Back in May(yes waaay back then!) I was invited by my good friend and regular comedy collaborator Ali Coco Epps to the launch of Under/Current Magazine Biblical:05 on Kingly Street in London. Doing a little bit of research beforehand, I visited their website and found on their front page a video to watch - a fashion film, U/C’s first fashion film no less, called Blomqvist. I rather liked it’s retro, spacey, eerie dance performance quality to the piece, I do like a bit of unusual dance movement.

At the event, I found out that the film was shot by video artist Alexandros Pissourios alongside Hanna Putz’s Under/Current fashion shoot in Cyprus. A regular occurance I suppose, lots of fashion shoots have someone with a moviecamera lurking in the background or the photographer will take on the role of moving-photo-maker. 

I bought a copy of the magazine – a beautifully put together, thoughtful publication with a bit of an edge – and looked at the photoshoot. Somehow Blomqvist does a little more than plain documentation or mimicry of Putz’s work. It builds on the atmosphere, creates something quite intrigueing and graceful to watch, an abstract narrative even, and so documents the photoshoot but delves deeper into portraying its world. Does this sit on the edge of both documentary and fiction? It was particularly interesting to me at the time as it was just before Fashion Popcorn was preparing to go to Sheffield Doc/Fest and so we were on the scout for fashion films that played with the documentary theme.  

What I found even more thought-provoking was the way I had experienced watching the film. I first discovered it online, watching it with headphones in, screen expanded, it was a full visual and audio pleasure. Then there was the launch event, which had a screening of the film to a room full of people, but when I got there it was a deserted, cold basement (everyone was busy flaunting their best fashion wear with booze in hand on the cobbled street outside). I watched the film on a big screen made of two halves of paper. You couldn’t really hear the audio because the DJ upstairs felt the need to be very loud to hit the sprawling exterior crowd. It was just such a contrast.  

I mused about the way in which this video had been used to promote their launch event – like a carrot on a stick to drive the crowd into the physical world from the online world, to brief them on the aesthetic of event, to represent the magazine’s stylistic stance. And then, it felt like the real reason people were there – to network and to be part of something, to be part of an event, part of a gang – sort of took over and left the film a little redundant and neglected. In some way, this gave the video installation some poetic credit, the lonesome audience member in the concrete basement reflecting the lonesome figure in the concrete landscape of the video. I quite liked it. Had they planned it that way? I imagine not. And I don’t think that devalues their intentions for the event or what was happening outside.

By nature, film has always been a medium that you can watch in other venues, in different sizes, with different audiences, but technology is really expanding the variations on these factors, and this experience is a very simplistic example. With the click of a button, it is also easier to watch something over and over and over again, and we have become accustomised to multiple viewing and sharing of content in multiple places to multiple people. As the audience, should we actively seek out these different viewing experiences, across both “online” and “offline” worlds? Does it bring more meaning to the film to watch it or experience it in different ways? And are these opportunities being used to the best advantage for both viewer and maker?

On Friday I received a message from a performance artist I know called Tom Marshman that I’d like to share:

“Last week I was locked away in a rehearsal room at Battersea Arts Centre developing a new performance which for the moment I am calling Legs 11. The show explores the rather unglamorous world of varicose veins. So searching for inspiration I came across this hilarious film:

So now I have decided to enter with my legs, scarred from one operation in January and still varicose from the pending next operation (it’s on Saturday!) I have remained determined that my old legs should be considered beautiful too. So my target is to become Legs 11. My forthcoming show will document my journey, comment on some wider and larger issues and make some playful jibes about beauty, the fetishisation of legs and our eternal quest for perfection!

So here is the thing.

I NEED YOUR CLICKING TALENT!

Go to http://apps.facebook.com/legseleven/ Allow the App to access your info (this will NOT post things all over your profile or contact all your friends about it, it’s reasonable). Once on the PrettyPolly page, under the photos see “VOTE FOR YOUR FRIENDS HERE”, there should be Tom’s photo (if you are friends on facebook). Click on Tom’s photo, and he will appear as one of two photos to choose from. Click on his to vote!”

I clicked on the facebook app, both entertained and in admiration for Tom’s quest. I found over 600 little thumbnails of (mostly…) ladies legs, headless, torso-less, many heeled to the nines, oiled up, pointed, bare, encased neatly in little shop windows for you to choose from.  I couldn’t help but feel it was a bit reminiscent of a reader’s wives competition, or more extremely and simply, the Rossebuurt.

Then I also thought of the Miss World competition, when Brand Director David Hinchcliff explained Pretty Polly are looking for “just an ordinary member of the public… obviously a great pair of legs but with a great personality that really represents the brand values perfectly…”.

I wonder how they are judging personality. And just where are the details of Pretty Polly’s brand values, so I know whether Tom is in with a chance of winning?… Tom’s Performance is supported by Chisenhale Dance space and developed at BAC and Bristol Old Vic Ferment.

Betony May shared this with me months and months and months ago. Not only does it give me a good giggle just thinking about it when feeling a little blue, it also makes me feel okay about the massive chocolate cravings I had this evening…

I become a big fan of I Love Lucy when I was little and my mother would tune in to watch. I still am a fan, I still really do love Lucy. What a gorgeous, comic genius she was. A true icon.

Pebbles is by far my favourite from the monthly collection of Jackal Films that Alice Lowe and Jacqueline Wright have been producing since January this year. I love it. Second favourite is April’s Love Song. Really impressed with their regular creative discipline, such a great concept to stick to.

I wonder what their final monthly film(?) in December will be like…

Copenhagen was dreamy. Claudia Sárkány and I got treated, we really did.

The first true sign that this trip was going to be good was when we got given a Krispy Kreme donut just 10 mins after arriving in Copenhagen airport by complete strangers. This was bookended with a cake, coffee and hot chocolate ride at La Glace on our last day. Thank you Kira we love you.

The first 2 days we spent rehearsing in the perfect, gorgeous flat provided for us, usually the abode of the wonderful Gina Thorstensen, but temporarily the creative cocoon of the Supersexy Clean Organised Woman Ladies. It was there we took our photos, made our powerpoint presentation, produced the song on my trusty Casio keyboard, ironed our costume with the Flamingo iron, and polished our script. Very organised.

It was here that we also saw a half naked man washing up. Supersexy and Clean…

This was the first performance of our specially designed script. Claudia and I have been talking about Supersexy Clean Organised Woman Ladies for years, since University, when it was a mere flick in our aspirational hair. Future Shorts vs. CPH:DOX was a perfect opportunity to finally share with the world, and we decided it was going to be interactive sharing. We were told that Danes don’t really do interaction. So, um, we were scared…

But Theatre Grob joined in! They clapped in time with the music, they laughed, they cheered, they wooped even. We impressed our Danish friends. We impressed ourselves. Phew.

We ate lots of spaghetti and cake as a reward.

And after the performance on our way home, I finally let Claudia go to bloody Tjili Pop. We instantly met lots of lovely people, including a nice man who drills holes in lakes in Greenland, with an enthusiasm for cake apparently encouraged by his girlfriend’s pregnancy. He drew us a cake map for Copenhagen then told us all about Greenland. Claudia and I decided we are going to Greenland next year to celebrate her birthday.

Here are some more photos:

www.harrietfleuriot.co.uk