FOSSIL was a long term project that resulted in a 16mm film shown from an adapted 16mm projector, a curated show of Eighteenth century architectural plaster casts, photographs, and paintings, and a large scale handmade bilder atlas album, or scrapbook of found images.
FOSSIL 16mm film still, negative with coloured gel.
Image Description: A red image shows a detail of a eighteenth century architectural plaster cast
The film and curated exhibition were staged at the Royal Academy during September and October 2019, and the scrapbook was exhibited at the British School at Rome, Sainsbury Gallery, in January 2024, having been researched and photographed over a number of visits to the BSR collection and archive in 2022 and 2023. The film has also been screened at Image Forum Tokyo, [November 2022] and at the Kaleide Theatre, RMIT University, Melbourne, [organised by the Artists Film Workshop, Melbourne, April 2024].
FOSSIL 16mm film installation at The Royal Academy Weston Studio, October – November 2019. Adapted 16mm Xenon projector with motorised film colouriser activated by specific film frames. Photo Andy Kate.
Image Description: a 16mm film projector over a white plinth. In front of the lens of the projector there is a structure with different coloured gel.
Shot over three years in the Royal Academy Schools studios the 16mm film documents the revealing and dismounting of the RA’s collection of historic architectural casts – copies of antique columns, capitals and friezes – previously hidden behind temporary studio walls for over 50 years. The film combines intense close-ups of the casts – optically printed as negative sequences and tinted with colour filters when projected – with verité style footage that records the precarious revealing of the casts and their ungainly demounting.
FOSSIL Installation view The Royal Academy Weston Studio, October – November 2019. Photo Andy Kate.
Image Description: In a dark room with dark walls a projection of the film with the red filter
At the heart of the film installation is a projection device, designed, built and programmed by the artists, comprised of a set of sensors and a microcomputer which generates and reads a digital signal from the analogue mechanics of the film projector. This device uses the digital input to control a motorised film colouriser activated by specific film frames.
The film was shot entirely in black and white – the graininess of the image echoing the powdered, dust blackened quality of the plaster casts – however, at key moments the action is interrupted by intensely coloured sequences in which the film image cuts to optically printed negative and is vividly tinted by coloured glass slides that move back and forth in front of the projector on a handmade motorized tracking mechanism. In these sequences of intense, saturated, close-up images the casts are reimagined as a form of subterranean, hidden classicism, Gothic even. Or, perhaps as the background models in one of Jean Painlevé’s eerie underwater films of crustaceans, molluscs and seahorses, or the encrusted shipwrecks in Jacques Cousteau’s early film, Silent World. Or even, as ancient life forms, now fossilised, that have in some way been slowly secreted from the walls of the RA Schools Studios.
FOSSIL Curated exhibition of 5 Late-Eighteenth century Plaster casts from the collection of the Royal Academy of Arts, London. The Royal Academy Weston Studio, October – November 2019. [The casts are laid on their backs on custom made plinths]. Photo Andy Kate.
Image Description: In an exhibition space with wooden floor and white walls, a set of Late-Eighteenth century Plaster casts are over wooden plinths. A figure stands in the space looking at the sculptures. A shelf on the wall supports five images.
When presented at the Royal Academy the film installation was shown alongside a curated exhibition of objects and images which are also featured in the film itself. These objects included five original, un-refurbished [and extremely fragile!] Late-Eighteenth century architectural casts from the RA collection. The casts were shown on specially made low lying plinths which exploited the simple act of changing the orientation of an object, making the casts appear awkward and vulnerable. At the same time, the opportunity to see the fragments close up emphasised their contradictory qualities – their weight and handmade roughness, but also their delicacy and brittleness [it’s worth noting that when transported to the exhibition space, the casts were accompanied in the back of a lorry by two conservators!].
FOSSIL.ROME. Architecture in Motion. Installation view, British School at Rome Sainsbury Gallery, Rome. January 2024.
Image Description: The image shows a dimly lit art gallery space. A large projection screen dominates the right wall, displaying a black and white film of a sculpture-like figure, possibly made of plaster. A couple of benches are positioned for the visitor to watch the film. On the back of the space, two folding tables with red tops are arranged creating a long display. The archival images on top of the table are lit by three table lights.
