to the left, coming to rest on a second set of windows.
***
***
Juliette Bleightman, Come Inside, Bitte @ Eden Eden, Berlin, 2015
Press Release:
Miss Me Harder
by Tenzing Barshee, 2007
We stay arbitrary. We are causeless.
– Eve de Mauve
Anchorman gets on stage. And Informs the police about intruders in the designated area. He bows to the audience and exits the stage. Morena appears. Followed by a boy.
Morena
Marveled in May
Died some days ago
A bit caught in the act
By this and that
High-speed through the tunnel
Still clinically alive
As words stay around
Screens tuned on
Not vanished under
Sticking to the surface
Rolling over ground
Police doing disco
Under showers of stones
I’d dive my finger
Into liquid gold
Onto you
Over you
In the in between
Fly with decadence!
Swing your tentacles!
Go Club kids
With too many causes
Boy
Slugs smearing
Heavy, dreary
Weary, merry
Heavy, dreary
Weary, merry
Eerie sound
Leading all you lonely creeps
(laughs)
Miss me harder
Miss some other
Earth inhales us
Morena
Arriving at a point
Somewhere different
And we all look back
Make who we are
In times after winter snow
Yellow chime of forsythia
And blackthorn enter,
berries come along
Their skin glows darkly
Shading the ground
On top of things
Tarmac plows through
Dividing leftovers
Splitting gay green
Boy
My Queen, My Queen
It seems, it seems
We need, we need
Morena
The Sun pops up
Bangs on our heads
A bright, white, light
Stomps us down
My wooden core
Flowers in-hand
Mourners rise
With else in their hands
Clinging to dead cold bricks
Boy
Duchess of Now, of here this and that
Survive your tears
Bye, bye farewell
Cheerio
Morena
Who likes to know details?
Of the how and why you die?
I don’t You do You’re still young
I’m already gone
It’s not the beginning
It’s over
So impatient
Never wait in line
And now the first to go?
Boy
I find it hard to believe
Always did
Always thought
Always tried
Always lazy
There’s this abyss
A little blunder Misstep
Ensnarled in the fall
Downwards for a while
Before you understand the idea of landing
Morena
Droopy grey under the lid
Pupils made of drugs
The Patina of life
Outside is happy
Inside is luscious
Covering dust
A thin layer of time
Threatened by a single gasp
Spare sparkles swash over
Wrap up my thin hair
Cover my pale face
Fingers interlocked
Perhaps I wake up
Perhaps I resurrect
I know the spot
Somewhere in Europe
I could tuck in the sky
Boy is in awe. He applauds.
Miss Me Harder originally premiered illegally on the construction site of the Royal Danish Playhouse in May 2007.
Directed by Leander Gussmann. Actors: Stine Fischer Christensen, Cyron Bjørn Melville
***
Juliette Blightman, Portraits and Repetition, 2015-2016
(click on the image to watch the video)
Portraits & Repetition is a new film by Berlin-based artist Juliette Blightman commissioned by the South London Gallery, presented as a continuous online screening for one year on a purpose built online screening platform.
Portraits & Repetition will unfold over the year as a continuous film inspired by Blightman’s life, the things she sees, the places she visits, with contributions from friends and people she encounters along the way. Each output will be a personal and direct reaction to Blightman’s surroundings, taking shape as drawings, paintings, photographs, correspondence, weather, silence and film. Over time, the dedicated website for her project will constantly change, revealing only one fragment of the entire film at any given time. Each presented item, whether an audio clip, image or film, will have its own duration, a malleable portion of time that can stretch from a couple of seconds to days or weeks at a time.
***
Juliette Blightman, As a Period in Which Nothing Happens, 2007 (click on the image to watch the video)
Juliette Blightman, Even When the Time Comes, 2007 (click on the image to watch the video)
***
***
