Virginia Phongsathorn / Dan Shaw-Town and Tim Winter

Virginia Phongsathorn

'Chicken Soup (The Commune)', 2007. Video NTSC on DVD. 3min 51sec.

“Within this piece I was thinking about what happens when there are opposing narratives between the audio and the picture, and how this situation can be manipulated. At the time I was looking at a lot of Lettrist film-makers (Maurice Lemaitre being the most well known) and also artists who have more recently dealt with undermining the structure of a film. I was interested in creating a kind of everyday strange moment. A documentation of an introspective act shot from an inside angle. A simple process infused with memories of past conversations and fleeting thoughts, as cooking and all kinds of making often are.”



Dan Shaw-Town and Tim Winter

'At the edge of the world his journey begins, an objects search for autonomy in a world full
of things,' 2008, DVD, 10min 9 sec.

This film is the culmination of an experimental project and collaboration between the film maker Tim Winter and Visual artist Dan Shaw-Town. It portrays a surrealist sensibility, focusing on the performativity and theatricality that makes up the beginning, middle and end stages in the production of an artwork. And within that, it strives to demonstrate the conceptual and formal decision making that accompanies this process, whilst at the same time being very aware of the somewhat futile nature of this activity in relation to what is going on around it.
The film focuses on the act of creativity as a humble activity, showing the search for how an object might come to exist in a self governing state, one of absolute autonomy. However this gesture gradually slips into a form of obsession, as objects are introduced to more objects until each acts as a 'display aid' or 'prop' for the next. This is epitomised as the objects existence becomes a burden of it's creators achievement.
Spontaneity and the notion of 'one thing leads to another' are key elements, that demonstrate the different stages of the production of an 'artwork'. Not so much focusing on the actual 'thing' itself, but instead being aware of the temporary situations that are created by it. The films conclusion is inevitable, demonstrating that the pursuit of autonomy is therefore left up to a sea of possibilities.
HYPERLINK "http://www.danshawtown.com" www.danshawtown.com








Karina Joseph