For the second stage of the project, which was focussed on an exhibition of the film at The British School at Rome, a large-scale handmade fold out bilder atlas, or scrapbook was made. The album comprises around 750 printed reproductions of two Roman ruins – The Temple of Castor and Pollux and The Round Temple on the Tiber and features multiple fold-out pages that reveal concertinaed image sequences of up to 4 metres in length. All of the images were collected by the artists as they researched the ideas central to the project: the architectural cast and its role in the education of architects; the architectural souvenir; the tourist guidebook tradition; measuring ancient architectural ruins; sketching in architectural ruins; the circulation of architectural knowledge.
Key to all of these interests is a concern with the copy and the idea of architecture in motion. The casts, of course, are plaster copies, but they sit at the centre of a spiral of more and more copies that draws in photographs, paper negatives, prints, book illustrations, tourist maps, copies of paintings and drawings that themselves are copies, micro-mosaic jewellery, cork models, and rehashed guidebook accounts of what to see when in Rome. This interest in the copy also refers to the analogue film print itself, which echoes the negative to positive relationship between mold and plaster cast, a relationship complicated here by using an optical printer to copy the original negative as a positive, so that it can be printed to a 16mm exhibition print for projection as a negative. Finally, the bilder atlas comprises printed photographic copies of images gathered from the collections of the British School at Rome, The Royal Academy of Arts, the Architectural Association, Sir John Soane’s Museum and the British Library, but also from internet market sites such as 1st Dibs, eBay, Etsy, Selling Antiques, Abebooks, and Anticstore,
FOSSIL.ROME. Architecture in Motion. Bilder Atlas. British School at Rome Sainsbury Gallery, Rome. January 2024.
Image Description: Over a red table, a set of archival images depcting The Temple of Castor and Pollux, lit by table lights.
A conversation between the artists and Helen Valentine, Senior Curator at the Royal Academy of Arts, titled The Plaster Cast as Teaching Machine, was also published by the Weston Studio Gallery and distributed as a free fold out pamphlet during the run of the RA exhibition. This conversation explored why the RA has a collection of plaster cast fragments, and the historical role of drawing from the plaster cast in Architecture Schools.
FOSSIL was commissioned for the Royal Academy of Arts Schools Weston Studio Gallery by Eliza Bonham Carter, Curator and Head of RA Schools and organised by Joanna Thomas, Exhibitions Coordinator. The project was funded by The Royal Academy of Arts London, The British School at Rome Sainsbury Gallery, The Elephant Trust, a Goldsmiths, Department of Art Research Award and a Central St Martins Research Award.
FOSSIL.ROME Bilder Atlas spread, showing images of prints, paintings and drawings of The Temple of Castor and Pollux.
Image Description: Over a red surface, archival images depcting The Temple of Castor and Pollux.
Graham Ellard and Stephen Johnstone have worked together since 1993. Initially their work took the form of immersive, large scale, multi projection video installations, but for the last 20 years, or so, they have focussed on the artisanal production of 16mm films for single screen projection.
At the centre of their films is a concern with atmosphere and architectural detail and their work often employs a durational and meditational approach to shooting in public spaces, such as museums, galleries, churches, art school studios, department stores and union headquarters. Filming for extended periods over numerous visits they use the camera to feel their way into architectural space and they have developed a poetics of slow looking that employs natural light effects, heightened colour, and close-up detail. Recently, they have made a number of films that focus on the hand and in particular, on the handwork of model making, wood working, and drawing.
Most recently Ellard and Johnstone have exhibited in solo shows at the Sainsbury Gallery, British School at Rome, Rome [2024] and The Weston Studio, The Royal Academy of Arts, London [2019]. Their film Pattern was selected for the Brewer Towner International at the Towner Gallery, Eastbourne [2023/24] and a selection of their films were recently shown as evening programmes at The Kaleida Theatre, RMIT, Melbourne [[Slowly, And By hand— a programme of films by Graham Ellard & Stephen Johnstone. 2024], and at Image Forum, Tokyo [Touched. Gripped. Held. Recent 16mm films by Graham Ellard & Stephen Johnstone. 2023].
Links
FOSSIL at the Royal Academy of Arts
ArtReview: Five to see during Frieze week [exhibitions preview, September 2019]
