Urban Ghosts
One of the unexpected treats at the Brighton Photo Biennial was the opportunity to hear Phil Taylor introduce his video, ‘Urban Ghosts’ (Fantasmas Urbanos).
This 24 minute film is well worth a watch, combining still photographs from archives and taken during a three month stay in Arizona, video and a soundtrack written for the piece, Phil explores the nature of the frontier state and its myths and narratives. The work draws on Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian, the brutal depiction of events in the area during the reign of terror of the Glanton gang in the nineteenth century. Images from the Titan intercontinental ballistic missile sites remind us of how times change and yet they don’t. I was struck by a comment by Matt after showing of the video – ‘the myth of frontier is just that – no one who is doing OK heads off for the frontier to get rich. If someone told you you could get gold nuggets the size of your hand in the West Midlands but you had to leave your family and everything you own and go now, you wouldn’t go. The people who went were those with nothing to lose.’
The exhibition in which the film features continues at the Brighton Media Centre until 18 November.
For me the film had a greater emotional impact than Omer Fast’s simultaneously chilling and somewhat irritating Five Thousand Feet is the Best which we watched the previous day. However, you decide:
8 thoughts on “Urban Ghosts”
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I like Urban Ghosts; the combination of sound and images become cummulatively more powerful until it reaches such a pitch that I can start to feel myself becoming mesmerized. I haven’t had time to watch more than about 10 minutes yet so my view might change. I feel inspired by it.
I was fascinated by Urban Ghosts and the way that Phil Taylor had created the atmospheric quality of it. It was different from the prints as well. I managed to speak with him for a short time but wish there had been more time available to discuss his journey and how he put everything together. He’s certainly multi-talented (I’ve bought one of his albums from iTunes).
A real contrast with Omar Fast’s film where I spent quite a while trying to work out the film genre as opposed to getting involved with the narrative. Maybe my sense of non-engagement was mirroring the detachment of the drone operator. Having said that though it was excellently produced.
Not having read the book, I didn’t necessarily understand the back story to the photos, but the video was interesting and the soundtrack was excellent.
I really liked Omar Fast’s video, the intermixing of acting and real footage and especially the lighting in the interviews. Using footage shot in America over the sound track of events occurring overseas really added to the sense of physical detachment yet virtual connection, with the drone operators housed in boxes with huge screens watching close up footage, yet returning home at the end of each shift. I found this a really powerful piece.
Yes… returning home at the end of the shift, only to play through (I speculate of course) similar scenarios in video games. I wondered whether this might have been a mechanism to cope with the trauma of the experience: by blurring the boundary between their actual (albeit experienced virtually) experience at work and the fantasy of the video game, they were able to ‘re-boot’ and get some sleep.
I felt that Omar Fast’s work was a little bit too ambiguous here and there (the maid who offered the pills for instance) although I see how this feeds into the narrative. Whilst I loved the quality, particularly of the aerial sequences which were the strongest part of the piece for me, I wonder whether the higher production values of gallery based video works like this can complicate the way the viewer reads it. As I think Catherine mentioned, there seems to be a need to make out the genre of what you are looking at, to help formulate a context in which you can digest the work. This is particularly the case when you walk into a darkened room that resembles a cinema. And it was SERIOUSLY dark in there!
I think it is interesting juxtaposing these two pieces. Without reading the text – not having any familiarity with McCarthy’s work what I took from them were two differing visions of remote control Armageddon. Fast’s work worked extremely well for me – the repetition, like re-running VT, the surveillance at the casino, at the checkpoint, at the impact point. Whereas Taylor’s work looked (for me) at the remoteness – I suppose the frontier of the Wild West and then it being extended into Moscow, though remotely controlled from some station somewhere near the capitol? And yes, it was very dark in the viewing room…
Thanks for the reports Gareth, I couldn’t get to Brighton (and I’m sure there are many others like me) so its good to look at some of the work that you saw there.
Of the two videos I found myself drawn to Fast’s as being more topical and relevant. I’m not sure I was looking for the genre before the narrative. I found it compelling and would have watched it again if there was time. I notice the link from this blog goes to an un-looped edit which is a shame as I wanted to check out some of the more puzzling references from the original. I watched Phil Taylor’s video but didn’t get as much from it. I was unsure of a lot of the references, especially McCarthy and I found it over long.